Keyword repetition--how much is too much?

I have heard that repeating a word too often in your metatags or even in your content can hurt you.

My question is how much is too much?

For example, say I want to use the following key words for my trivia site:

trivia, fun trivia, online trivia, free trivia, daily trivia, trivia question and answer, trivia today, random trivia

Am I better off using only a few of those, simply deleting "trivia" in all the combos, or is it OK as is?

As the focus of the site is trivia obviously I want to use as many variations that apply as possible but I don't want to overkill so I do damage rather than help.

 

it's too too much when too much reads too much like this sentence (too much).

read it out and if it reads too much like it was written by a robot, chances are it's too much

 

If you are looking for an actual maximum I would say around 4-5% max, but you only need it a couple of times in the right places on the page.

 

online trivia, fun, free, question and answer.

Body text - Index page:
:Google KWD 4-5%
: Yahoo KWD 6-8%
: MSN KWD 5-7%

*Secondary pages:
:Google KWD 2-3%
: Yahoo KWD 2-3%
: MSN KWD 2-4%

*Secondary pages with same topical format. Example: Part 1 and Part 2 of why puppys are cute/content of same story on 2 different urls.

 

I would use something like this for a META KEYWORDS tag:

"fun free online random daily trivia question answer today"

and make sure that each word also exists in the page copy. If the word doesn't exist in the page copy, don't use it in the meta keyword tag. The keywords tag really isn't worth stressing about or spending too much time on IMO.

You can repeat the occurance of words in the body copy as much as you like, but write for humans first or all your effort will be for naught. What good is ranking #1 if you get no converstions because your text reads like a retarded 4 year old wrote it? (Apologies to any and all retarded 4 year olds).

 

The keywords tag really isn't worth stressing about or spending too much time on IMO

Remember the good old day's Bernard, when "meta's" actually meant something...lol

 

[Arnold Schwarzenegger voice]Alta la Vista, Baby[/Arnold Schwarzenegger voice]

You may need to turn the fan on if that stinks too much...

 

Thanks everyone. That does help. I hadn't really thought much about the meta keyword tag in a while and wondered if I should do some tweaking. Apparently not unless it is simply to scale back. Way back when I first started I used to throw in everything but the kitchen sink but in recent years concentrated much more on page copy--making sure my key words were in head tag etc. and trying to work them into the body copy while still sounding clear and interesting to readers. Thanks again!