related keywords

[GByte]

came across this report that looks at how related words can play a part in rankings.

gorank.com/research/google_ontology_analysis.php

It kinda makes sense that if your pages contain related words that you would be more relevant to a particular subject. Your thoughts....?

[James]

I think this could well become a composite factor in content analysis in the future, but this is currently a MINOR factor in determining Google ranking.
I would also say that such statistical analysis is futile. For example, a more significant factor that determines your ranking would be the number of pages. Larger websites have an advantage in attaining higher SERP positioning, and it would be more likely that such websites also contain related keywords.
Personally, while I think it is good policy to maintain content relevent to your theme, this survey proves/disproves very little.

[GByte]

Hi James,

point taken, I think I kinda worded my post wrongly. I did'nt mean that this is the be all and end all by no means. What I maybe should have pointed out that knowing that this can help towards obtaining better positions along with all of the other factors that we also know about helps get a better understanding of the whole picture.

[seo guy]

Gavin, Great find on the article. I'm not sure I completely buy the ontological arguement that they use (They really dont support it well with examples) however there are 2 things to consider.

Keyword stemming (This is different then keywords with related ontology) is a factor so including derivations of your kw phrase is important (This we know)
So SEO is to SEOS is to SEOING so attempting to incorparate derivative stems from your keywords is helpful.

Next, why ontology? Because it makes sense. If related words are grouped by associating on a page then the article or page is covering more bases. How do they get these words? By databasing and analysing Data on related search.
Those that search for SEO also search for
search
engine
optimization
seo's
ＳＥＯ
is this relevant to the ranks for "SEO" perhaps perhaps not, however what is relevant is the fact that we now know all of these phrase get searched and are worth targeting towards the bottom line. And because we are dealing with naturally associated keyword phrase pairings it is very easy to integrate the ontological matches spit out by say http://gorank.com/seotools/ontology/index.php into your onpage copy seemlessly.
Just comes down to more traffic

[seo guy]

IS is just me or are these guys stealing shawns layout? http://gorank.com/screenshots.php Thats pretty lame, unless of course Digi said they could