Do bold keywords help out your SEO?

It helps only when you are having 3-5 bold words on a whole page !

 

Yes it does help, i enables google when crawling your website to notice which words are more important than others.
Therefore helping out with SEO and Keyword ranking.

Will.

 

i think bold keywords has an effect on SEO, but colors? i really don't think so.

 

Thanks for the advice guys. I just launched off my blog but I'll give it a try.

 

Honestly, bold text doesn't have ANY effect on SERP...

The only tag that would help are header tags, e.g. <h1>, <h2> - this is because it gives Google an idea of what the page is about. Bold text is NOT used by Google no matter what anyone says

 

yes bold keywords really helps your site, especially when you add the <H> tags on it!

 

Wouldn't it be possible to make, so the <b> tags are gived a class, so it looks like <b> tags in the code, but with css you could set font-weight so none or something, so it looks like normal text in the browser?? Would be quite awesome..

Edit..

Just tried to make an example, and actually it works..

Used this code:

<style>
b {
font-weight: normal;
}
</style>
<b>Text</b>

Code (markup):

Now the text in <b>-tags looks just like normal text

Doesn't know, if the search engines is smart enough to see that it's done?

 

That is called Black Hat SEO! - G certainly will see this and you Will get penalized for using this technique...

It is a VERY old and Known trick. - Be careful.

 

Chances are it was done for SEO purposes, while neglecting the needs of the people using the site or the actual intended use of the element. Wouldn't be the first time.

No kidding. If I see nothing but bold text on a page, I leave. I don't care how highly the page is ranked in the search enignes. If I can't use it, I'll leave. And so will others. Which of course defeats the purpose in the first place.

Actually color has no effect on the search engines - they're blind users, afterall.

I'm going to presume you're being sarcastic here (due to the presence of the wink smiley), so I'll cut you some slack. They do have a higher "weight" than plain text, but the exact weight given to them is only known to the engineers at the search engines - and they're not talking.

I wouldn't call that a general rule at all. Putting the people reading the page first would be the general (and golden) rule. If that means providing emphasis two or three times in a single paragraph (legitimately), then so be it.

Those specific words, yes. But just remember that this may or may not have the desired effect you seek.

Every word on the page is important. Some are more important than others however. Just look at your formatting, grammar and literary rules - it wouldn't surprise me the least bit if the search engines operate on a similar principle.

Sorry, but that just doesn't cut the mustard. If the page content appears to be spammy to someone who reads it, chances are very good the search engines will flag it as potential spam as well and subject it to human review for verification.

Got any proof of this? Do you have access to the search algorithms? (I doubt you do on either count.)

The simple fact of the matter is that bold, italicized, emphasized, and strongly emphasized text WILL affect a page's ranking, just like the use of headings. For maximum impact and gain, however, it's best to use them as they were meant to be used - to structure a document so it can be read by people. Which means all the literary and writing conventions should be adhered to. The Chicago Manual of Style is a GREAT reference on how to do just that.

See above.

They help, but they don't help as much as headings do. Bold and italicized text tend to be inline content, whereas headings are block-level content that briefly describe and introduce the section of content that follows it. It therefore stands to reason that headings would weigh better than bold or italicized text. However, understanding how the elements are used will allow a trained SEO consultant, Web copywriter or developer to use them for maximum impact (not to mention properly).

It's not simply a matter of having the right tools for the job, it's also a matter of knowing how, when, where and why to use those tools, and how/when/where/why not to use them.

(This is where an understanding of writing and HTML structure & semantics really comes in very handy.)

Patently false.

See above (and the one above that).

The gain from adding the B or STRONG element to a heading will be minimal (if any), and will also earn you the ridicule of Web designers and developers who know what they're doing.

Yes, you could do that, but note that your code is not valid HTML (you forgot to include the type attribute, and its value of text/css). It won't work when the CSS has been disabled or is not supported either, such as on my cell phone and in the search engines. In fact, doing this will likely get your site banned from the search engines anyway, so it's best that you not do this.

 

I can't find it at the moment, but Matt Cutts blogged about how emboldening does help. He does say that it doesn't make much of a difference, but it definitely does make some.

Another way to prove that emboldening does make a difference is to try and bold some words and then look at how you AdSense results change.

Found it: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5179191836301432169

This is something called "cloaking", and search engines do check for this, and do penalise. It definitely doesn't help.

That's not entirely correct. I'm guessing search engines would prefer you have less than three or so key words (because that's what emboldening makes them). The rest will probably just be ignored.

 

bold word will help you for better serp points

 

Know it's not valid Just want to test it, and I did not care about it.

Didn't know it was seen as blackhat or cloaking, but on my sites, I've using bold keywords (I'm not hiding them with CSS).

 

Just dont overuse them. It may detract users from wanting to view your page or blog. I can't stand cluttered websites.

 

<bold>, <strong>, <italic>, these tags are favoured by search engines while granting rankings for those particular keywords ( within these tags ).

 

Sorry but I still disagree with you Dan. I strongly believe bold text no longer has any effect with the search engines (google at least) and hasn't done for 2-3 years now... If you have some kind of source which says they do definatally carry more weight I'd love to see it.

 

Then start by showing me some definitive proof that they don't while I dig up the links in my bookmarks folder (I have TONS of bookmarks on various topics and subjects, so this may take some time).

 

bold will help you but same time i recommend try to use diff. variation of phrases while you are going to bold many words.

 

bold the main keywords where appropriate. i wouldnt bold more than 1 keyword per paragraph (150 words)

 

Bolding is more for the user/web visitor to draw their attention to a specific keyword/phrase or topic. For SEO, it's people guessing.

 

Bold keywords, H1 tags dont influence Google results anymore...they used to in 2000