Understanding Google New Algorithm

How Google knows what my page is all about?

In most of my recent articles, I often said that you shouldn't care anymore about keyword density inside your content, and that putting your keywords here and there in your content doesn't work anymore because of Google new algorithm.

I think it is time for me to explain you in details what it is all about.
How Google used to identify your content

Keywords used to be very important for it was almost the sole factor used by the search engines to identify what your content was all about. Simply put, the more often you where using the keyword and thus the more often Google could find it in your content, the more it was likely that your content was highly related.

But time have changed, and not only Internet is a fast moving industry, it is no secret that Google has the funding capacities to cope with them.

And they did. Google has kept improving its algorithm making it more and more intelligent to a point that it's no longer "just a computer".
Google new algorithm patent

There are two major improvements in the Google algorithm:

* Related Search Suggestions.
* Word Association.

Related Search Suggestions

Related Search Suggestions used to be very dull. You'd be typing search term such as "SEO" and it would offer you related suggestions such as "SEO Companies" or "SEO Help" for example.

With its new algorithm, Google is now able to offer suggestion such as "Keyword Research", "Inbound Linking", or "URL Canonicalization".

That's right; Google is now able to categorized content and understand how it fits within a bigger picture. Knowing this certainly has several implications when it comes to SEO.

The structure of your site and the way you organize your content is very important! Although that concept has been taught over and over in SEO, but the 3 tiers level structure application is required more than ever for proper SEO:

* Tier 1: Main Concept of your site.
* Tier 2: Main Categories of your niche.
* Tier 3: Detailed Content within each category.

Words Association

Remember when I told you that search engines used to refer to keywords in order to identify the content of your site. Well here's the next major change! Google has improved its words association algorithms and your content is no longer defined by your keywords alone, but with which words they are associated within your content and within your site and linking network!

Take the word "apple" for instance. Google will now be looking for other words within your content or linking content for other words that would help Google understand better what your content is all about.

If it finds words like "fruit" or "tree", it will then consider that you are talking about the fruit apple. On the other hand, if it found words in your content or linking content such as "information technology" or "computer" it will then associate the word to Macintosh computer.

This is a huge change that has tremendous implications when it comes to SEO!

Obviously using keywords alone doesn't work anymore! You have to use related terms too, and not only in your page, but within your site and you must be careful who you link to as part of their content will be used to establish the relevancy and words association within your content!

And you know what; Google is not stopped to that!

Here's the next step:
Smart Search Engine

People type less and small keywords, but tend to be enticed to actually type questions in the search box (I know, I do that too sometimes) when looking for information as if they were expecting Google to know the answer like "How to change this into that?" or "How to change the tag of the picture using dreamweaver?", etc...

The fact is Google doesn't understand our questions, it simply analyzes the words and then spill out the search results bluntly.

But this may just change soon!

Google is working on a way to get its search engine to be able to "interpret" the real nature of your query and actually return an actual solution rather than keyword related results!

From a SEO point of view, there seems to be a potential growing business source by working your content more as a FAQ format rather than just as a simple keyword optimization.
In Conclusion

Times are changing and keywords in content no longer work, it's all doctrine. It may be hard for some people to admit, but as true as we know now that the earth is not flat, what you need to do in order to get a good SERP has changed to.

Either you cope with the change and stay on board; either you get left behind wondering why your site is not ranking well. The choice is yours.

If you have any question, don't hesitate to ask, I'm here to help.