Latent semantic Indexing - Does this help rankings/relevance?
-
Hi,
Does semantically related words to the target term on a page help with rankings/relevance?
If your after the term 'PC Screen' and you use the term 'PC Monitor' will go make the connection and also reward you because of the relevance?
Anyone do this and have you seen any positives?
I've just started to try this out lately and have been combining it with Wordle.net to give me an indication of where the content piece is heading and how aggressive the content leans towards certain words (makes things a little more interesting then calculating densities).
-
Nice cheers Irving,
I can see how LSI could open the doors to other variations showing up in the SE's.
Do you think a search engine such as Google makes the connection between terms such as 'PC Screen' and 'PC monitor' and do you think this is a factor in rankings?
For example, if a page was targeting the term 'PC Screen' but the page included the word 'Montior' a few times do you think that word would benefit the term 'PC Screen' in relevance/rankings.
Thanks for your time, it's something im trying understand more.
-
Absolutely. All content should have synonyms and singular/plural and reversed order variations of the keyword phrase if possible, not just for LSI but also for better optimization for long tail and alternative keywords.
"PC monitor" might even be a secondary keyword. It shows Google that your page really is about PC Screens and not just some BS SEO article written with "PC screen" thrown in a bunch of times.
-
You should always do the onsite technical towards a hierarchy of targeted keywords but yes relevance does matter. Not only onsite but I have seen impact of anchor text relevance from external sites linking to my sites.
Google is all about quality. Also which user experience would you prefer, one where the content is relevant or is keyword stuffed?
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
What to do if ranking the wrong KW?
I wrote a blog article targeting a long-tail KW - "[primary KW] pricing revealed". the article is performing so well that is actually ranking 2nd nationally for my primary KW. I would rather have my conversion page rank for my primary KW obviously. I'm considering cutting and pasting the content from my blog page onto my conversion page with a 301 redirect from the blog to the conversion page. What are your thoughts on this? Thanks, Ryan
On-Page Optimization | | RyanMeighan0 -
Alt text / internal linking
Hi everyone A question about best practice when linking from pictures on our homepage - hirespace.com We have an option of using divs with background images (nicer in terms of design) but it means that we can't use anchor text or alt text to show Google what these internal links are about. The other option is to use images which do not allow us as much flexibility in terms of CSS but would allow us to use alt text. There is also an opinion that we should have separate text links at the bottom of the homepage to get the anchor page in. What is best practice in this situation - is alt text worth sacrificing some CSS flexibility for? How important is anchor/alt text for internal linking? Thanks guys.
On-Page Optimization | | HireSpace0 -
Page Rank drop from 4 to ?
Our site (ecommerce) has been around since 1998. The pagerank has gone from a 4 to a ? The Moz score is still good, but traffic is way down. Never got a warning from Google, and were never part of a BH linking scheme? I'm puzzled? There are some duplicate content issues and missing meta tags, but they were on customer login pages that we have since blocked? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | rglaubinger0 -
Do Blog Comments On Your Site Help SEO?
There is a lot of debate as whether or not having comments on your blog is helpful from an SEO perspective. Proponents believe that more comments (1) creates more content, which search engines love, (2) creates more relevant keywords that can be searched, and (3) helps with "freshness" of the site/content leading to greater site authority. Others like Joost de Valk believe that comments can actually hurt SEO because keyword density cannot be controlled. He argues that his top SEO content are pages not posts for this very reason. What is your opinion?
On-Page Optimization | | marcperry0 -
Google cached snapshots and last indexed
My question is I noticed today that the snap shots of my main pages were outdated. About a month. Then I clicked on the "Learn More" link about cahced images and Google says "Google crawls the web and takes snapshots of each page. When you click Cached, you'll see the webpage as it looked when we last indexed it." I know this sounds really dumb, but does that really mean the last time Google indexed that page? So the changes I have made since then have not been taken yet?
On-Page Optimization | | cbielich0 -
Help with Appropriate Use of Rel Canonical
Whenever i enable Canonical URL through the 3DCart Control panel I get this Critical Factor error when running the on page report card: Appropriate Use of Rel Canonical Moderate fix <dl> <dt>Canonical URL</dt> <dd>"http://rcnitroshop.com/Nitro-Monster-Truck"</dd> <dt>Explanation</dt> <dd>If the canonical tag is pointing to a different URL, engines will not count this page as the reference resource and thus, it won't have an opportunity to rank. Make sure you're targeting the right page (if this isn't it, you can reset the target above) and then change the canonical tag to reference that URL.</dd> <dt>Recommendation</dt> <dd>We check to make sure that IF you use canonical URL tags, it points to the right page. If the canonical tag points to a different URL, engines will not count this page as the reference resource and thus, it won't have an opportunity to rank. If you've not made this page the rel=canonical target, change the reference to this URL. NOTE: For pages not employing canonical URL tags, this factor does not apply.</dd> </dl> Now if I disable Canonical URL then run the on page report card again the critical error goes away but I get this Optional Factor error instead: Canonical URL Tag Usage Moderate fix <dl> <dt>Number of Canonical tags</dt> <dd>0</dd> <dt>Explanation</dt> <dd>Although the canonical URL tag is generally thought of as a way to solve duplicate content problems, it can be extremely wise to use it on every (unique) page of a site to help prevent any query strings, session IDs, scraped versions, licensing deals or future developments to potentially create a secondary version and pull link juice or other metrics away from the original. We believe the canonical URL tag is a best practice to help prevent future problems, even if nothing is specifically duplicate/problematic today.</dd> <dt>Recommendation</dt> <dd>Add a canonical URL tag referencing this URL to the header of the page.</dd> </dl> So basically I disabled it because obviously a Critical error is much worse then an optional error. Is there a way I can get rid of both errors?
On-Page Optimization | | bilsonx0 -
Need help with fluctuating ranking for a specific keyword
my website www.totalmanagement.com fluctuates for the search term: web based property management software I have been using SEO Moz for a few months now and have managed to get to the top 5 and jump around between 3 and 5. Does anyone have any suggestions to assist me? Long term goal is also to really target: Property Management Software But I am still very new at this. Thanks in advance for the help!
On-Page Optimization | | dgruhin0 -
Troubleshooting Drop in Rank - could it be one of these?:
At nlpca(dot)com, we've had a drop in rank of like 13 slots for our main term "NLP". Could this be caused by?: Adding keywords to title and meta tags that are not completely relevant to page. For example, "degree programs" on this page http://www.nlpca.com/DCweb/nlp-salt-lake-city-and-bay-area The word "degree" and "programs" do not show up on that page, but "program" does. Our courses are 'certification programs' but maybe 'degree programs' is not close enough. Adding keywords to title that do not show up in page. The same keyword "degree programs" is a good example. Another example is the keyword "learn about NLP" on this page: http://www.nlpca.com/DCweb/learn-about-nlp-techniques Targeting 2 different locations (California and Utah) Having our title 2 characters too big on the home page (we used to) And lastly, Do you think our ranking drop is reversible if it's on-site SEO? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | BobGW0