search results, space between words?

The distance between keywords certainly does make a difference. I.e. if many people are searching for 'ancient Japanese swords', your page will rank better in Google if those words are written right near each other, preferably in the same word order people are using in their searches.

The placement in the page and the size of the text also helps.

H1 text at the top of the page is more important than tiny text at the bottom.

so then the important stuff goes at the top, or the stuff you want the spider and people to see go at the top. Can you optimize a paragraph to take maximum effect from the spacing between words?

Actually that really depends on the keywords and situation.

Let's use the common fictional word "widgets".

I sell widgets, so I make sure that:

a) "widgets" is in the domain name or URL.
b) the title of teh page contains "widgets" and little else (unless I'm targeting multiple keyword combos).
As high as possible in the page the contect text should start.

I would use h1 text with "widgets".

I'd use other headings and menu items with different combos.

The copy would mention widgets as soon as possible and then proceed to be a balance between writing a coherent paragraph and using "widget" in different combos (e.g. "green widget").

Now avoid just spamming your text. If you ever visit a page with a bunch of keywords they are just spamming the index and they might get the whole site removed from the search engine.

A good paragraph will ultimately be a sensible balance between:


"free widgets, download widgets, buy my widgets..."

and a coherent sentence.

Make sure it is not spam, the text should be for the human first, optimized for search engines. Not the other way around.