How does this apply to modern search engines

How does this apply to modern search engines

The funny thing is that modern-day search engines still work essentially the same way they did back in the time of keyword density. The big difference is that they are now much more sophisticated. Instead of simply counting the number of times a word or phrase is on a webpage, they use natural language processing algorithms and other signals on a page to determine relevancy.

For example, it is now fairly trivial for search engines to determine that a piece of content is about Jessica Simpson if it mentions related phrases like “Nick Lachey” (her exhusband), “Ashlee Simpson” (her sister), and “Chicken of the Sea” (she is infamous for thinking the tuna brand “Chicken of the Sea” was made from chicken). The engines can do this for a multitude of languages and with astonishing accuracy.

Don’t believe me? Try going to Google right now and searching related: www.jessicasimpson.com 

If your results are like mine, you will see websites about her movies, songs, and sister. Computers are amazing things.

In addition to the words on a page, search engines use signals like image meta information (alt attribute), link profile and site architecture, and information hierarchy to determine how relevant a given page that mentions “Jessica” is to a search query for “The Simpsons.”

Link Relevancy

As search engines matured, they started identifying more metrics for determining rankings. One that stood out among the rest was link relevancy.

The difference between link relevancy and link popularity is that link relevancy does not take into account the power of the link. Instead, it is a natural phenomenon that works when people link out to other content.

Let me give you an example of how it works:

Say I own a blog where I write about whiteboard markers. (Yes, I did just look around my office for an example to use, and yes, there are actually people who blog about whiteboard markers. I checked.) Ever inclined to learn more about my passion for these magical writing utensils, I spend part of my day reading online what other people have to say about whiteboard markers.

On my hypothetical online reading journey, I find an article about the psychological effects of marker color choice. Excited, I go back to my website to blog about the article so (both of) my friends can read about it.

Now here is the critical takeaway. When I write the blog post and link to the article, I get to choose the anchor text. I could choose something like “click here,” but more likely I choose something that it is relevant to the article.

In this case I choose “psychological effects of marker color choice.”

Someone else who links to the article might use the link anchor text “marker color choice and the effect on the brain.”

This human-powered information is essential to modern-day search engines. These descriptions are relatively unbiased and produced by real people. This metric, in combination with complicated natural language processing, makes up the lion’s share of relevancy indicators online.

Beyond specific anchor text, proximal text—the certain number of characters preceding and following the link itself—have some value.

Something that’s logical, but annoying is when people use a verb as anchor text, such as “Frank said . . . “ or “Jennifer wrote . . .“, using “said” or “wrote” as the anchor text pointing back to the post. In a situation like that, engines have figured out how to apply the context of the surrounding copy to the link.

Tying Together Popularity and Relevancy

I have discussed both popularity and relevancy.

These two concepts make up the bulk of Search Engine Optimization theory. They have been present since the beginning of search engines and undoubtedly will be important in the future. The way they are determined and the relationship between them changes, but they are both fundamental to determining search results.

Popularity and relevancy are the two concepts that make up the bulk of

Search Engine Optimization theory.

This fact is critical to SEOs. We have very little control over how the major search engines operate, yet somehow we are supposed to keep our jobs. Luckily, these immutable laws of popularity and relevance govern search engines and provide us with some job security.

Summary

I explained the concepts of popularity and relevancy in relation to modern search engines. This information, along with your prior SEO experience, will make up the foundation for all of the SEO secrets and knowledge that you learn throughout the rest of the book. You no doubt have some questions.

I’ll start answering many of your questions in the next posts in this blog , but you will likely form many more. Welcome to the mindset of a Professional SEO. Prepare to be questioning and Googling things for the rest of your life.