About two weeks ago, we polled our audience asking if they thought Google had a keyword specific penalty. By the I meant, does Google penalize a site from ranking well for a specific keyword phrase, while allowing the site to rank well for other keyword phrases. There are now well over a hundred-sixty responses, with the majority, seven-eight percent, saying Google does have such a filter.
I went as far to break down the poll by asking if you do believe in such a filter, is the filter or penalty algorithmic or manual. Meaning, does Google give these keyword penalties by hand or is there an algorithm that does this automatically?
86 of the respondents or 53% said it is done algorithmically, while 41 of the respondents or 25% said it was done manually. Only 35 respondents or 22% said there was no keyword specific penalty. I wonder how Matt Cutts voted. :)
Forum discussion continued at HighRankings Forum.
This article was written earlier this week and scheduled to go live April 16th.
