Someone told me that making your text bold on your site helps with keyword search results. I’m not sure what to think about this idea. Does Google look at your CSS file and identify whether you’re making text bold? I know that Google looks at the words you use in your link text. Hmmm…?
5 responses to “Do search engines like bold text?”
I know for sure that google looks at words that are enclosed in , , and tags. And does boost rating of the site if those words are used elsewhere in h tags or other title tags.
Unsure about css though. Possibly inline styles, unsure about external style sheets though. My company has employed a major SEO guy from y!, so i’ll ask him next time I see him.
oops, tags got rendered in that last post. the tags that google does read regarding keyword weight are , , and
Evan: Thanks for the good info! Since most people can’t see what you typed I’ll post a graphic:
Actually, I’m pretty sure that indeed Googlebot and other bots pay attention to bold text, but not to your CSS. Which leads to a cheap trick I’ve used on a site :
Text :
<b>keyword</b> is cool and <b>keyword</b> is niceCSS :
b {font-weight:normal;}This makes sort of a keyword spamming for search engines, but makes it normal to a reader’s eye.
You shouldn’t use b tags, use strong and em for search engines to ‘notice them.