Understanding Latent Semantic Indexing - By: Jamie Hanson

If you understand the concept of SEO, then you have undoubtedly spent some time thinking through keywords and phrases that are the most likely to help your website receive a higher Google ranking than your competitors. Achieving high search engine ranking, however, involves more than simple keyword density. Over time, search engines have become smarter and now rely on a concept called latent semantic indexing to determine rankings.

Latent semantic indexing involves an algorithmic consideration of the words and phrases used in a particular segment of text in order to determine the patterns present in the relationships between those words and phrases. The underlying idea is that the quality of a segment of text may be determined based on how words and phrases are used in relationship to one another rather than by simply counting the occurrences of one or more keywords. Website authors benefit by being able to provide high quality content written in a natural style while still outranking poor quality sites that have stuffed their articles with keywords. Internet users benefit by being able to find relevant content more quickly without having to scroll through a lot of junk sites before finding what they're looking for.

With LSI, it's important that you use semantically related words on your website in order to receive a higher search ranking. By providing several synonymous words and phrases throughout your content, you allow the search engine to gain a better feel for the content of your site. Since LSI determines website relevance by analyzing content and comparing relationships between words, building a themed website will help your overall ranking. Themed websites contain articles that all center on a particular topic. If your site is about losing weight, for instance, all your articles should contain related keywords and phrases that refer to this topic. Writing a series of articles on international cuisine could lower your ranking by reducing the relevance of your site to the theme.

Latent semantic indexing allows search engines to evaluate not only the quality of the content on a particular site, but also its grammar, spelling, and related terminology. In this way, users are presented with the sites that are most likely to give them the information they want and website owners have an incentive to provide high quality content on their sites. The days of keyword stuffing are over. In order to be found on the web, sites now need to demonstrate a more in depth discussion of a given topic in order to position themselves favorably in the search engine rankings.

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