Episode
Chewy Used This Google Spam Tactic 88 Times - Then Traffic Fell
- Podcast
- The Edward Show
- Published
- Jul 5, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 527
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Summary
E1096: We're talking about keyword stuffing, Google's own definition of it, and why copying what big authority sites do can be a dangerous SEO mistake. I came across a Search Engine Land article pointing to Chewy's dry dog food page as an example of strong "cosine similarity." But when I looked at the page, it looked much closer to old-school keyword stuffing than smart SEO. The phrase "dry dog food" appears 88 times on the page. In one block of text alone, it appears 19 times. And according to Ahrefs, the page had a huge spike in estimated organic traffic before falling back down hard. I'm not saying keyword stuffing caused the entire drop. But I am saying this is exactly the kind of thing Google warns about in its spam policies, and it is not something most sites should copy. We cover: - What Google says keyword stuffing is - Why repeating a keyword too many times can make a page sound unnatural - Why a high-authority site like Chewy can sometimes get away with worse SEO - Why copying big brands is not always a smart SEO strategy - What I saw on Chewy's dry dog food page - Why "cosine similarity" can become bad advice when taken too far - How many times Chewy used the phrase "dry dog food" - What happened to the page's estimated organic traffic after its spike - Why giant blocks of SEO text at the bottom of pages are usually a bad sign - Where I think your target keyword should actually go - Why I often remove keyword repetitions from pages instead of adding more - How using natural variations can be better than repeating the same exact phrase - Why satisfying search intent matters more than stuffing a page with keywords My basic rule for keyword targeting: - Put the target keyword in the page title - Put it in the URL slug - Put it in the H1 - Use it near the beginn…