Search engine index and search relevance

Very often, when talking about website promotion in PS, terms such as search relevance And search engine index. What it is?

Concept of relevance

Literally, "relevance" translates as correspondence to something. B she means

• firstly, the correspondence of the search results (SERP) to the user’s request,
• and secondly, the correspondence of the site page to this request.

It is logical that the higher the relevance in both cases, the better the end user: he receives an answer, most appropriate .

In general, relevance is a fundamental success factor for both search engines , and for SEO optimizers .

• For the former, maximum relevance of the search results is important (i.e. correct ranging — arranging sites according to their relevance to a given query) - otherwise users will not receive a proper answer to their question and will turn to another PS.
• For the second, the maximum relevance of the promoted page for a specific request in order to receive the maximum.

It’s worth adding here that both “branches” of this concept are simultaneously important for both search engines and optimizers - search engines need the site pages in their results to be relevant to the query, and optimizers need the results to be relevant.

The point here is that optimizers depend on the search engine’s correct understanding of the relevance for a given query (the clarity of the operation of the search engine algorithms) in the same way as the search engines themselves depend on this. Otherwise, both will lose traffic.

Search engine index

On the Internet you can often hear “ Google quickly indexed my site." or " Yandex kicked it out of the index" and so on. What kind of index is this?

The easiest way to understand this is to draw an analogy with real life. For example, with books, namely with an alphabetical index. It contains frequently used words and the page numbers on which they appear. For some reason, a fairy tale about a turnip came to mind, let it be the simplest example of a search index.

So, let’s say the book with this fairy tale has only 5 pages. The alphabetical index says that the word “turnip” appears on pages 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5:

• "turnip": 1,2,3,4,5

the word “cat” on the 4th and 5th:

• "cat": 4,5

and the word “called” on pages 2,3,4,5:

• “called”: 2.3, 4,5

The user enters the word “turnip” into the search - he is given pages 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and ordered in descending order of relevance (the most relevant, in the opinion of the search engine, is on top).

Now he searches for the phrase “the cat called.” There is no such phrase in the index, but there are the words “cat” and “called”, and they appear simultaneously on pages 4 and 5. Both of these pages will match the query, with one of them being more relevant.

The analogue of a book on the Internet is, in fact, itself. Those. The search engine stores almost all texts from indexed sites (having previously cleared them of html tags). It’s scary to imagine how many hard drives search engines need.. (probably they can’t do without).

Thus, a search engine index is an ordered collection of text information. Moreover, it can be ordered according to thousands of parameters(the more PSs develop, the more there are), most of which are unknown to anyone except the algorithm developers. Among these parameters:

The more competently the index is compiled and the higher the relevance of the search, the better it is for both users and optimizers.

Relevance is the degree to which information is provided according to the user's request. Most often, this word can be found in the work of many people involved in filling out Web sites, creating content, and laying out html pages.

People in the SMM and SMO (content managers) professions actively use this term to create content that will meet the expectations of the user who is looking for it.

Content in search engines is displayed according to the degree of its relevance (i.e., compliance with the request) depending on the number of keywords, “wateriness”, “spammy” and “uniqueness”.

Uniqueness shows how original the existing content is - for example, text copied from Wikipedia and pasted into an article will have reduced uniqueness since it coincides with information already available on the Internet.

Origin of the word relevance

The word relevant (from the English relevare - to understand, to facilitate) comes to us from the scientific field of computer science. The concept of relevance is very important for computer science, since it can relate not only to the field of text analysis and processing, but also when performing practical programming tasks - analyzing large amounts of data.

Relevance (in information technology) is divided into two types: content relevance and formal relevance. Content relevance shows the compliance of the document with the requested data, obtained informally, and formal relevance is based on comparing the user's request to the available information according to a certain algorithm.

These are the algorithms used by search engine robots - Google, Yandex, Rambler. An interesting fact is that each language needs its own unique algorithm that will search for the text the user needs.

Use of the word relevance

The word relevance, as described above, is used in semantics, programming, Web layout, Web design, SMM and SMO, as well as copywriting. Copywriting is a field of work that deals with writing articles to order. Quite often there are articles that will be intended for SEO optimization; this particular type of article should be as relevant as possible.

The word relevance is also found in specialized technical literature - instructions, manuals and other sources of information. In everyday speech, you can also use the word relevance, for example, in situations when a person answers a question in a detached, incorrect way - an irrelevant answer to the question.

Also, relevance can be said to be a measurable value - how relevant is this article or information?

Relevance in SEO

Relevance in SEO is the key to ensuring that your website, blog or community will be found and read by people. The easiest way for a person to find information is to enter a query into a search engine - Google, Yahoo, Rambler or Yandex.

Programs - robots that work in these search engines search for content on request, using special algorithms. Keyword search is one of the simplest and most common.

For a deeper and more accurate, and therefore relevant search in SEO, search programs examine the text stored on the site. The percentage of its “Spaminess” is studied - the frequency of repetition of certain words, “water” - words that do not carry an important semantic load, uniqueness, academic nausea and many other factors that allow the search engine to find relevant content.

Relevance and keywords

In this part of the article, we will give an example of the successful use of keywords so that the reader can best understand how they are used and what we are talking about. Keywords are combinations of words that allow you to capture the most important essence of the text or content.

For example, the keywords in the relevant text will be the following phrases:

• “buy goods”;
• “buy goods in Moscow”;
• “Buy goods in Moscow inexpensively with home delivery”;
• “Inexpensive private lawyer services”;
• "How to perform a certain action"
• “do-it-yourself TV repair at home.”

So we see that keywords and relevance play a huge role in modern life. If relevance did not exist, then there would be no well-functioning Internet.

Try to open the Chinese search engine Badoo and enter a query in Russian - and you will receive completely crazy, completely unexpected, irrelevant content. And although relevance originally came to us from computer science, we still use it in the Russian language, literature, mathematics, physics and other sciences.

You may have ever heard the word “relevance”. If you are interested in website promotion, then most likely yes. Do you know what site page relevance is? If not, then today I’ll just write what the relevance of search and site pages is.

Search relevance is the degree to which the information found by the user matches the information he wanted to find.

For example, you entered the query “download music” into a search engine. And the search engine gives you sites with information “what is music.” So, the degree of correspondence between what you wanted and what you received is called search relevance. In this case, you didn’t get what you wanted at all ;-), which means that the results are not relevant.

But now search engines have become quite smart and if you enter a search query correctly, you will most likely get an answer to it. Nowadays, search engines use many factors to improve relevance. This is user behavior on the site, the number of external and internal links, keyword density, etc.

If a SEO specialist manages to deceive the search engine and bring to the TOP an article that does not answer the visitor’s request, then in a few days this article will be demoted in the search results. Therefore, I have always said, and will continue to say, that the most important thing is to write an interesting article that will solve the visitor’s problem, and only then, as a supplement, you can use various SEO promotion methods. I also advise you to read the article about.

I think you understand what search relevance is, there is nothing complicated there. Now let's talk about what page relevance is, or in other words it is also called technical relevance.

The relevance of a site's pages is the proportion of keywords contained in the text or meta tags that make it relevant to search queries.

In other words, the more often a keyword appears in the text and other important tags, the more technically relevant the page will be to that query.

But this does not mean that if you insert a keyword in every sentence, the article will definitely reach the TOP ;-). Key phrases need to be inserted into the article so that the visitor enjoys reading it. If a search query occurs in every sentence, then a person will not read such an article, and thus the bounce rate of this page will increase and, accordingly, it will go down. In addition, such keyword spam can result in sanctions from search engines.

In any case, if you write an article for a specific keyword, you should always make sure that the article is highly relevant (preferably 100%). To do this, you need to adhere to just a few search engine optimization rules. In fact, there are a lot of these rules, but now I will tell you the main ones.

1. The key phrase must be present in the Title tag.

The Title tag is the title for the search robot. In order to do it, you need and. I already wrote about it in the article It is advisable that the key phrase be at the beginning of the title.

2. The search query must be in the H1 header.
This is a headline for the visitor, but it also carries a lot of weight. For example, you can see the h1 heading of this article at the very top of the page, and it reads like this: “What is the relevance of site pages? How to make a page relevant 100%"

The h1 heading should also interest the visitor so that he wants to read the article to the end. If you come up with an interesting title in which you entered a keyword, you can write it in the Title and H1 tags at the same time.

3. The key phrase must be present in the main content of the article.
Many people ask how many times to enter a search query in an article? To find out the answer to this question, you need to enter a keyword into the Yandex and Google search engines. Then find a site that has reached the top in two search engines at once, and see how many times this request is present on this page. In any case, I would not recommend entering: smile: less than 2 times.

In order to create a good keyword density on the page, it is also advisable to enter the query in some declension. If the request is “buy a laptop in Moscow”, then you can enter: “buy a good laptop in Moscow”, “buy a cheap laptop in Moscow”, etc.

And one more tip, try to enter closer to the beginning of the article and at the end. You can also highlight the request in bold (strong tag).

4. Key phrase in url.

In order to enter a keyword into the page url, you first need to configure the CNC. To do this, I advise you to read the article: “”. There you will also learn how to correctly enter key phrases into the page title.

5. Key phrase in the ALT and Title tags of the images.
When you publish an image, you can add a title and an ALT tag (alternative text) to it. Try to include keywords there. By the way, you can also enter the search query:smile: in the URL of the picture.

6. Key phrase in subheadings (H2, H3, H4, H5, H6).
The subheading H2 has the greatest weight, then H3, and so on. Try to make headings only where they are really needed, and not just to introduce a keyword. If you adhered to all 5 rules that I described above, then I would not recommend writing key phrases into headings, since search engines may regard this as spam. And if you want to do it, then at least in declension: smile:.

7. Internal links.
In order to indicate to the search robot that a page is well relevant to some search query, you need to link from other pages to this one and write this search query in the link text. The more links there are from other internal pages to the promoted one, the more weight it will receive and the faster it will reach the top.

8. External links.
External links also play a big role in website promotion. But it's not that simple. To buy links you need to find good sites and make different anchors. Search engines are against buying links and if they realize that you are deceiving them, it will be very bad. Various sanctions may be imposed on the resource. In other words, buying external links is the topic of a separate article, which I will definitely write again. Do not miss .

How to check page relevance

There are many services on the Internet to determine relevance. But, for example, I check the relevance on megaindex.ru. This service indicates what needs to be done to improve the relevance of the page. Then you need to enter a request, a link to the page and click on the button "Check".



After this, you can see what percentage of relevance is on your page and read recommendations on how to improve it.

That's all for me. I just wanted to write what site relevance is, but it turned out to be much more: smile:. But it’s okay, search engines love it if there is a lot of text on the page ;-).

In relation to SEO, page relevance is the degree to which the page matches the query that the user entered into the PS. That is, in other words, a relevant page is a document that fully answers the user’s request.

Relevance of site pages

As I said above, relevant pages These are the pages that answer the question you are looking for. Let's look at it with an example. Let's say you need to find information on how to compose a synonym.

You go to a search engine and enter the query “how to create a semantic core.” In this case, the page that contains exactly this information will be relevant, for example, the page of my blog to which I have placed a link.

That is, the information on how to make SY yourself. And if you end up at some company that does this for money, then this is no longer what you were looking for, which means an irrelevant page. This leads to the following concept.

What is search relevance

What's happened search relevance— this is the correspondence of the entered request to the results of the issue. Let's say a user entered the query “secrets of website promotion” in Yandex.

If Yandex gave him my textbook on website promotion or a similar one, then this will be a relevant search result. This is exactly what the user was looking for.

And if the site of some SEO company that promotes sites for money is in the TOP, then this is a site that is no longer relevant to this request. I gave a simplified example to make it clear.

Search engines are always striving to make their searches more relevant to user queries. But this is not always possible, as users themselves do not always ask their questions correctly. And the search engine doesn’t know exactly what the user wants to find.

From this we can conclude that the relevance of the search does not depend 100% on the search engine. There is also a “human factor” here. For example, let’s take the request “laptops”. What does the user want to find by entering this query into the search bar?

Does he want to find new laptop models? Find out prices and store addresses? Or find something else... I personally don’t understand what he’s looking for.

So search engines cannot always determine this. Of course, they have a lot of information about this user (his search history, demographic data, etc.), but nevertheless, it is difficult to give him a relevant answer.

What are relevant links?

In the first case, everything should be clear. If a link with an anchor, for example, “sape link exchange” leads to a page that talks specifically about the Sape exchange, then this is a relevant link.

In the second case, it can be a link in the form of a url, i.e. keyless. It will be relevant if it comes from a page that talks about links, anchors, etc. and lead to a page with similar information. Accordingly, if these requirements are violated, the link will be irrelevant.

Topical links

In addition to relevant ones, I also highlight thematic links. Thematic link- this is a link leading from a site of similar topics. For example, our site is dedicated to selling laptops.

If a link appears to our site from any site about laptops, informational or any other, then it will be a thematic link. But if the link comes from a site that also sells laptops, then it will be a thematically relevant link. This is one of the best types of links for a website.

Golden links in SEO

This concept appeared quite recently, and almost no one has written about them in their SEO blogs. So I'm actually the first))). Golden link- this is a link that has constant transitions to the site to which it leads.

Such links are now the best promotion option. They work best at increasing the relevance of your page text and conveying maximum link juice. Literally one or two such golden links can pull very good queries into the TOP10.

At first glance, it may seem that everything is simple - buy the necessary links and you're in the dark. But in practice everything is much more complicated. We don’t know exactly how the PS algorithm works; we can only guess based on experience and observations, and do various experiments. Next, I will tell you how to try to do everything right.

How to check the relevance of a page to a query

We still have one more question left unanswered - how to check page relevance. You can check it in one of the online services. For example, this can be done for free at megaindex.ru. Everything is quite simple, go to “SEO services” - “relevance analysis”. Enter the page URL and your request. The system will give us data on the page, perhaps find some optimization flaws and tell us what to fix.

How to find the most relevant page on a website. Sometimes you need to find a page on your website that is relevant to a particular query. This is done through an advanced site search. We go to Yandex, to the advanced search, enter our request and the site url and click find. The first page will be the most relevant according to Yandex.

Good day, dear readers! Do you think it’s unrealistic to get to the top of search results and increase traffic by at least 30%? Then you need to learn what relevance is and learn how to use it. You will learn further about how to do this and distinguish irrelevant content from relevant content.

Relevance(English relevant - relevant, suitable in meaning) - this is the correspondence of the page content to the search query. This means that it affects the site’s position in search results.

The meaning of the word in general terms is the coincidence of results and expectations.

Relevance Theory: “Useful content satisfies information needs.”

Example. I enter into the search “How to glue wallpaper yourself.” After a second, a list of links opens that should answer the request. The relevant material is considered to be a master class in wallpapering, and the irrelevant material is the choice of wall covering and handyman services.

If you search on the Internet for “Napoleon cake,” the correct answer will be a culinary page with recipes, but the biography of the French commander will be inappropriate.

Irrelevant traffic is visitors who do not take targeted actions. They came to the site by accident.

How does a search engine check relevance?

Previously, the search engine checked the quality of the page based on the text - calculated. The method was not protected from cheating. Cunning SEOs spammed the right words, as a result, the search results became clogged, and users remained dissatisfied.

I divide the technology for determining relevance into two stages.

First stage. Search engine employees - assessors - check pages manually according to the manual. They include good sites in the indexing list of search robots. Their algorithms differ for different categories of sites. For example, if an online store has a “Delivery” and “Payment” section, they give it a plus sign.

What assessment can assessors give to the site:

• meets all criteria
• relevant page with technical flaws,
• the material partially matches the request,
• irrelevant content or spam.

Second phase. Machine learning is the creation of algorithms based on examples.

Let's say 1 million people sent a list of their favorite movies to the system. These are examples. Artificial intelligence finds what unites them. Finds out that people love movies with familiar actors. As a result, if you like “Terminator” with Arnold Schwarzenegger, you will be offered to watch “The Running Man” with the same actor.

The algorithms are loaded into computers that do the indexing.

For automatic verification, Yandex uses machine learning technology – Matrixnet. You can add new algorithms and complex indexing formulas to it without reducing search speed.

Simplified formula: Relevant = PageRank or TCI * (text relevance + link ranking level).

We list the internal indicators that affect relevance:

1. Key frequency. A word density of more than 4% is considered overspam.
2. Availability of synonyms.
3. Title tag. Should look natural and contain the main key.
4. Heading and subheadings. Keys, errors and readability are important.
5. Entry of keys. They should not be entered crookedly, keep them readable. For example, bad: “sew a light knitted skirt.” Good: “how to sew a light knitted skirt.”
6. img tag attributes. Do not repeat, natural word form.
7. Internal and thematic links.
8. Availability .
9. Usability. Pages load quickly and the site is easy to navigate.
10. URL structure.
11. Date the page was last modified.
12. Robots.txt and sitemap.xml files.
13. Structure of the article. The reader immediately finds the information he needs.

49% of visitors close a website if it doesn't load in 5 seconds. And behavioral factors have a great impact on the quality of promotion.

The level of relevance also depends on external factors:

• external linking,
• rating of donor sites,
• authority of the reference mass - PageRank or TCI,
• number of visitors,
• traffic sources,
• duration of page viewing (at least 40 seconds),
• bounce rate,
• conversions,
• regionality,
• page scrolling.

The length of the article is a conditional factor. If you managed to answer a user's question using only 400 characters, why bother?

Classification

Relevance stages:

• formal – verification was carried out using machine algorithms;
• content - assessors read, review the content and decide whether it meets the user's needs;
• Pertinent – ​​content completely solves the problem and answers the user’s question.

The last level is the ultimate dream of a webmaster and SEO specialist.

What happens to irrelevant material?

When suitable content appears on request, the search engine gets rid of the garbage. A site with irrelevant material is first demoted in search results, and if black and gray optimization methods are discovered, it is no longer indexed. In simple terms, your page is removed from search.

3 Best Tools for Relevance Analysis

You don’t need to guess with a daisy to know how a search engine will evaluate your material. Popular online services check text or pages for relevance in 10 seconds. Detailed statistics show the strengths and weaknesses of your content.

I'm used to using Istio and Megaindex. They have never let me down.

Istio

Istio shows relevance for individual words for free and without registration. In addition, you will recognize nausea, wateriness, spelling errors, and length of text.

Do you want to check the material before publication? Copy the text and paste it into the work area. And click on the “Text Analysis” button.

Download the article directly from the website page by clicking “Advanced form”.

Paste the URL and select “Add all text”.

Want to know how relevant your content is? Click “Isolate Keys” to see the results.

By default, we see the relevance percentage without stop words. I advise you to look at the results taking them into account. They should not overlap the keys.

These are the analysis results shown by the service. What happened to you? Write in the comments.

MegaIndex is 12 tools that deeply analyze a website, making it better. To start enjoying the benefits of the service, you need to register. There is no authorization through social networks; you will have to register the old fashioned way via e-mail.

Go to the main page, click “Registration” in the upper right corner.

Enter the query you are promoting and the page address. Click “Check” and wait for the results.

We were 25% short. What we missed can be seen by clicking on any of the criteria in the right list or at the bottom of the page.

We see that our content meets most of the requirements.

Now try to find out the relevance of the pages on your site. Share your results in the comments.

PR-CY

PR-CY is inferior to MegaIndex. There is no detailed analysis of errors. A beginner will not understand what to fix. But relevance is assessed by three parts of the text separately: title, heading, subheadings.

No registration required. Just select the “Content Analysis” section, enter keywords and a link.

Why do irrelevant pages appear in search results?

The effectiveness of black hat and gray hat SEO methods decreases with each search algorithm update. But as long as they produce results, they continue to be used. Sometimes, when you search through a bunch of links in the hope of finding the information you need, you come across doorways that redirect to an unknown destination.

When I was looking for reviews about a maternity hospital in my area, I often came across suspicious websites. The description and title contained the necessary information, but after the transition, pages with promotions and online casinos opened. So you can catch the virus.

The problem of lack of information

There are still low-frequency queries without relevant content on the network. The search engine strives to answer any question. Showing: “Nothing was found for your request” is a shame for him. The lack of quality content will force you to produce information that is at least 1% consistent with the request.

Try entering any nonsense into the search bar. A list of links will open to you. True, you will not always find what you asked for.

Cheating visitors

Search algorithms are still far from perfect, so black hat optimization still works in some niches. Bad SEO specialists: spam, buy links, create pages for automatic redirection. Such methods are more often used in entertainment, where there is no strict control.

How to increase relevance: improving content and website

Let’s be honest, everyone wants to rank at the top of search results, and relevance is the main way to get there.

How to increase relevance?

1. Compose the title correctly. The first part contains the main key. Keep the word form natural. For example, “Treatment of dermatitis in cats” is better written as “Treatment of dermatitis in cats: 10 proven methods.”
2. Structure the article. Break the material into subheadings

   –

   . The higher the subheading level, the more impact it has on relevance.

3. Maintain uniqueness. At least 95% on Etxt Anti-plagiarism, Advego, or Text.ru.
4. Don’t get carried away with the keys, dilute the text according to its meaning. The normal level of academic nausea is 7.5% for text and 2.5% for words.
5. Write the main key in the URL in Latin letters. For example, “How to come up with a title” at http://...kak-pridumat-zagolovok/.
6. Add synonyms and thematic words. displaces SEO. Are you writing an article about losing weight using folk remedies? Don’t forget the words that give direction to the text: weight loss, extra pounds, traditional medicine, at home - they will come in very handy.
7. Don't put everything in bold. The search robot will think that you are spamming.
8. Insert 3–4 links to other articles on the site that are similar in meaning.
9. Follow the design. An article with images, tables, and lists is easier to read than an impenetrable wall of words. This will have a positive impact on behavioral factors.
10. Add keys to the image attribute .
11. In the keywords meta tag, indicate 3–5 key phrases that you are using to promote.
12. Evenly distribute additional keys throughout the text, incline and dilute them. No more than 5 key phrases per 1,000 characters.
13. Avoid grammatical and semantic errors.
14. Make sure that the main key is present in the first paragraph.

Technical points worth working on:

1. Selecting donors for external linking with a high rating.
2. Quality, loading speed of hosting.
3. The presence of mirrors on the site if the server is overloaded.

Without meeting these criteria, the content will not become popular.

Conclusion

Relevance is a copywriter’s talent for revealing the meaning of a search query in an article. A visitor visits the site and realizes: “This is it!” Learn to express your thoughts concisely and readers will follow you, and so will your customers. Our programs will help speed up learning and improve its quality. Sign up before the price goes up.

Are you good at writing relevant articles? I look forward to your answers in the comments.