According to wholevehicles.com, the semantic analysis is based on linguistic foundations and relates to the context of the meaning of a word. This relationship is becoming more and more important in search engines: The user should get results from his search queries that correspond to the subject area of the search term and thus also better meet the searcher’s intention.
A semantic map – determining the subject of a page
During the semantic analysis of a website, the topic of the page is determined from many “pieces of the puzzle”. So Google does not simply look at how often a certain word occurs, but rather examines whether the “trappings” are also correct, ie to what extent the other terms on the page match the subject area of the search term. The more terms from the topic area appear on the page, the more relevant it appears to Google for the respective search term.
But user behavior is also included in the semantic analysis. The fact that almost exclusively delivery services are displayed after entering the word “pizza” is due to the fact that most users searched for a pizza delivery service with this entry. The search behavior, i.e. the combination of entering the search word and subsequent clicks, also has an effect. In addition, Google accesses the user’s web log in order to provide him with suitable results, especially when it comes to ambiguous terms such as “pine” or “bouquet”.
As described above, Google classifies certain search terms according to a purchase or information intention. You can therefore read from a keyword input in which “direction” the search results are going and, if necessary, adapt your page to the correct target.
Further information on search intentions: What is the search intention? how do you identify these for keywords?
The Humminbird update – new algorithm for semantic search
A very big step in terms of semantic analysis and semantic search was made with the Hummingbird update in August 2013. This update aims to better understand the user’s intention in order to be able to provide him with a better search result in return. With Hummingbird, Google no longer “sees” the search term / phrase alone, but “interprets” it and puts it into context. This relationship delivers results that are more specifically geared to the search intent of the user.
In the end, the semantic analysis should result in personalizing the search results, to put it simply: Each user receives his own results, tailored to him, depending on the context he “delivers”. This is particularly interesting when using mobile devices.
Additional information:
Google Hummingbird Update
Don’t think in terms of keywords! What or how then?
Semantic SEO – website content in context
For SEO, semantic analysis means that pages should not be optimized simply for a keyword, but for the subject area. This is possible, for example, through the WDF * IDF optimization of the content. Here, the entire text content of the pages that rank best for a keyword is examined with regard to the occurrence of common terms that appear in connection with the keyword.
The semantic analysis can also help with finding topics or finding cooperation partners, for example by creating “term clouds”, eg garden – plants, pots, beds, garden furniture, garden shed, pond, arbor, fruit trees, etc. You should also use synonymous terms use for the central words in order to appeal to a larger group of users.
The future of search results
The semantics of a page will become more and more important for search engines in the future. Google no longer relies on individual terms, but evaluates the pages in the overall context. Because in the end this also offers a better result for the user: If all the content of the page, image descriptions, category texts, product or service descriptions etc. fit into the semantic context of the search term, then it is also much more likely that the search result will answer or. fulfills the wishes of the user.
In addition, search engines should in future be able to correctly “interpret” queries from complete sentences and recognize the intentions of the user.
