Can a page be 100% topically relevant to a search query?

[Christy-Correll]

Today's YouMoz post, Accidental SEO Tests: When On-Page Optimization Ceases to Matter, explores the theory that there is an on-page optimization saturation point, "beyond which further on-page optimization no longer improves your ability to rank" for the keywords/keyword topics you are targeting. In other words, you can optimize your page for search to the point that it is 100% topically relevant to query and intent.

Do you believe there exists such a thing as a page that is 100% topically relevant? What are your thoughts regarding there being an on-page optimization saturation point, beyond which further on-page optimization no longer improves your ability to rank? Let's discuss!

[Herman1989]

I consider 100% match purely as theoretically possible. In my modest opinion the visitor determines the relevancy of the landingpage. And it is Google's nobel job to serve the visitor with a page that fits his needs. But in this case no page can be fully satisfying to everybody, due to different search intentions with the same keyword.

When you achieve a high conversion on your page you'v probably written a very relevant page. So let the visitor truly find what he is looking for and Google will notice....

[Christy-Correll]

Well said, Russ, especially for a "mathy" answer. I am curious, though, would this "ideal document" you describe have a specific word count?

[rjonesx. 0]

Warning, mathy answer follows. This is a generic description of what is going on, not exact, but hopefully understandable.

Yes, there is some theoretical page that is 100% topically relevant if you had a copy of the "ideal document" produced by the topical relevancy model. This would not look like a real page, though. It would look like a jumble of words in ideal relation and distance to one another. However, most topic models are built using sampling and, more importantly, the comparative documents that are used to determine the confidence level that your document's relevancy is non-random is also sampled. This means that there is some MoE (Margin of Error).

As you and your competitors approach 100% topical relevancy, that Margin of Error likely covers the difference. If you are 99.98% relevant, and they are 99.45% relevant, but the MoE is 1%, then a topical relevancy system cant conclude with certainty that you are more relevant than they are.

At this point, the search model would need to rely on other metrics, like authority, over relevance to differentiate the two pages.

[Saijo.George]

With the pace at which things are changing and throwing in machine learning in to the ranking factor, I would say it's close to impossible to have 100% topically relevancy for any good period of time.

[Lumina]

100% saturation is impossible to achieve while maintaining any semblance of value. Not only because any proper page inherently has navigation, internal linkage, and myriad other elements, but because to write content about a subject in that amount of detail, one would invariably need to write about sub-topics and related topics. It's just not feasible. But, and here's the kicker, you wouldn't want 100% saturation anyway.

Rich, dynamic content incorporates that which is related to it. Strong pages link out to others, and keep visitors within their media cycle, if not churning them lower down. Good content is content that holds information that's both detailed and general to a topic. I would say, at most, the highest saturation point that still remains within strong SEO and content optimization is about 85-90% when taking into account all page content - and even that's pushing it, really.

[AMHC]

I would agree to a point. At its heart, Google probably uses some form of numerical score for a page as it relates to a query. If a page is a perfect match, it scores 100%. I would also suggest that attaining a perfect score is a virtual impossibility.

The scoring system, however, is dynamic. The page may be perfect for a particular query only at a particular point in time.

1. Google's algorithm changes daily. What's perfect today may not be perfect tomorrow.
2. Semantic search must be dynamic. If Google discovers a new Proof Term or Relevant Term related to the query, and the page in question doesn't contain that term, the page is no longer perfect.

These are only a couple of examples.

For practical purposes, the amount of testing, research, etc. to achieve a perfect score at some point delivers diminishing returns. The amount of effort required to push a page from 95% to 100% isn't worth the effort, especially since Google's algorithm is a secret.

Sometimes good is good enough.