Can a page be 100% topically relevant to a search query?
-
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!
-
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....
-
Well said, Russ, especially for a "mathy" answer. I am curious, though, would this "ideal document" you describe have a specific word count?
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
- Google's algorithm changes daily. What's perfect today may not be perfect tomorrow.
- 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.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
What tools and metrics do you use to show a topic's search interest over time?
I have a foundation repair client that is down in leads for the structural repair portion of their business. They have not lost any major rankings, but leads are down compared to last year. They asked if people are searching for this type of work less this year compared to last. I checked Google Trends and Keyword Planner data but found very different results. Is either of these tools accurate, or is there a better tool to use?
Algorithm Updates | | DigitalDivision1 -
Why different pages rank in different countries?
Hi all, I have been investigating on why our log-in page is ranking for primary keyword, but not our homepage. I can see now homepage is ranking from our second important country. I wonder why and what causes to rank different pages in different countries for same keyword. Again the statistics does not vary much between these countries. Thnaks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Search Results Above Adwords
Hi, Can anyone help me in understanding the results which are appearing above adwords in the screenshot below. These are the knowledge graph results or something else. strip_zpsmxsufx55.png.html
Algorithm Updates | | SameerBhatia0 -
Big hit taken on Google Search in Jan - Any Ideas?
Hello, I manage a news site that gets new items posted daily. We had had a pretty even keel with Google search and ranking for some time now only on the 9th Jan we took a massive drop and have no recovered except for one big spike on the 29th January. The only think we had done differently was not post as much over Christmas for about a week as people were on holiday but if this was the reason for it the posting is back to normal now and has been since the 6th Jan and nothing has recovered. The site is wjlondon.com - any ideas greatly appreciated. Thank you
Algorithm Updates | | luwhosjack0 -
Do you think Google is destroying search?
I've seen garbage in google results for some time now, but it seems to be getting worse. I was just searching for a line of text that was in one of our stories from 2009. I just wanted to check that story and I didn't have a direct link. So I did the search and I found one copy of the story, but it wasn't on our site. I knew that it was on the other site as well as ours, because the writer writes for both publications. What I expected to see was the two results, one above the other, depending on which one had more links or better on-page for the query. What I got didn't really surprise me, but I was annoyed. In #1 position was the other site, That was OK by me, but ours wasn't there at all. I'm almost used to that now (not happy about it and trying to change it, but not doing well at all, even after 18 months of trying) What really made me angry was the garbage results that followed. One site, a wordpress blog, has tag pages and category pages being indexed. I didn't count them all but my guess is about 200 results from this blog, one after the other, most of them tag pages, with the same content on every one of them. Then the tag pages stopped and it started with dated archive pages, dozens of them. There were other sites, some with just one entry, some with dozens of tag pages. After that, porn sites, hundreds of them. I got right to the very end - 100 pages of 10 results per page. That blog seems to have done everything wrong, yet it has interesting stats. It is a PR6, yet Alexa ranks it 25,680,321. It has the same text in every headline. Most of the headlines are very short. It has all of the category and tag and archive pages indexed. There is a link to the designer's website on every page. There is a blogroll on every page, with links out to 50 sites. None of the pages appear to have a description. there are dozens of empty H2 tags and the H1 tag is 80% through the document. Yet google lists all of this stuff in the results. I don't remember the last time I saw 100 pages of results, it hasn't happened in a very long time. Is this something new that google is doing? What about the multiple tag and category pages in results - Is this just a special thing google is doing to upset me or are you seeing it too? I did eventually find my page, but not in that list. I found it by using site:mysite.com in the search box.
Algorithm Updates | | loopyal0 -
Can you be both penalised and uplifted in SERPS?
hello everyone, We've literally had dozens of high ranking pages which are location specific, wiped out of the Google.co.uk SERPs. Can't imagine that it is anything other than a manual penalty but no message has been sent by Google. For example "campervan hire surrey" would produce our surrey page at the top of the SERP, now this page has completely disappeared. On the other hand, we have been promoted on national keywords like "vw campervan hire" and "campervan hire" where we are second and third. Does anyone agree that this is a penalty?
Algorithm Updates | | swimwithfishes0 -
Very Strange Search Results!
Having just done a search on Google.co.uk for 'payday loans' I am baffled as to why the top two organic results (image attached) are even associated to the keyword. The KW isn't present in the title, metas, or content. Nor do any backlinks use relevant anchor text. I'm guessing this is an algorithmic 'f*ck up', do you agree? uGdk7Cw92Rme
Algorithm Updates | | Webpresence0 -
How did my Page Authority and Page Rank disappear?
I've hit a problem. A couple days ago my site's page authority was 51 and the PR was 3 and now they're 1 and 0 respectively. The developer did adjust some of the code in the site in the past couple days but that shouldn't have affected this. It was last cached by Google on the 5th. Can anyone offer some good advice? If it helps the page is www.duracard.com
Algorithm Updates | | Andrea.G0