Google: SEO Over Optimization Can Eventually Hurt Your Rankings

May 25, 2017 - 8:31 am 45 by

Google Over Optimization

SEOs for almost a decade have been using the term "over optimization" for one reason why a site might start to not do well in the Google search results. Some call it the over optimization penalty. Well, Google's Gary Illyes confirmed that over optimization exists and can hurt your rankings.

Gary said on Twitter that over optimization is "totally a thing." He said that "it is literally optimizing so much that eventually it starts hurting."

Here is the set of tweets:

Where does this come into play? Gary didn't say but think about over doing it with links (Penguin) or spreading out too many pages with tons of keyword variations (Panda). You see the point?

Is there something specific that looks for over SEOing a site in Google? Well, probably many algorithms do that on some level.

Forum discussion at Twitter.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Search Video Recaps

 
- YouTube
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: June 13, 2025

Jun 13, 2025 - 10:00 am
Search Video Recaps

Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google AI Mode Search, Apple Intelligence Updates, Google Live Search, AI Content, SEO & Google Ads

Jun 13, 2025 - 8:01 am
Google

Google Is Now Rolling Out AI Mode In The US

Jun 13, 2025 - 7:51 am
Google Search Engine Optimization

Google Drops Support For Seven Existing Structured Data Markups

Jun 13, 2025 - 7:41 am
Google Ads

Google Ads Shows Audience Size For Custom Segments

Jun 13, 2025 - 7:31 am
Google

Google Search Autocomplete With Back To All

Jun 13, 2025 - 7:21 am
Previous Story: Google: No Index Is A Directive, It Doesn't Control Crawling