Excessive use of bold/strong tags — the fix
This page uses an unusually high number of <b> or <strong> tags. Excessive bolding can appear as an attempt to manipulate search engines by over-emphasizing keywords.
Where this fits: content in SEO
Content is what actually earns rankings: text that answers the query better than the competition. Search engines evaluate depth, originality, structure (headings), and freshness. Thin, duplicated, or poorly structured content doesn't just fail to rank — it can drag down a domain's overall quality assessment. Every content issue here is ultimately about the same question: does this page deserve to be someone's answer?
Why excessive use of bold/strong tags hurts your rankings
Google considers <strong> tags as a mild emphasis signal for the bolded text. Overusing bold tags dilutes this signal and can appear manipulative. When everything is emphasized, nothing is effectively emphasized. Excessive bolding also degrades readability by creating visual noise.
This is a low-severity issue: a polish item. Fix it in batches during scheduled maintenance; the win is cumulative quality, not a step change.
How to fix it
Use <strong> tags sparingly to highlight genuinely important phrases. Remove bold formatting from text where it does not add meaningful emphasis. If bold is used for visual styling, use CSS font-weight instead of semantic HTML tags.
Content best practices
- One H1 per page that states the topic; H2/H3 in strict hierarchy underneath.
- Cover the query completely — the best-ranking page is usually the one that ends the search session.
- Keep paragraphs short, front-load conclusions, and use lists for anything enumerable.
- Update cornerstone pages on a schedule; freshness compounds.
- Delete or merge thin pages — 10 strong pages outrank 100 weak ones on the same domain.
The full library: SEO best practices, by category.
Frequently asked questions
What does "Excessive use of bold/strong tags" mean?
This page uses an unusually high number of <b> or <strong> tags. Excessive bolding can appear as an attempt to manipulate search engines by over-emphasizing keywords.
Why does excessive use of bold/strong tags matter for SEO?
Google considers <strong> tags as a mild emphasis signal for the bolded text. Overusing bold tags dilutes this signal and can appear manipulative. When everything is emphasized, nothing is effectively emphasized. Excessive bolding also degrades readability by creating visual noise.
How do I fix excessive use of bold/strong tags?
Use <strong> tags sparingly to highlight genuinely important phrases. Remove bold formatting from text where it does not add meaningful emphasis. If bold is used for visual styling, use CSS font-weight instead of semantic HTML tags.
How serious is this issue?
This is a low-severity issue: a polish item. Fix it in batches during scheduled maintenance; the win is cumulative quality, not a step change. It belongs to the content family of checks.
How do I find every page affected by this on my site?
Run a free Dr Urls audit: it crawls your site, detects excessive use of bold/strong tags on every affected page, shows example URLs, and generates a ready-to-use fix task. Re-scan after fixing to verify the issue is gone.
Does your site have this issue?
A free Dr Urls audit crawls your site, finds every page affected by excessive use of bold/strong tags, and hands you a ready-made fix task.
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