I think it would depend on how it was written and how synonymic the words were. In my experience Google is now very good at recognising synonyms and using than be more beneficial than repeating the same keyword over and over (from both an SEO and a readability perspective).

Mmmmmm, so nobody knows for sure...

Has anybody done some A/B testing on this?

I worked with one site that used lots of synonyms and related keywords, too - think adding in all the "related searches" plus a pile of co-occurring phrases and words (see [webmasterworld.com...] and [webmasterworld.com...] for more info.)

Yes, they got penalized for that trick. Yes, their rankings returned after 30 days when they backed it way off and had a good writer rewrite without forcing in all that extra vocabulary.

Just a thought...

Instead of trying to hit all the synonyms, would it not be better to have links to highly authoritative sites that cover certain aspects related to the subject?

So if you deal with auto shipping, the user is probably going to need to know about customs clearance / import tariffs, so having a link to those kinds of sites might be appreciated by the users.

I know this isn't exactly what you were asking, but maybe it will help out.

I worked with one site that used lots of synonyms and related keywords, too - think adding in all the "related searches"...

I still see quite a few "answers" sites that do something like this:

Basically, they list all the phrases people used to find that page (I assume they are just grabbing their keyword source info from google analytics or whatever analytics software they use).

Another "answer" site just goes around scraping the questions people ask on different forums related to a topic, without actually providing any answers. Just the questions - and lots of adsense.

Hi Planet

So if you deal with auto shipping, the user is probably going to need to know about customs clearance / import tariffs, so having a link to those kinds of sites might be appreciated by the users.

Thank you but actually yes, I did do that, actually I emailed customs Canada and a customs agent personally gave me a list of all the forms needed for download.

I fetched them all, created thumbnails, descptions and set up a Joomla component to display them all, free download, free info.

Result?

A big 0 and a lot of effort for nothing. No thank you, no backlinks, no "social" love. People just grab them and go.

Noble "content" and "user experience" G__gle mottos don't always work in real life and don't apply to all types of websites... ;)

I think I have been doing some things wrong for years... But I can learn and recover

That sounds like a very good insight. From many of your questions here, I would agree with your concerns. However, there are many others in the same boat around the world and they haven't even realized what they're doing wrong.

The common error I see is relying too much on some kind of formula for "doing SEO". Years ago, that worked. It also gave too much ranking advantage to those who had some kind of workable formula, and Google realized that their earlier way of ranking was not really working the way they wanted.

What is missing in all that? Understanding what SEO really means. It's not a standard set of actions, it's creating an online business in a way that can rank well. Years ago, search engines were more primitive and the first SEOs could reverse engineer the ranking formulas. Then they ended up with a fixed set of steps to meet those ranking formulas. It's not very much that way today, and it's less and less that way all the time.

What you need today is to create a 3-way win: be good for your business, good for visitors and good for Google. And that means you start with a real business and business plan, and not just "a website." And mostly just forget about what you've read that comes from very old sources. That can be hard, because the BS just keeps on spreading, years after it is true.

But if you stay focused on your visitors, your users, your customers - then you can succeed. The idea is not to be some kind of parasite that takes money off the side of a search engine, but to be creating real value in a clear way.

-----------

To address your opening question again, yes you certainly can and should use synonyms. But don't make that into just another strategy, another formula. Synonyms are natural in writing or any communication. Use them that way, with perhaps some extra attention on the writing process to make sure it really works and doesn't get stuck in a pattern that works against true communication.