The answer depends on how you do it. Here's a video from Matt Cutts that explains some of the details:

Do tag clouds help or hinder SEO? [youtube.com]

I've seen a lot websites using in page a "TAGS" area, that is just that: a bunch of keyphrases links, and also just a bunch of keyphrases all together.

I just wanted to add to that:

Recently, I have seen lot of poor "answer" sites rank one or two, even though they don't have an answer to a question. what they DO have is a list of "people who searched for this question also searched for," where they re-state the question multiple different ways.

Each restatement of the question then links to another nearly empty page, with just the same re-stated questions.

So if you were looking for:

How do I cook a widget steak?

The restated question list would look like:

People also searched for:
How do I roast a widget steak?
How do I grill a widget steak?
How do I sear a widget steak?
How do I bake a widget steak?
How do I prepare a widget steak?

etc.,

Hi Planet 13, and those sites do have *links* in those people also searched for stences, or just plain text?

I've seen similar pages to what Planet13 reports in the recent rankings. Terrible crap of the type that Google knows they need not to show. In those cases it's more like a page full of tags (phrases, not single words) but with no actual content. Real bottom feeders, in my opinion. Also a tough nut to crack with an algorithm.

Hi Planet 13, and those sites do have *links* in those people also searched for stences, or just plain text?

they are actual links - but they are links to pages that are the same thing: A reworded question with a set of links to more pages.

The other spam I see a lot of is how to do add certain things to my smartphone, which runs on an operating system owned by a well known search engine company :)

It will be a page with an embedded youtube video showing how to do that particular thing. And a disclaimer saying that the video is provided by youtube and if you brick your phone, then it ain't our fault.

And, more links to similar pages on their site.

That's it. An embedded youtube video, a disclaimer, and about 8 internal links to similar pages with the search query tweaked a little bit.

You would think that sites like that would be Panda fodder, but apparently the Big P is taking a break...

~~~~~

another site that has me riled is one where, I don't want to list the url, but let's just say that it has the word ask, followed by the word me, and the word fast in the URL.

It seems like they have scraped content from Q and A tech sites, but really they just scraped the Question part. So when you search for something like, "How do I do XYZ on an ABC?" there will be a paragraph with that exact query on the page. Then there will be lots of other posts that have unanswered questions.

Again, you would think that a certain high-profile search engine might have hammered those sites first, because they make a site like Mahalo seem like it was created by NASA engineers...

I've heard they're not Dr. Recommended, but if you use them in moderation, eat right, drink water, exercise, and never ever use them exclusively I think you should be fine...

off topic a little, sorta, maybe?, but that Matt Cutts video is interesting. He mentions that tag clouds are essentially a lot of links with keywords next to each other and if overdone that can look like keyword stuffing.

Something to think about when you put links in places Google isn't looking for say navigation or categories. Related links for example, shoved into the content, may look like keyword stuffing?

Am I crazy or is he also suggesting that beyond tag clouds, simply having too many internal links of any kind on a page can hurt your page rank?

Yes, I'm sure Matt is saying that.

Too many internal links, especially in the template, can definitely hurt PR circulation. It gets diffused over too many pages, and that makes it harder for ANY search engine to understand the relative importance and value of each URL. This also happens with extensive hover menus - something I call the Mega Menu Problem [webmasterworld.com].

I've tested this - and the results have been quite dramatic. Too many internal links are not usually there for visitors, they are added either for search engine purposes or for the businesses staff.

The smartest use I've seen for tags is not exactly a "tag cloud" but a small section below the main navigation - five links are dynamically generated to the most actively used tags on the site. The small number keeps it under control, and the presentation as a navigation area attracts visitors into exploring the site's best content. Otherwise - well, who clicks on a tag cloud, anyway?

The smartest use I've seen for tags is not exactly a "tag cloud" but a small section below the main navigation - five links are dynamically generated to the most actively used tags on the site.

Adapting that to an ecommerce site, would it be ok to list maybe the five best money-making products - but have it as a static link instead of dynamic based on popularity?

The problem that I could see with that is that the links would be across verticals / silos; A visitor might be on the widgets category page, but there would be links to products that would normally be in the Foo Bars, Dingbats, Doo Dads, etc.,

Or would it make more sense to just have a link to a single "Most Popular" page in the main navigation area and then have those five links on that most popular page? Then you wouldn't have to worry about cross silo / cross vertical issues?

It will certainly depend on the particulars of the site, but I have seen "Best Sellers" links that were really "Our best profit margin" links. No obvious ranking trouble comes from that mildly deceptive practice. Of course, those links are static and that's not the same as dynamic tag generation.

SO I guess the question then is... how many internal links on a page is too many? Counting menu buttons most sites have at least 20+ on average.

Is there a ceiling everyone should keep in mind?

When I build sites I try to keep internal links under 50 per page as a rule of thumb - and going beyond 100 or so is a danger signal, IMO. Used to be Google wouldn't even crawl a page beyond that level. Today they do, but as described in the Mega Menu thread, it can create significant ranking problems.

@tedster:

It will certainly depend on the particulars of the site, but I have seen "Best Sellers" links that were really "Our best profit margin" links.

You don't see those links causing problems in that they are cross silo / cross vertical then?

Using a real word example:

If the link to a best selling Dress appears below the navigation tree in such categories as Shirts, Shoes, Jackets, etc., categories, you don't see that as a problem with asilo structure then?

If the link to a best selling Dress appears below the navigation tree in such categories as Shirts, Shoes, Jackets, etc., categories, you don't see that as a problem with asilo structure then?

It would depend on the exact site structure, but for example, I would have:

- When in Shirts category: best selling shirt
- When in Shoes category: best selling shoes
- When in Jackets category: best selling jacket
- On Home Page: few "Top selling products" that may belong to different categories.

I would personally not put best selling shirt to a page that shows Shoes category.

However, if you have a dedicated page "Best sellers" on which you would list mix of products from various categories, then I believe there would be no problem linking to that page from each of categories.

In other words, the cross-silo confusion could happen if you link directly to shoes product from Shirts category, but not if you link from Shirts category to a Best Seller page that then links to a selection of products, amongst them being shoes, shirts, etc.

I would use only a couple of tags per article /page and that's if you have many related articles. If Google gets the same stub for 15 different tags, you will be in trouble IMO. Now Google has admitted that they penalize sites for too many 'low quality pages'

"Now Google has admitted that they penalize sites for too many 'low quality pages' "

Why do people keep saying this when it's not true? Google SAYS that's what they're doing but if you look at who won and lost in the Panda update it's kind of clear that isn't what they're doing at all.

...how many internal links on a page is too many? ...Is there a ceiling everyone should keep in mind?

When I build sites I try to keep internal links under 50 per page as a rule of thumb - and going beyond 100 or so is a danger signal, IMO.

Although those figures sound reasonable, there are a couple of tricks I employ in the occasional instance where a lot of links are required. One is to create a seperate links menu and include it as an iframe. The important (relevant) links I would then include contextualy on the page.

The other is to use css absolute positioning so they appear at the bottom of the code but in the right place on the page. The advantage being they appear after any contextual linking which takes priority.

Then again for more than 50 links I'd probably use the iframe.

Is indexing tag pages still recommended? Many webmasters here were suggesting removing them from google index after the panda update.

Now if you don't index the tag pages, is it still ok to link to them?

No one knows. Repair work of ANY kind for Panda demotions are not showing results so far - at least not for most sites I know about peronally.