What is Considered Over-Optimization?

[sbrault74]

Apart from keyword stuffing, what is considered by Google as over-optimization?

For instance, if I link from a subdomain to a page on my main domain with a keyword-rich anchor text, does it qualify as over-optimization?

[William.Lau]

Over-optimizing can be a variety of things. Majority of the time if you are doing something for SEO more than for the reader you might be borderline over-optimizing.

Some things Google will easily notice is your domain anchor text link profile, exact match anchor text is no longer as ideal as it would've been a few years back. Now it is more important to make sure your anchor text profile is wide spread and using more generic terms like "click here" or domain match anchor text.

Other similar things could be using too many h1,h2, etc tags and using those tags as exact match rather than something more descriptive of what is being offered in the body of the content. Also using bold and italics when it is not necessary could be easily noticed.

SEO has started to be more about quality and usability and with more updates, they will start weeding out those that are not as user friendly. So just think user friendly optimizing. I work a internet company and we get mentions on Yahoo, CNBC and other highly authoritative sites and we NEVER have our PR guy ask for anchor text links. Everything is done fluidly and at the end that is where SEO is headed towards.

[socialengaged]

all types of keyword stuffing, backlinks with too many exact anchor text, too many backlinks. This the most common I know..

[SEO5Team]

Hi Stephane,

As mentioned previously, there are a number of factors which can be considered by Google as over-optimization. Most commonly, these can include bad inbound links, cloaking and hidden text, and high keyword density. This can also include excessive interlinking, as evidenced by the article here, so you may want to be careful with how links are built between your domain and sub-domain. However, as long as the links are relevant and with unique content used sparingly, Google will generally not consider this over optimization.

[donatasBart]

Hi,I would suggest not to forget the Google Webmaster Guidelines, as they are updated frequently:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=en

And youtube Google Webmasters help channel, for video guidelines, this will keep you updated. Recently there was a question to Matt, about linking multiple domains. As you can guess the answer was something like, if it's really worth to link it from a user point of view do it, anything else might be considered as spam.
Here are some videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0-jw_PfwtY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzaimchdNpM

To my opinion, from now on, anything that links or repeats too much, will be over optimization. I believe the task for google is to get people to act exactly the same online, as they would do offline. So to answer you question about linking, I would say, if you believe this link would be clickable and would  help your user to find the content - it should be ok.