We reported on the release of the official Google SEO course, something they claim is taught by industry experts in its certification program coursework.
The SEO section, specifically, called out the importance of following an industry-standard “keyword density,” along with specific word counts of more than 300 words minimum.
Within 24 hours, Google’s Danny Sullivan said to ignore this information.
They have also removed the information from the coursework.
Gianluca Fiorelli posted the following information to Twitter on this:
So, @21Interferenze sent me an update about the SEO part of the Digital Marketing course by Google on Coursera, and they quit the keyword stuffing part. Screenshot below ⬇️
cc: @rustybrick @dannysullivan pic.twitter.com/moX3VRKI5L— Gianluca Fiorelli (@gfiorelli1) May 11, 2022
Danny Sullivan also weighed in shortly after SEO pros called out the advice on Twitter:
I'm not on the team that produced that, nor are they part of the Search team. As someone from the Search team, we don't recommend any limiits or "density" or anything like that. This can be ignored; I'll pass it on. Our advice from Search is here. https://t.co/zjvjWismrV
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) May 9, 2022
The reason that this advice has been removed is that there are numerous occasions in which Google has explained that SEO professionals (or content writers) should not be focusing on keyword density, nor should they focus on raw word counts.
Danny explained that we should ignore this advice from the Google course.
And finally, shortly thereafter (today) it was removed.
Anyone who is taking the course: don’t worry too much about this particular advice.
