3am Site's Radical Switch from Disavowing SEO to Keyword Stuffing
In a matter of 3 months the Daily Mirror's 3am.co.uk gossip site has switched from swearing off SEO and promising to concentrate on building a loyal audience to stuffing its HTML titles with as many keywords as possible.
When 3am launched, it was obvious that not much attention was being paid to SEO and the crucial title tag. They had previously stated, "We want this site to perform well over a period of time. Not live or die by how many times we can write Britney Spears or Michael Jackson into the metadata". A Mirror spokesman further commented, "You need to have an audience but obviously we'd prefer a loyal and engaged audience rather than chasing numbers".
This stance seems to have undergone a radical reversal however, with their HTML titles now vastly over-stuffed with keywords rather than providing descriptions. While these jumbled titles are only shown at the top of a user's browser, they are what Google displays in its search results. And with Google notoriously penalising sites that keyword stuff, 3am's new SEO strategy is on shaky ground.