How search engines look for meaning - By: Tom Jui

The content of a website needs to be meaningful for SEO. It may seem like science fiction, but search robots are able to analyse web pages in terms of semantics and this has been the case for a number of years. In the future, the abilities of search engines to rate sites in this way will only increase, although so far they lag behind the astonishing capacity for learning currently demonstrated by some computers.

It is important for search engines to understand what is on a web page as thoroughly as possible because this enables the best range of search results to be returned in response to a user's query. Sometimes the meanings of words and phrases can be taken in different ways, and the more a search engine is able to approach human levels of comprehension, the less chance there will be of turning up irrelevant search results that completely miss the point.

Search engines use something called 'semantic connectivity' to analyse the content of web pages, which involves noting which words or phrases are commonly associated, and recognising this when they occur again. Search engines realise that words such as 'apple' and 'pear' often occur together, possibly often with the word 'fruit'. In that sense, there is an 'understanding' that apples and pears are fruit but not in the way that humans would think of it. Still, it is a useful way for search engines to extract meaning from content.

From a search engine optimization point of view, this means that it will continue to become more important for the pages of a site to follow particular themes and ideas in order to rank well in search results, rather than consisting of a mishmash of random pieces of content and a scattering of adverts.

In addition to having thoughtfully crafted content, one also needs to mark up that content meaningfully in the HTML. This is another aspect of web pages that search engines study, and correct use of HTML tags, with text properly positioned within the structure of a page, will increase search engine optimization. That means keeping content separate from style by putting all the rules for styling in a CSS file, and placing the most important text inside a meaningful hierarchy of headings.

There are secondary advantages to all of this, because visitors prefer to read web pages that make sense and have a logical flow. Once they have found such a website they will be much more likely to return, and to link to the pages from other sites. Putting the code for styling the pages in separate CSS files means that the HTML files are a lot smaller than they would be otherwise. The benefit of this is that web pages are much quicker to load, removing the frustration of waiting that leads to so many visitors clicking away to find an alternative site.

Making meaningful web pages is important, and one might consider employing an SEO company for advice in the initial stages. At SearchEngineOptimization.co.uk, we can help you create a successful website.

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