Good Keyword Selection - Latent Semantic Indexing
It is a well known fact within SEO circles that 'cracking the Google algorithm” by which they assess, score and rank individual web pages is, for all intense purposes, impossible to do unless you work for Google itself. Even then it is unlikely that any one person has the full understanding of it's structure.
It would also be true enough to say that this inability to decipher or break the algorithm would stretch to all the other major search engines, such as Yahoo, MSN and AOL.
But we can speculate about certain factors within the make up of Google's code and their purchase of an Applied Semantics company a while back called CIRCA. CIRCA created and produced a software application that read and 'understood' a page, based on it's association of words and phrases.
What Is Latent Semantic Indexing?
To put Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) into an understandable context for you without the “techno babble”, it's a maths formula that assess the keywords on a page and 'calculates' the other words that should also be resident on that page in support of the main theme.
If these other words or phrases are found then the page is scored accordingly. If they aren't, a doubt would be raised about that particular page and it would be noted for a deeper investigation or ranked as either a lower importance or not relevant to this theme.
So let's have a look at an example.
If you had a site about Hair Care with a specific page about washing and cleaning hair, the formula would expect to find at least some of the following words:-
brush
shampoo
conditioner
dryer
rinse
massage
scalp
tongs
curling
To put it simply, Google are now looking at the whole theme of a site, analysing it and the keywords used within it.
They then marry this to the details shown by links coming into your site (as well as those going out!) for relevancy. In this way, Google have developed a step that allows them to discard from their calculations those keywords you may be specifically targeting that are not actually relevant to the theme of the site.
Evidence of Use
Use of this method has been evident in the Google search results for a while now. We are seeing some sites ranking well for keywords that aren't actually on any of the pages. Their association to the theme and relevancy of the site has led Google to infer they should be connected.
You may well find that if some of your pages are slipping in the rankings or disappearing altogether, your current SEO efforts are not adapting to this new requirement and are suffering for it.
This is not to say that SEO no longer has a place in your methods of promotion of your website or business. What it does mean is that another technique has to be learnt and a new set of skills developed to take advantage of this understanding.
Good SEO practice therefore has an element of not only being able to advise of the best keywords and phrases for site pages to target but also to advise and provide where necessary those words and phrases that should be applied by association as a complete, interlocked programme of work.
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