SEO Penalties: Keyword Stuffing & Too Many Pages
Shaunna Huhnke • October 24, 2025
Sure – optimizing our websites for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is very important. What good is a beautifully branded and responsive website if it can’t be found? On the flip side, if your website is keyword-heavy, often accompanied by an excessive number of pages with redundant content in attempts to manipulate organic search engine rankings, what type of effect is that having on the user-experience of your website visitors when they do find it?
In this blog, I’ll briefly tell you what keyword stuffing is and how it can actually hurt your efforts to increase SEO. Fear not! I’ll also go over ways to avoid it and some tips to balancing the tedious game of making sure your website has a positive SEO while also providing an optimal user-experience.
In this blog, I’ll briefly tell you what keyword stuffing is and how it can actually hurt your efforts to increase SEO. Fear not! I’ll also go over ways to avoid it and some tips to balancing the tedious game of making sure your website has a positive SEO while also providing an optimal user-experience.
KEYWORDS? (Some basic knowledge first.)
For those of you who have no idea what “keywords” refers to in relationship to a website, let’s cover that real quick so you are up to speed! When Susie opens a search engine browser, like Google, types what she’s looking for into the search bar and hits enter, a search engine’s algorithm takes over and starts scanning the entirety of the internet in order to present her with websites that are relevant to what she’s looking for. (The process of how it discovers and gathers this information - which all happens in a fraction of a second, involves various technical terms...but that’s for an entirely separate blog!) The keywords you use on the pages of your website become signals to search engines that the content on your website might be a match to what Susie is looking for!
Using strategic keywords can increase the traffic to your website and improve your search rankings when done correctly. However, it’s important to remember that you’re ranking on Google (or any other search engine) is dependent on hundreds of different factors – using keywords for SEO is just one of them.
Yet, for whatever reason, some marketers get laser-focused on keywords being some kind of shortcut to boost their visibility online – as if they’re going to outsmart Google’s algorithm. Not to mention the fact they're ignoring numerous other key elements that it takes into consideration.
My qualm with this tactic when it comes to small business websites, is that by becoming too technically focused, you are overlooking the very users you hope to attract to your website in the first place…but we’ll get into that later!
What Is Keyword Stuffing?
Simply put, keyword stuffing
is filling your website with keywords in an attempt to make the web pages seem more relevant in search results, thus increasing your search engine rankings (i.e., ranking higher on Google).
How can being keyword-heavy have a negative impact?
In my research, I’ve learned a popular phrase associated with keyword stuffing is keyword cannibalism – eek!
- What some might consider to be the largest negative impact (because it’s the whole reason they were using so many keywords in the first place) is search engine penalties. Yep! Google’s algorithm is constantly evolving over time and will now actually devalue websites that use keyword-heavy content that offers no additional information necessary to their visitors from the other web pages on their site. The algorithm associates this keyword stuffing tactic with SEO spam and can result in your website having lower rankings or not even showing up at all. This was proven in Google’s 2011 Panda update and reenforced in the 2013 Hummingbird update where Google’s algorithm was made to understand more conversational searches – allowing users to use a more natural language when entering their inquiries into the search bar.
- Another huge negative impact is poor user experience, which brings us back to my major pet-peeve with the tactic of keyword stuffing of small business websites. Your target audience lands on your website and starts to explore. Your aim is to keep them on your site, guiding them through the information you want them to digest about your products & services, all while allowing them to experience your brand’s voice, personality, mission and values. The ultimate goal is to convert that visitor into a lead and even better yet, a sale! When keywords are used without regard for natural flow, it creates a very disjointed experience for the user. Often times, a website that is keyword stuffing is also guilty of content overload in the number of web pages it’s using as well. The thought process of the website creator was "the more pages I have to fill with keywords, the higher my SEO ranking will be," – however, the complete opposite effect could be true. Creating an excessive number of web pages with redundant information will cause more harm than good to your SEO. Furthermore, making your users navigate down a rabbit-hole of repetitive content risks increasing your bounce rate (users jumping off your site, typically because it’s taking too long for them to find the information they need) and lowering your conversion rates (costing you leads/sales).
Are keyword stuffing and too many pages hurting your SEO?
It’s all about finding a delicate balance. Creating multiple web pages can be a good thing for your SEO ranking – just make sure you’re using these pages to not only hit more or alternate keywords but also to cover broader topics or introduce new content that is valuable to your target audience. Too much similar content may result in triggering Google’s algorithm and putting your website in the penalty box.
It’s all about quality over quantity! Review your website with fresh eyes – try to see it as a user would, navigating and consuming the information for the first time. Are the pages of your website displaying much of the same information over and over despite having a different title at the top of each page?
If you’re still unsure whether your website is guilty of keyword stuffing or having way too many pages, bring in a test subject to review it and provide feedback. If you can get someone who is knowledgeable on up-to-date website practices or who works in this industry, even better! For this very reason (amongst others), some freelance web designers, like me, offer website analysis as a service. It’s also a great way to know whether your website is outdated, unresponsive or lacks current information your visitors should know about your business or industry.
What to take away…
Develop a keyword strategy when SEO optimizing your website. Don’t overlook your target audience – get into their heads! What words might they also use when searching for a product, service or information you provide? That answer might not always match your industries terminology.
Don’t lose your credibility with both users and search engines by prioritizing keywords over readability. While quantity isn’t always bad, the quality of your
content
as well as the users overall experience matters more! Ultimately, write your content for people first and search engines second.
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