When talking about search engines, experts very often refer to the term “relevance”. At the level of intuition, its meaning is clear to everyone.
At its core, relevance is how relevant a particular document or text is to a user's query. Roughly speaking, the more accurately the content answers the user’s question, the higher its level of relevance for this request.
How it works?
How does a relevant result differ from an irrelevant result? This is easiest to understand by looking at a simple life example.
So, you are a schoolboy or student who has been asked to write an essay on a certain topic. Few people these days spend hours in the library searching and analyzing all the information. After all, it is much easier to find a suitable job online, perhaps change it a little and pass it off as the result of your work. Let's leave moral issues aside and look at this from a different point of view.
What do you need to find first? Absolutely right: a site where ready-made abstracts are published. You open a search engine page (be it Google, Yandex or any other) and enter the word “abstracts” in the search bar. The search engine instantly scans the database of indexed pages and finds in it links to about 8 million different pages, on which the word we need occurs a total of 30 million times.
It should be noted that the search engine finds this word both on the page of the “Bank of Abstracts” website and on the Twitter account of Katya, unknown to us, who “was writing an abstract all night and wants to sleep.”
This is where the concept of “relevant” comes into play. This means that the search engine determines which link is most likely to interest the user. That is why we see a link to the “Bank of Abstracts” already on the first page (it better matches the request), and a lonely post on Twitter dedicated to the ups and downs of Katya’s life remains somewhere on the ...-tenth pages, although the word “abstract” is also present in it .
Now that you have a general idea and relevant search, you can move on to the more interesting parts.
Why does your site need relevant material?
Of course, modern search engines are imperfect and, by resorting to certain tricks, you can promote even irrelevant pages for a certain query. In practice, you have most likely encountered this more than once: for example, you searched for results for the query “buy a washing machine,” and the search engine directed you to a page where the history of the creation of this unit is described.
What do you do in such a situation? Close the site and continue searching.
If your articles are irrelevant to certain key queries, visitors to your resource will not stay on it either.
In addition to this, the presence of relevant content on a page significantly speeds up its progress and helps improve its position in the overall ranking.
In fact, thanks to it, you increase site traffic, create a positive reputation for your resource and, as a result, increase your income level.
The most effective tips for creating relevant pages for your website!
First of all, you need to determine the key queries that are suitable for the selected site page. The more accurate they are, the better. That is, if we are talking about an online store page where you can order a kettle, it is more logical to promote it according to relevant requests. For example: “buy a kettle”, “online store of kettles”, etc. Of course, you won’t lie to your visitors if you use phrases like “kitchenware” or “buy kitchen utensils”. But then, in addition to your potential clients who really want to get a new kettle, people who, to put it mildly, do not need it at all, will also go to the site.
So how do you create truly effective, highly relevant content?
1. Create a competent title. This tag contains the title of the page. It should be as vivid, original and accurately describe the information presented on the page itself. To do this, your main keyword must be present in the title.
Example: if you are promoting a page for the query “Indian tea”, then the title may look something like this: “History of Indian tea”, “Buy the most delicious Indian tea with discounts”, etc., depending on the main material.
2. Enter keywords. This is a separate point in the page code, indicating for what queries it should be promoted, a kind of “beacon” for search engines. There is no need to get carried away and write down dozens of words, phrases and their combinations: the optimal number of keywords is from 3 to 5.
3. Come up with a description. Description is a brief description of the page that performs 2 functions at once: it promotes more effective search engine promotion and shows users what the article is about. There are several “golden rules” for compiling such descriptions:
- It is desirable that the entire description consist of 2 sentences;
- at the beginning of the first sentence, as well as in the middle or end of the second, you can insert a keyword;
- if it is not possible to use it in its exact form, you can change them morphologically.
The main thing here, as in the entire process of creating relevant content, is naturalness.
4. Headings and subheadings. Don't neglect them. Firstly, a structured article looks much better and is easier to read. Secondly, by including main and additional relevant phrases in the h1, h2, h3 tags, you can make the right accents and improve the page’s position in search engines.
5. Use pictures! Illustrated material is always more relevant. This means that of two articles similar in topic and volume, one of which will have thematic images attached, the latter has a greater chance of being in the TOP of the search engine. In order to achieve this, you need to write a description of each image (alt attribute). It is also advisable to use selected key queries in it.
Please note that if there are several images on the page, the alt descriptions should not be the same!
Let's talk about the “filling” of the text
Everything is simple here. The text should correspond to the topic of key queries and the page itself. In addition, its information content matters. After reading it, the visitor should gain some useful information for himself and find answers to his questions. Only in this case can the word “relevant” be applied to the text.
This applies specifically to the “human” face of your material. But there is another side, because our goal is to please not only users, but also search engines.
What matters here is the harmonious occurrence of key phrases (both in exact and inflected form). For greater weight, it is recommended to enclose them in a tag.
Your article should be neither too short (less than 400 words) nor too long (more than 2000 words). Although the main emphasis should be on information content. If you managed to cover the entire issue in 1500 characters, you should not waste time trying to bring the text volume to the required size.
How to find out the relevance of a page?
Most domestic SEO experts use the convenient MegaIndex service. It allows you not only to find out the relevance of the page as a percentage, but also to get a lot of additional useful information. For example, with its help you will learn about what negatively affects the level of relevance of a page and what needs to be corrected to make it more attractive to users and bots.
Hello! In this article we analyze what relevance is, consider its types and calculation algorithms. I’ll tell you about relevant search results and methods for improving the relevance of a website page.
This will allow you to more confidently promote pages and improve your site for search. After reading this article, you will rise to another level in the difficult task of creating and promoting websites, as well as making money on the Internet.
The role of relevance in the work of search engines
In order to confidently promote certain pages on request to the top, novice webmasters, optimizers and bloggers must know how Yandex and Google work. The ranking of pages by relevance in search engines is based on algorithms; in Yandex, this is Matrixnet machine learning technology. In addition, the results of a query are sometimes finalized by assessors, and these smallest factors are also reflected in the algorithm. In general, Matrixnet is a fairly effective system:
Let's move on to the search work. An Internet user needs information - he has formed a personal idea in his mind of what kind of information it is and what exactly it contains. He goes to the search, formulates a search query and writes it into the search bar. The search generates results for it, ranking site pages in order, taking into account the algorithm’s processing of the “weight” of articles that have the highest relevance in the opinion of the search engine. How Matrixnet works in Yandex:
Then the user follows the links and evaluates what was “slipped” to him. Let’s say that he opens up to ten links or only one, does not open the first one (because Wikipedia is there, and Wikipedia is not what the user needs), clarifies the query or enters another one (several times), or leaves the search. Studying behavioral factors while tracking the user allows the search engine to make sure that the search results contain links to relevant web pages. But the main focus of search is relevance. So, first, let’s give a definition of relevance (relevant in English means “related to the matter”), then we’ll look at examples of how to find it.
What is relevance
Relevance is a quantitative indicator of how well the sought, desired result corresponds to what was found. Does the information retrieval system respond to the user’s request completely or does it not satisfy the interest or need that has arisen and, thus, forces it to return to the search results?
Relevance is a parameter of compliance with user expectations correlated with the information actually received on the site page; it is a measure of how close a search engine is to “guessing” a user’s desire for information by ranking tens of thousands of pages.
The main task of a search engine as a service is to produce relevant results for the user; the task of a webmaster when promoting a site based on semantic core queries is to ensure that the search engine perceives these pages as relevant. At the same time, the optimizer can work on both new pages and old ones. If the search engine considers them insufficiently relevant, it is necessary to work on the pages: determine compliance with queries, promote with internal and external links, and work on the page itself.
What are the types of relevance?
Strictly speaking, we can talk about three types of relevance:
- site page relevance
- search relevance (search results)
- link relevance
Let's highlight 3 parameters that affect the relevance of the page:
- number and variations of phrases matching the query
- ratio and number of internal links to this page
- ratio and number of external links to this page
If we are talking about the relevance of a page, then it reflects the evaluation of the article by search algorithms for compliance with the query entered by the user. At the same time, for a number of queries (which the user enters without detailed clarification), it is very difficult to get ahead of what the user needs. Therefore, when requesting “composing a semantic core”, services or instructions can be shown; in addition, video instructions from Youtube are included in the results. Or the request “site” - it’s normal that the PS is not able to immediately determine what the user needs. The accumulation and analysis of statistics, big data and user satisfaction analysis come to help.
Formal relevance is algorithmically and automatically calculated by search engines - the search robot collects data from the page, web document and uses a formula to determine whether the page is relevant or not.
Such “technical relevance” of a page is very easy to manipulate by creating doorways or sites for search engine spam, so search algorithms include other factors for ranking site pages in search: relevance of information and frequency of site updates, trust, behavioral and social factors.
If we are talking about search relevance, then this is an indicator of how much the displayed search results will satisfy the user. The ideal option is when the results page in the form of 10 results meets the user's need for information by providing relevant links to sites. For a number of queries, the search results contain links to a variety of results: encyclopedias, question and answer services, articles and official sites, pictures, videos, as well as direct inclusion of answers (tips) to user questions in the search results.
An example of a search engine’s response to a user’s question - in this case, the user does not even have to go to the sites, he receives all the necessary information “first-hand” (from the search engine):
Subsequently, manual labor is also used to assess the quality of the search - paid assessors, outsourced assessors through the Yandex.Toloka service. In addition, search results include elements for direct interaction with the user, so that he can evaluate the quality of the search himself or complain about an irrelevant site in the search results. In Yandex, you can “complain” about a result and it looks like this (you can file a complaint about an irrelevant result in the search results or about an irrelevant search result):
Well, the time has not yet come for a mass inducement of users to clear the search results themselves.
Now about the links. A relevant link is a link whose anchor matches the content on the page or the content of both pages is semantically and thematically related. If a link leads from a site with a similar topic, and the text is weakly relevant, then the link is simply called a thematic link. Such links can be anchor or non-anchor. The best links are relevant, leading from thematic sites. It’s very good if users still click on them.
How to determine the relevance of a website page in search
To determine relevance, use advanced search or query language. You can enter the site operator into the search the old-fashioned way:
This is what happens in search when the site has not yet published an article about relevance. After some time, the text you are reading will become relevant for this request. Why will this happen? Because the total relevance indicator of this page calculated by the PS will be higher than that of others (the articles indicated in the screenshots are irrelevant, I think this is obvious).
You can also do “relevance analysis” in SEO services like megaindex, but these are redundant actions if you initially work on a prepared semantic core and create a new website.
How to improve the relevance of a website page in search
As you remember, we can work on content, internal and external links. Do not neglect any of the ways to increase this parameter. Relatively speaking, different pages can meet three relevance parameters, but the most relevant will be the one that meets three at once. And the webmaster’s task is to build the site in such a way that the search engine uniquely identifies all pages. The recommendations are simple:
1. Work with text relevance
There's no magic here. First, improve the page if it does not sufficiently match the request or group of requests: add content (text, video, photo); or rework the content, because the articles are becoming outdated, and some are poorly written from the start.
Secondly, start working on the site by drawing up a semantic core - so that the pages published on the site are written for groups of similar mid- and low-frequency queries. And at the same time they were not duplicated and did not confuse the search robot!
Thirdly, this is not said out loud, but “correct comments” on an article are also relevant text, especially if it significantly complements the article. For example this:
This is also content and it is also on the web page, because search engines know what users write and read comments.
The remaining recipes for improving relevance in general come down to banal internal optimization: correct CNC links, correct optimization of Title, H1, H2 headings, general text semantics (LSI), working with snippets, using content, citations and footnotes.
In terms of text semantics, typical errors are as follows: occurrences of keywords (exact or morphological forms) are either too few or too many. This applies to paragraph and text (post) boundaries.
2. Work with in-link relevance
If the internal (textual) relevance of the page does not reach the point of being placed in the top in the eyes of the PS, then you can give it additional weight with internal links. By linking pages to each other, we show PS - look at the relevant page for a given anchor (context in a paragraph).
After some time, the search robot crawls and calculates the relevance for the page in a new way, taking into account internal links. And the relevance of the landing page increased.
3. Work with external link relevance.
In short, we look at who is linking to us and where, and in some cases we ask you to correct the links. In the case of purchased links, we order the anchors we need (in the case of articles, relevant text). We leave thematic comments on other blogs, placing in it a non-anchor link to our site in the appropriate context.
Special magic is when users themselves share links to your site (or page), as a rule, this is not done inappropriately, but always occurs in a certain context of discussion, which means such a link is quite relevant. So write quality content, make sites so useful that users themselves bookmark the pages and then share these links.
As a result
The rule for strengthening relevance is this: in the first place is text and textual relevance, in second place is intra-site relevance and internal linking, in third place are external links that increase relevance in comparison with the pages of competing sites.
And don’t forget that the relevance of the page in the eyes of the PS is not enough for the user to be highly convertible and perform a targeted action on your website. For example, in commerce it often happens that a page has good relevance and traffic, but low conversion - because it does not meet the user's expectations. What is the point in such users who come and leave with nothing? This won’t work, we need work on the site.
Material from the most complete encyclopedia of Internet marketing in RuNet
What is content relevance
Content relevance- the factor that has the strongest influence on the process of building search engine results. Previously, to determine the relevance of the PS text, only the number of key phrases present in it that exactly matched the query was taken into account. Moreover, with an increase in the number of repetitions, the position of the document increased. Optimizers took advantage of this feature. Previously, the TOP often featured irrelevant pages or documents with spammed content that was not only difficult to read, but also not useful for users. In 2017, when determining the relevance of content, search engines use complex algorithms and take into account many factors.
Basic criteria for content relevance
Keyword Density and Form
Keyword density is the frequency of a query being used in a text. The optimal indicator that will satisfy both Yandex and Google is 3–7%. If the number of keys exceeds the maximum allowed value, the document's position will be demoted. “Overspammed” texts will be subject to sanctions. Materials that contain only direct occurrences of the query will not receive high relevance. Search engines will consider such texts useless. Use word forms and break up phrases by adding relevant clarifications.
Naturalness and usefulness
To increase the relevance of the content, it is important that the entered queries look as natural as possible. Keywords need to be evenly distributed throughout the text. The page content should answer the user's question as completely as possible. An article containing unnecessary or irrelevant information will not be ranked highly by search engines.
Relevant headings and building blocks
Headings, if possible, should contain keywords and necessary clarifications related to the content of the structural blocks. for each of them you need to select the appropriate keys. For example, an article about installing a corrugated fence with your own hands, in which most queries contain “buy”, “cost”, “from the manufacturer”, etc., will be irrelevant. It is advisable to place the main key as close to the beginning of the text/structural block as possible. Search engines display the title and part of the paragraph below it, highlighting the words that are included in the query. One effective technique is content structuring. It involves creating article content (with links) and writing catchy titles that the user will want to click on. Use h1-h3 tags when structuring.
Highlighting keywords and important information
Search engines pay attention to phrases that are in bold, italics, and underlining. You shouldn't overdo it. This will result in a lower page position. Key queries are highlighted only in important structural blocks. For a small article (2–3 thousand characters), one or two times is enough. Naturalness and usefulness are in the foreground. Important information can be presented in the form of quotations. Their presence will be positively assessed by search engines.
Availability of useful additional content
The relevance of the text will increase significantly if you include useful images and video materials in it. Pictures must be optimized. To do this, use ALT (description) and TITLE (title) tags, and also add relevant captions.
Completeness of page meta tags
Despite the fact that search engines are paying less and less attention to meta tags, filling them out should not be neglected. Use short and succinct phrases that reflect the topic of the content. When writing a description, focus on the structure of the text.
Relevance(derived from the English relevant - relevant) - in a general sense, this is the compliance of the document with the user’s expectations. Thus, search relevance is the degree to which a user is satisfied with the search results shown in response to his query. Ideally, the search results page should fully satisfy the user’s information needs in terms of its completeness and accuracy.
Relevance is calculated using search engine algorithms. Each search engine works according to its own algorithm. The ranking is based on Matrixnet technology.
Types of search relevance
- Formal– it is on this type that search engine rankings are based. The image of the search query is algorithmically compared with the image of the document in the search engine index. This means that relevance is calculated without direct human intervention - using a specific formula based on data collected by the search robot.
- Content– relevance is determined informally. This type is also used by search engines, but to assess the quality of the search. Special employees evaluate search results based on their assumption that a given document matches the request. These specialists are called assessors.
- Pertinence– complete satisfaction of the user’s information needs. This is exactly what all search engines strive for.
The search results show the most relevant website pages from the search engine's point of view. Before starting promotion, it is always necessary to determine the most suitable page for promotion. Here you can be guided by factors such as age, link juice, level and existing relevance of the page.
To determine the most relevant page from existing ones, just use the query language or advanced search.
Advanced search page for Google https://www.google.com/advanced_search
Components of page relevance
In the vast majority of cases, SEO optimizers work on a website in the following areas:
- The technical component of the relevance of site pages is common errors that make it difficult for search engine robots to correctly index them:
- site accessibility;
- page loading speed;
- issuing resource encoding;
- setting up server response codes (redirects, error pages);
- site mirrors;
- robots.txt file and robots meta tag;
- sitemap.xml file;
- frames;
- elements hidden from the user;
- URL structure;
- duplicate pages;
- broken links;
- date the pages were last modified;
- spam;
- other interference with indexing.
- The text component of the relevance of site pages is the correspondence of the content to the user’s request:
- meta tags;
- text headings;
- occurrences of key phrases in the text;
- img tag attributes.
- The reference component of relevance is factors associated with:
- external linking;
- link anchors;
- donor characteristics;
- dynamics of link mass growth.
- Behavioral component of relevance – factors associated with user behavior:
- number of visitors;
- visitor sources;
- duration of stay;
- bounce rate;
- viewing depth;
- conversion;
- ease of navigation;
- Other factors:
- regionality;
- affiliates.
Relevance - a parameter indicating how well the search engine result matches the requirements of the user who entered the query.
Relevance is calculated by search engine algorithms and is the ratio of the number of keywords on a resource page to the total number of words. Each page is assigned its own percentage of occurrences of keywords in the text. You should stick to the golden mean: a small amount will go unnoticed by search engines, and a large amount will be regarded as spam and then a filter will be applied.
Characteristic
With the active development of the Internet and the rapid increase in sites, the question arose about the quality of search results. In response to this, search engines have implemented the principle of query relevance, processing sites and presenting the most suitable options to users.
At the first stage, the relevance of pages was built on the basis of meta tags, keyword density, frequency of keywords in headings, methods of content design, etc. With the advent of doorways that meet these criteria, it was necessary to introduce external relevance factors.
Below is a formula characterizing the relevance criteria: R=PR*(T+L).
R – query relevance,
T – level of text relevance, to what extent internal criteria meet the requirements of search engines,
L – level of link relevance, to what extent the texts of incoming links correspond to the search query,
PR – resource rank, does not depend on the request.
This formula is only a conditional justification for the effectiveness of ranking algorithms, which demonstrates a complete picture of the relevance criteria.
External Relevance Criteria
External criteria of relevance are represented by the degree of citation (reference popularity). The relevance of a site depends on how many sites link to it. The more linking sites, the higher the authority of the site, and the better its content.
Search engines have their own relevance algorithms, but they all work on the same principles, in fact, they are a processed and improved version of the very first algorithm (PR), developed by the founders of Google, which characterized only the number of inbound links.
The very first relevance algorithm is considered to be the PI (page authority indicator) of Aport, developed in 1999. The PI determined only the most significant external link.
Yandex has its own citation index, VIC, which was released in the spring of 2001. A VIC is assigned to each page. After 2002 Due to webmasters' manipulations with the VIC, the citation index was closed to public access. Previously, such a service was provided in Yandex. Bare. Today you can only view the TCI, the citation index for sites in the Yandex catalog.
Autumn 2002 the popularity index appeared on Rambler; in addition to links, it also determined the frequency of visits to site pages, which could be found out from the Top 100 counter.
Internal ranking criteria
The most important criterion is the frequency of the keyword on the page. Search engines are able to highlight a keyword in the text. A site is relevant provided that the user's request matches the keyword and its form on the site.
Keyword position also affects a site's relevance, especially if the keyword is in the title. And if the query turns out to be identical to the title of the text, then the search engine will certainly rank this page above others.
Internal relevance criteria include:
- The position of the keyword on the page, for example in meta tags.
- Keyword proximity. An important role can be played by the situation when the request is equated to a set phrase.
- Position at the beginning of the page. The higher a keyword ranks, the more weight it has.
- Keyword synonyms. The more forms and synonyms of keywords in the text, the better: this indicates that the topic of the site corresponds to the initially specified topic.
