On-Page Markup: Still a Worthwhile Practice?

[maxcarnage]

So I have a question for the community that hopefully someone can help me with.

Previously, whenever I created/worked on a website, when I would create or edit the content, I would bold the keywords, italicize certain items, add internal/external links and generally mark-up the content. More recently, however, I've noticed that both my client and many of their leading competitors have abandoned this practice.

Now, it appears that all the text appears as plain text, there are rarely bold or italicized items and there does not seem to be as much emphasis on inserting internal/external links. While I understand the ladder to still be an effective/holistic approach to SEO, I'm wondering why the former (the bold, italicized, text variation) has gone by the wayside.

So with that, is adding bold/italicized text still a worthwhile SEO technique and is it something I should continue applying to sites I work on? Please advise.

[Sheena_Schleicher]

If you think about the original use of bold/italicized text, it was to emphasize certain words/phrases/concepts to readers. Search engines would then use the markup as an indicator of what the most important concepts were on the page, and what search queries the page would make the most sense to rank for. Then came SEOs who overused the once-valid editorial tactic to manipulate search engine algos & rankings. The same thing happened with linking - the original purpose was to help users navigate from page to relevant page, but SEOs went overboard focusing too heavily on rankings & links (spam/black hat SEO) and not enough on user experience. All 3 of these tactics are now scrutinized via specific content & link quality algorithms.

I do not recommend bolding, italicizing, or even linking 'just for SEO.' However, if bolding/italicizing certain parts of text will benefit the reader (helping them better understand your point) or if linking to other pages on your site would provide the visitor with more relevant/useful information that will help with their purchasing decision, then by all means, add the markup. In general, I try not to do anything "**just for SEO" **;) Always ask whether or not a tactic would benefit the user - more often than not, user-friendly efforts will also be search-friendly.