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It’s been a while now that I’ve wanted to write about search from scratch. Seeing the enthusiasm and openness with which Kimberly Bock (aka SpostareDuro) learns and writes about learning SEO basics inspires me to make that "someday" a "today".
In its simplest form a computer can be taught to search by giving it two sets of information: a series of documents to be indexed and a list of irrelevant words.
The list of irrelevant words includes common words (a, an, the, etc.) but can also include stop words; words you don’t want to have in your index.
This type of search is very accurate. It will find every occurrence of the world "Google" in a set of 10 thousand documents. And it will do so faster than you or I can.
The drawback of this type of search is that unless something is expressly mentioned in a document, search can’t find it. If in our example set of 10 thousand documents the word "Google" never appears, our search for "Google" will never return any results even though every single document might be about Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
Meta Keywords
One way to deal with this obvious shortfall of simple search is to add extra words to each document. In the above example we would add the word "Google" to every document about Larry Page and Sergey Brin. And Google is about? Search. OK, add the word "search" and anything else you can think of that might be relevant as well.
This type of words, words not used to write actual content but simply to list which topics it might be relevant to, are often called keywords. They’re similar to labels or tags on paper files and products: "Bank Statements", "To Do’s", "Folgers Coffee".
The type of information they provide is called meta data: information about the information. In our case, information about the content, the subjects in a document.
Web pages can come with a rich set of meta data and keywords is one of them.
Unfortunately people aren’t always completely truthful in describing the content of their documents. Or they can’t be bothered to do so. Or when they do, they use words and phrases which are anything but helpful.
Links as Meta Keywords
Google solved people’s dishonesty or unhelpfulness by largely ignoring the meta keywords embedded in web pages. Instead they treated words used to link to a web page as meta keywords, in effect adding them to the list of words that web page is made of.
How does that look? In our example we would have a web page which mentions Larry Page and Sergey Brin but doesn’t mention Google.
Someone writing about Google links to that page using the words "Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin." Those words are now added to the list of words found in our document.
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As posted in How Search Really Works.
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22 Responses to “How Search Really Works: Meta Keywords”
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How Search Really Works | Learning SEO Basics Says:
January 11th, 2008 at 9:33 pm[…] Search Really Works submit_url = “http://learningseobasics.com/archives/109″; How Search Really Works: Meta Keywords Ruud Hein, writer for Search Engine People and new friend of mine, posted a blog tonight that is […]
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links for 2008-01-13 Says:
January 12th, 2008 at 7:20 pm[…] Meta Keywords The type of information they provide is called meta data: information about the information. In our case, information about the content, the subjects in a document. (tags: Meta Keywords) […]
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Reply to "Where's that desphinn button when you need it?!" | Learning SEO Basics Says:
January 21st, 2008 at 10:54 am[…] entitled “How Search Really Works: Keyword Links“. (It’s a follow-up to “How Search Really Works: Meta Keywords” that I suggested on […]
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Web Empire » Keywords and Linking Says:
January 21st, 2008 at 3:42 pm[…] Hein over at Search Engine Pe0ple has begun a series of posts explaining How Search Really Works, in a very basic and understandable way. I recommend it for any beginners out there. As of now, […]
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Learn SEO: Keyword Stuffing Says:
January 31st, 2008 at 10:25 pm[…] = “http://learningseobasics.com/archives/166″; How Search Really Works: Keyword Stuffing Ruud Hein, writer for Search Engine People is at it again.. This is a follow up to Ruud Hein’s […]
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Learn SEO: Keyword Links Says:
January 31st, 2008 at 10:27 pm[…] submit_url = “http://learningseobasics.com/archives/163″; How Search Really Works: Keyword Links Ruud Hein, writer for Search Engine People is at it […]
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Meta keywords: more important than you might think! Says:
February 1st, 2008 at 12:14 am[…] amount of documents there might be. A major drawback to this kind of search methodology, is that unless what you are searching for is explicitly mentioned in the document, the search engine will no… and those documents will not be included in the search […]
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Learn SEO: Keyword Density Says:
February 25th, 2008 at 4:41 am[…] Search Really Works: The Keyword Density Myth Ruud […]
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Learn SEO: Search Indexing Says:
February 26th, 2008 at 1:30 pm[…] the first parts of the series we have been educated in META keywords, keyword links, keyword stuffing, keyword density myth, and now we have “How Search Really […]
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How To Sell "Mom and Pop" On SEO Services Says:
March 28th, 2008 at 7:33 am[…] learning. They’re often still at the very early stages of search knowledge at the point where meta tags are seo. They’ve heard of seo, but don’t yet realize the work that goes into building a […]
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» Top 3 Unsung SEO Heroes of 2008 | Utah Search Engine Optimization | Utah SEO Consultant Says:
June 1st, 2008 at 10:25 pm[…] some great blog posts over there. Starting back in January, he started a series of posts entitled How Search Really Works. These posts are unbelievable written well and ended up scratching the surface on the world of […]
January 11th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
This is great, beautifully explained information for any SEO beginner wanting an understanding of the basics of how search works. I take my hat off to you, Ruud.
January 11th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
I like it! Even I could understand that description. Cool!
January 11th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
Rudd:
This is brilliant in it’s simplicity and effectiveness to communicate the facts (non SEO lingo style).
There is no room for assumption of mis-information. Great post, you have my vote.
January 12th, 2008 at 2:35 am
Great post, very easy to understand.
I especially love the drawings!
January 12th, 2008 at 11:50 am
I’m really quite pleased that it has gone over so well and can only hope that follow-up posts in this series of posts will be at least as clear as this one.
Thanks for the kind comments, really!
January 12th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
For beginners like me, this makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the advice.
January 12th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
Well put. Very unique way of describing the relevance of meta keywords to beginners. Not another “me too” article. Good job.
January 13th, 2008 at 11:13 am
brilliant! I will link to you in germany!
January 16th, 2008 at 7:56 am
Nice article, very well explained and easy to understand. Very helpful.
January 23rd, 2008 at 6:39 pm
That was explained so well!
Thank you so much
January 27th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
I do agree the post is well written. The idea of having relevant copy and keywords and the whole idea that Google is ignoring meta tags is true and great point to make.
I do want to add a point myself, which is though meta tags are not what they used to be, they still carry importance and by adding a creative description for each page of your site and adding keywords relevant to your page of content will help in how your site is displayed in the results.
Thanks!