Variations in Strike Tags counts how many times variations of your target keyword appear inside deprecated strike elements on the page. It returns a whole-number occurrence count — and because strike is obsolete HTML, almost every modern page should score zero. A higher count is an observation, not a quality improvement.
| Factor ID | RG-KWD-082 |
|---|---|
| Family | Keyword Usage & Density |
| Measurement | Variation occurrence count |
| Measured zone | Raw captured strike contents |
What it measures
This factor counts keyword variations found inside deprecated strike elements. RankGear looks only at the text carried between strike tags, so it reflects how often variant forms of your keyword happen to sit inside this obsolete markup rather than anywhere else on the page.
How RankGear measures it
RankGear extracts the second capture group from each recognized strike pair without cleaning the contents, then sums case-insensitive, whole-word variation matches. Because the captured text is not cleaned first, any nested markup stays inside the string that is searched. Matching is whole-word, so partial substrings do not count.
What RankGear looks for
<strike>(captured contents)</strike>
→ capture group two = the raw text between the tags
→ count case-insensitive whole-word keyword-variation matches within it| Value | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 0 | No keyword variations appear inside any strike element — the expected result for almost every page. |
| 1 or more | That many variation matches were found inside strike markup. Not a target to raise; usually a sign of legacy or copied HTML. |
How to optimize it
Do not optimize this factor. Treat the value as an observation, not a goal — there is no benefit to placing keyword variations inside strike tags. When you have a legitimate presentation need, reach for modern semantic alternatives such as del for removed content, or CSS for purely visual line-through styling, instead of the obsolete strike element.
Important considerations
strikeis obsolete HTML and should not be used on modern pages.- Because the capture is not cleaned, any nested markup remains inside the counted text.
- Most pages should score zero; a non-zero value simply flags leftover legacy markup.
- Increasing the value is not a quality improvement.
- This is a descriptive count that relates to patterns within a measured result set — it does not cause or guarantee any ranking.
Related factors
Part of the Factors reference · how RankGear measures · glossary.