Keyword Significance
-
I am seeing some very interesting changes in our non-branded keywords, and am curious to know how keyword significance in Google Webmaster Tools plays into ranking of a site. Say for example we are a photography website selling photography supplies. At one point our most significant word was Canon, but now it is photography. Would that mean that we would start seeing a lot of non-branded keywords generating from Google like "camera strap", "camera lens hood", etc. This is really good for us, but curious to know if the only reason we are seeing this is the shift in our keyword significance. Any insight? Thanks!
-
Thanks Dan. Actually, it is exactly what our site is about, and we are getting ranked for all kinds of non-branded keywords. Happy days! I didn't think of the indexing possibility and tipping the scale. I'd be interested to hear what else people say. Thanks again!
-
Hi
Maybe someone can confirm this, but I believe this is google looking at the content on your site, and telling you according to your content, what keywords are most significant. And I believe this is measured by the number of times each word occurs, site-wide (if you click on each word in the list, it will give you the number of occurrences and the pages). SO, one of two things could have happened in your case:
1. Your content changed significantly enough, that the number of occurrences of each word changed, thus shifting around the order.
2. Google indexed new pages that were previously not indexed, which tipped the scales enough in one direction or another, and this changed word occurrence as far as what Google was aware of.
As far as rankings, I don't think its as simple as "higher occurrence=higher ranking" - there are a lot of other factors that come into play with ranking.
So I would take this list as Google telling you "this is what we think you're saying your site is about". If you're getting words in the top of the list that make you say "well, that's not really what my site is about", you may want to consider doing something to fix that.
-Dan
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
-
Why some websites can rank the keywords they don't have in the page?
Hello guys, Yesterday, I used SEMrush to search for the keyword "branding agency" to see the SERP. The Liquidagency ranks 5th on the first page. So I went to their homepage but saw no exact keywords "branding agency", even in the page source. Also, I didn't see "branding agency" as a top anchor text in the external links to the page (from the report of SEMrush). I am an SEO newbie, can someone explain this to me, please? Thank you.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Raymondlee0 -
Why my website disappears for the keywords ranked, then reappears and so on?
Hello to everyone. In the last 2 weeks my website emorroidi.imieirimedinaturali.it has a strange behavior in SERP: it disappears for the keywords ranked and then reappears, and so on. Here's the chronicle of the last days: 12/6: message in GWT: Improvement of the visibility of the website in search. 12/6 the website disappears for all the keywords ranked 16/6 the website reappears for all the keywords ranked with some keywords higher in ranking 18/6 the website disappears for all the keywords ranked 22/6 the website reappears for all the keywords ranked 24/6 the website disappears for all the keywords ranked... I can't explain this situation. Could it be a penalty? What Kind? Thank you.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | emarketer0 -
Weird Page switch for a keyword in Google Rankings
Over this past weekend Google switched the page which usually showed in search results for keyword benchmarking. It went from from http://www.apqc.org/benchmarking to http://www.apqc.org/benchmarking-portal/osb. Also on Google the Rankings for the keyword 'benchmarking' sank from 15 to 47 for http://www.apqc.org/benchmarking Just looking for some theories or ideas or anyone that has had this happen to them.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | inhouseninja0 -
Impact of Domain Authority on Keyword ranking
Experts Please advise if there is any impact on Keyword rankings due to high or low Domain authority?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | INN0 -
Image Alt tags--always include the targeted keyword?
Question for all the SEO's out there. Do you always include your target keyword in the image alt tag? For example, if you had an article on osteoarthritis, and you included a photo of an old man, would you put "old man on a bench" or "old man suffering from osteoarthritis" -- even though you have no idea if the old man suffers from osteoarthritis?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0 -
Can I rank for 3 keyword phrases using one long tial Keyword Phrase?
I am new to seo and still getting my head around long tail searches. If i use a phrase such as "luxury towels uk", Can i also rank on the same page for "luxury towels" and "towels uk"? Tui means ranking for 3 phrases using 1 long tail
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Towelsrus0 -
How important is sticking to an exact keyword?
The latest article I'm writing for my site is "Friends With Benefits Rules"... So the first part of my question is, what does SEOMoz advocate as being the ideal # of times to include the entire key phrase in the article? I know nobody but Google knows for certain, but is 4 (including in H1's etc.) generally considered enough, other than in the page title? Second part is, what is the consensus about how important is it to stick to the exact keyword? For the example I gave, is it just as good to include a comma, E.g. "...friends with benefits, rules..." or a hyphen "Friends with Benefits - Rules for..."? One thing I'm unclear about on this topic is stop words and plurals. I've been told before that Google ignores stop words, but results for searches with or without the word "how," for example produce very different results... Same thing with plurals. In any case, all of the above is assuming that the quality of the content would not be affected in either case...
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | corp08030 -
Improving keyword stuffing and site menu
I'm doing some work on http://flyawaysimulation.com/ and would like some tips to avoid keyword stuffing for the term "flight simulator" on this page. Currently, there are about 42 occurrences of the term "flight simulator" on this page - which is above the SEOmoz 15 term recommended limit. However, looking at the page - they have used the term fairly and it doesn't appear that "inappropriate". Could you guys have a look and let me know your thoughts? What can be done? Where can the repetitions be removed from without hurting internal SEO? Also, from an SEO standpoint how could we improve the site menu? For example, if the word "downloads" were removed from the Downloads-->FSX Downloads, FS2004 Downloads, X-Plane Downloads menu (for example just FSX, FS2004, X-Plane) to remove repetition of the phrase - would engines understand that those are "Downloads" because of it being under the "Downloads" drop down list? Your thoughts, suggestions and ideas are greatly appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Peter2640