Penalization for overuse of Level 1, 2, 3 headings and SEO Value

I've been trying to figure out how one of my "competitors" (though they're not a business competitor, just an eyeball / SERP competitor) has been constantly at the top of the SERPs for most of my keywords. They do have a lot of internal links, though very few external inbound links. Something I noticed today however threw me off:

Their homepage is almost completely enclosed in <h2> tags, about a paragraph to a couple of sentences at a time.

You would think that Google would penalize them for something like that. They are even using <font> tags to make the font smaller, not even external CSS as was discussed in an earlier thread (sorry - can't link to it yet).

I am thinking about doing some of the same on a much smaller scale, but definately don't want to if I will be penalized. I could see maybe a sentence or two at a time, but I haven't delved into this area of SEO before.

any ideas?
Joel

 

Just to clarify, I would use external CSS, not font tags.

 

I don't think your competitor outranks you because of h2 tags. Can you provide your url + keywords, so that we can check out the sites.

 

IMHO this is correct

It has been shown that H2 tags can in fact have the opposite effect.

It was proposed somewhere that H2 was more important than H1 but in a another thread here I proved the theory wrong.

If you provide the site and KW we can have a look

 

My website: http://www.bobafind.com/
My competitors: http://www.bubbleteasupply.com/

Keywords:
Bubble Tea, Pearl Tea, Boba, Bubble Tea Recipes, Boba Recipes, Bubble Tea Locations, Boba Locations...

As you can see, most of those include the same phrases, Bubble Tea and Boba, so I am wondering if I am repeating them too many times. I try to use them in a sentence such as "Locate Bubble Tea, Pearl Tea and Boba shops and cafes in your area
." Is that too much?

Hopefully you will have a few tips once you can get a look at the site, and any help you can offer is MUCH appreciated.

Thanks,
Joel

 

Joel,

your site has a PR of 3 and your competitor a PR of 5. Depending on the logarithmic factor, your competitor has about 100 times more PageRank. Your competitor has links from yahoo's directory plus lots of other sites. Your site has just a couple of links from forums. Forum links have NO real PR value.

Now, if you buy the "PR does not matter theory", you can sit on your *** and tweak your keyword density (another nonsense) and wait in vain.

If you ask me, work on links/PR if you want to outrank your competitor.

No. There's no overoptimization penalty. Yet, you have got this on page factor, but you need the other: PageRank + anchor texts.

Best
Hristo

 

To explain a little on this the PR influence has been reduced [and has been reduced severely it seems with forum links] so is not a factor that has the same importance as before. That been said it still exists and comes from the linking that you do - so in effect if you look at your linking, both internal and external, and the use of anchor text, you will do both.

With keyword density, KWD, it is not worth worrying about, but the keyword count is - that is, how many times it appears on a page.

To look at your title:

Bubble Tea, Pearl Tea and Boba Locations, Cafes and Shops by zip code - BobaFind.com

IMHO you are wasting what you are "selling" eg are you really selling "zip code" to the search engines? Take it out.

I would probaly do something like

Bubble Tea, Pearl Tea, Boba

and the H1 and the anchor text should be "Bubble Tea" not

Bubble Tea / Boba Recipes

and you need to use the tools to perfect things

 

I have a few important backlinks that are about a month old now that still don't show up in Google, both are PR5, one of them a DMOZ listing. Any ideas why those haven't been included as backlinks yet?

 

It's all about links. Here are your links:

Results for: http://www.bobafind.com/

Engine Count
Google 12
Yahoo 18
MSN 11
AllTheWeb 19
AltaVista 18

Here are your competitor's:

Results for: http://www.bubbleteasupply.com/

Engine Count
Google 47
Yahoo 129
MSN 41
AllTheWeb 123
AltaVista 126

Nohaber and I disagree slightly about PR cause and effect, but there is no doubt why your competitor places ahead of you in the SERPs. He has more IBL.

Now I believe that the important thing about IBL is the proper use of your prime keywords as anchor text. If you get lots of IBL with the right anchor text you will rate high in the SERPs.

As side effect of lots of links will be an increase in your PR. But it isn't PR that makes you place well in the SERPs. It is the number of links and the proper anchor text.

But whether you believe my view, or Nohaber's view on this, both our positions are that you need more links. On-page stufff like <h> tags has very limited impact on anything. Get more links!

 

Hi,

In this persons original post, he mentioned that his competitor's website had almost their entire body within <H2> tags. The focus of the follow-up postings all focused on back links.

I would like to ask a question about his observation concerning the use of header tags.

Is there any benefit or penalty in having one's entire home page inside <H1> and <H2> header tags? I also have seen header tags used around whole paragraphs instead of just titles.

Thanks

 

Think about it:

H tags supposedly give more value to those words within their tags.

Put an entire page between h tags.

Now Google sees 10,000 words between H tags...

Will it give more weight to all of these?

Or will it dilute that bit of weight that can be shared?

I doubt you will get a penalty though, because it is a stupid thing to do. But who knows. Test it and find out!

But as suggested, it's not the inside that counts. It's the outside.. Get backlinks in an ethical way!

 

I agree with Bob and nohaber, you need more links! Specifically, links with your keywords in the anchor text.

I ran your site through the Keyword Analysis Tool (link in signature below)...



Remember that the Links reported by Google do NOT accurately reflect the actual total of links pointing to a particular page. The results in the "Yahoo Links" column give some indication of the total possible links pointing to the top 10 sites.

 

I must add though, that it is obvious that the over use of the <h> tags has not seemed to hurt his competitor.

Other than the fact that, without them, they might be #1 for the search.

Caryl

 

Obiously I need more links.

One funny thing is that the #1 result for "bubble tea" IS my competitor. It's a page with just a bunch of graphic links to bubbleteasupply.com.

Perhaps google also gave a little bit of weight due to the domain?

I know, I know.. .links.

Joel

 

Yep but look at the pages that link to that page - most link using the anchor text 'bubble tea'. It is largely this that gives it the first place rather than the page markup.

Mick

 

I must admit that i thought that overusing a h tag could be considered se spamming.

Its something i'd be quite cautious about if i ever used it on any of my sites.

 

Bobafind ... the new PR5 links that you mention .... the'll probably show up on Google the next time your back links are updated.