The dominating search engines of the present, with Google leading the charge, all base their rankings on keywords. In order to rise in the rankings of the top search engines businesses currently need to target and promote specific keywords. When a business’ niche is such that different keywords are relevant to the site the current keyword based search engines can force businesses and SEOs to make a decision at the start of an SEO campaign to target one keyword more aggressively than another other. There are only so many keywords that a home page can be optimised for before diluting the effect specific keywords are having. However, there may be a solution to this problem in the way search engines may look to develop in the future.

This danger to the traditional search engines has been posed by the Financial Times’ new search engine Newssift. Rather than relying on keyword-based algorithms, this new search engine is based on semantics and is designed to identify content relevant to the search made with the aim to sift out random results.

Currently, if certain keywords are promoted heavily by a particular website then search engines such as Google can provide skewed results, which are not representative of the value of the content the site provides.

If in the future the practice of keyword optimising is made redundant in preference of semantic based search engines the online advertising industry will be forced to make substantial changes. At present keywords are central to online marketing strategies but with the growing intelligence of search engine algorithms we are reminded just how important quality content is. Whether writing on site content, creating posts for your blog, or producing articles to promote your business/ service the need for quality content is paramount. If semantic based algorithms become the norm then if you have quality content in place, there will be no need to be concerned. If, on the other hand, keyword based algorithms remain dominant for years to come, you will still receive the benefit of your keyword optimised content, and most importantly your visitors will find your content valuable and this will never harm your business.

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Advertising, Blogging, Google, Search Engine Optimisation