[arshadahmed]

1. Over-optimization used to work.
Back in the Wild West days of SEO, over-optimization was the way that sites gained rank. Stuffing a site with tons of keywords, or sending thousands of spammy links to a site was the quick-and-easy way to boost a site in the SERPs.

2. Over-optimization doesn’t work anymore.
It definitely doesn’t work that way anymore. Today’s SEO’s know that keyword stuffing and linkspamming is SEO suicide. In April of 2012, Google leveled the over-optimization penalty, which completely deindexed sites that were still playing the linkstuffing and linkspamming game. A bunch of SEO techniques went black hat, and SEOs became wiser about the ways of Google.

3. Over-optimization isn’t what it used to be.
Today, many SEOs glibly assure themselves, “I’m not over-optimizing!”

Why do they say this?

Because they’re not keyword stuffing.

But today, over-optimization is more than just keyword stuffing. SEO is in a constant state of evolution. Google the search engine gets smarter, searches get smarter, SEOs get smarter, and then Google’s webspam team gets smart, too — and the playing field gets disrupted yet again.

Enough SEOs know and heed the over-optimization perils of 2012. But that was years ago. Today, we need a new guide to over-optimization that will keep us from doing too much of a good thing — and bringing our SEO to a tragic end.