Over optimisation penalty

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Over Optimisation Penalty (OOP) is a term used by the Search Engine Optimisation industry to denote a web site that has been over optimised for the search engines. If a web site is over optimised for the search engines and the penalty is applied, then that web site will lose its search engine rankings.

1 How does a web site become over optimised?
2 Can you reverse a penalty decision?
3 Why have I not heard of the Over Optimisation Penalty before?
4 Is Over Optimisation spamming?
5 See also

[edit] How does a web site become over optimised?

Due to the differences between the major search engines and the secretive nature behind the search engine algorithms, it is difficult to determine the criteria for over optimisation. The Over Optimisation Penalty is normally incurred for web sites that over use alternative text and increase keyword density on a web page over a reasonable amount.

When a web site receives the Over Optimisation Penalty, the search engine in question reduces the web site's listings in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

[edit] Can you reverse a penalty decision?

This all depends on why your web site has been penalised. If your whole web site has been penalised and not just a couple of pages, then you may have a lot of work on your hands to reverse a penalty decision. On the other hand, if you have only a couple of pages penalised, then you can re-write some of the page and reduce keyword density and placement within the page. This will give you a good chance of being listed again.

[edit] Why have I not heard of the Over Optimisation Penalty before?

Most white hat (good) search engine optimisation specialists will not have heard of the phrase Over Optimisation Penalty as this penalty is only applied when over optimisation occurs. This does not mean that a white hat seo specialist will not experience the over optimisation penalty. The natural growth of a web site may cause the web site to incur the penalty without intentionally packing page aspects with keywords.

[edit] Is Over Optimisation spamming?

Over Optimisation is not spamming. This is why a truly white hat SEO may experience the penalty, but not know why. Over Optimisation is adding one too many keywords to a page, which triggers the search engines to penalise your web site rankings.