{"id":5370,"date":"2014-06-05T16:24:01","date_gmt":"2014-06-05T13:24:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/?p=5370"},"modified":"2017-05-11T16:03:26","modified_gmt":"2017-05-11T13:03:26","slug":"941-traffic-increase-exploiting-the-synonyms-seo-ranking-technique","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/5370\/941-traffic-increase-exploiting-the-synonyms-seo-ranking-technique\/","title":{"rendered":"941% Traffic Increase Exploiting the Synonyms SEO Ranking Technique"},"content":{"rendered":"

Around the middle of the 20th century a certain myth started to “run” around among proponents of theories that emphasized a strong relationship between language, culture and perception. According to this myth, Eskimo people had an enormous number of words for \u201csnow\u201d (hundreds, according to some accounts). Two very important things were subsequently discovered. One was that most of these languages are <\/span>polysynthetic<\/a>, meaning that they could combine a limited set of roots and word endings to create an unlimited set of words. The second, and more intriguing thing, was that each of the so-called snow synonyms defines, in fact, a very particular instance and context for the presence of snow. The word \u201cNuyileq\u201d, for example, means \u201ccrushed ice beginning to spread out; dangerous to walk on. The ice is dissolving, but still has not dispersed in water, although it is vulnerable for one to fall through and sink. Sometimes seals can even surface on this ice because the water is starting to appear.\u201d That is one extremely specific meaning. But the point is that it\u2019s a necessary meaning, a vital one.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

Synonyms are managed automatically by Google for years now, but it seems that there are a few smart & simple ways that you will allow you to increase your ranking using the following Synonym Google Ranking Technique<\/strong> presented below.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So why all the fuss about synonyms and Google being able to understand them? \u201cIs it such a big deal?\u201d you may ask. When you have your site ranked for “seo professional<\/strong>” and a query on its synonym “seo expert<\/strong>” lists you way below the first position, you are bleeding traffic. Check how much the monthly searches can differ based on the searched keyword.<\/p>\n

\"Seo<\/p>\n

Imagine the traffic you may gain by simply optimizing your page for those synonyms too. That is why I randomly picked the 941% in the title of this article as it really depends on your situation. It can be 1% or it can be 10.000%. It is up to your niche and your own research and steps you take in order to conquer those ranks. A search engine cannot distinguish objects in photos and doesn’t accurately understand the meaning of a sentence. At the end of the day, the search engine’s main goal is to return the best results for the user’s search. In order to do that, Google has made efforts in teaching its algorithm \u201c<\/span>humanish<\/a>\u201d (aka Google Hummingbird) and has moved well beyond just word matching, to matching based on intent and understanding. The big G invests a lot in understanding concepts and synonyms are only a small example. This is really a revolutionary step in making search engines smarter in order to make order \u00a0in the huge pile of information clutter.<\/span> Ok. So let me tell you how it works and what you can do to increase your traffic on synonyms.<\/p>\n

How does Google Rank a Site on Synonym Keywords?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

With the risk of over loading you with information, allow me to clear things up a bit about what a synonym is. A synonym is commonly known as being a word or a phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word or phrase in the same language. There are simple, common synonyms like \u201chappy \u2013 joyful\u201d or \u201cimpartial \u2013 unbiased\u201d but we also tend to use more subtle synonym expressions like \u201cthe East\u201d as a synonym for the former \u201cSoviet empire\u201d. Google is getting better and better at understanding synonyms while it is becoming less and less dependent on exact keyword matches for returning results. If you are searching for “SEO Consultant”, Google will understand that even if a page says \u201cSEO Expert\u201d or “SEO Services” or “SEO company” these all represent the same concept. So it ranks pages that talk about “SEO Experts” and “SEO Companies” for the query “SEO Consultant”.<\/p>\n

If your page is not well optimized for the synonym keywords you are losing a lot of SEO Visibility and Traffic.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Seo<\/p>\n

How does Google Actually Detect Synonyms?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Back in 2010 Matt Cutts, The Head of Google’s Webspam Team posted a blog post<\/a> about how Google find synonyms where he referred an article about how Google tries to understand<\/a> language and not only strings. He also goes further to underline the importance of synonyms for Google:<\/p>\n

“However, our measurements show that synonyms affect 70 percent of user searches\u00a0[note from Matt: of course, it could be a subtle change]<\/em>\u00a0across the more than 100 languages Google supports. We took a set of these queries and analyzed how precise the synonyms were, and were happy with the results: For every 50 queries where synonyms significantly improved the search results, we had only one truly bad synonym.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Anchor<\/p>\n

In a recent article<\/a>, by Bill Slawski, about some Google Patents that Google uses to detect synonyms, an interesting patent<\/a> is found that evidentiates how they go about detecting synonyms. It shows technique that they may also be using to identify synonyms using internal and external links anchor text. The basic idea is that Google can learn about things from both on-site and off-site factors. Having said that I think it is clear why Synonyms are a very important component when you talk about On-Page and Off-Page Optimization.<\/p>\n

You can easily lose or gain traffic due to Not-Optimizing simple things that shall give you what is yours already.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The thing to keep in mind, however, is that in order to teach someone (or something) about any language-specific concept, you sometimes need to go broader. So it is with Google and the synonyms-inclusive searches. What we understand to be a synonym may not be immediately translatable to a machine. Or, as\u00a0AJ Kohn\u00a0would\u00a0put<\/a>\u00a0it, while \u201cauto\u201d, \u201cautomobile\u201d and \u201ccar\u201d are all by default wired in our brains, there isn\u2019t really anything intrinsic that makes one of those words trigger the others. Each of them can be used in a context that makes it no longer related to the other.<\/p>\n

Sometimes the synonym that Google takes into account is not necessarily a grammatical one, but rather a logical, or contextual one.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Because the real stake for any search engine is to figure out not \u201cwhat answer fits your question?\u201d but rather \u201cwhat did you really want to find out?\u201d. Which is probably why Google will return results for \u201cfloral delivery\u201d when you search for \u201cflower shops\u201d. Because that\u2019s probably what you really wanted, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/span>\n

 <\/p>\n

Synonyms vs Co-citation and Co-occurrence as Other Potential Rank Influencers<\/strong><\/h3>\n

We need to clear up the terms \u201cco-citation\u201d and \u201cco-occurrence\u201d so we can easily make a distinction between them and synonyms. Why? Because we are trying to figure out how does Google rank a site by using synonyms and no other factors. So, like in any other serious research, we have to take into consideration all the variables that might influence the understanding of our subject (plus the fact that these are some interesting concepts that deserve our attention). Co-occurrence<\/strong> is the process whereby the words on the linking pages influence a site’s rankings. This means that the close proximity of important keywords develops a tight association. For example, let’s say you have a website about cooking. If a webpage with an article about fry pans, recipes, kitchen utensils links to your site, then it is likely that your site will get a ranking boost for these keywords. Google understands the correlation between the two of you and might use it as a ranking factor in its algorithm.<\/p>\n

\"Co-occurrence<\/p>\n

Co-citation<\/strong> is the process whereby other links on the linking pages influence a site’s ranking. As peculiar as it might sound, this is actually the process of link building without actual links. Let me explain you why: let’s say that websites A, B, C, D all link to the websites 1, 2, 3, 4. Even if web pages 1, 2, 3 and 4 don’t link to each other, Google will consider that these web pages are related to each other. The more sites they are linked from, the stronger the relation becomes between them.<\/p>\n

\"Cocitation<\/p>\n

How to Identify Your Synonym Problems and\u00a0Opportunities?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Watching the screenshot below, the one with the \u201cseo expert” search query, we see that Google is doing pretty well at matching the right synonyms.<\/p>\n

\"Seo<\/p>\n

As we can see, the results are indeed relevant for both cases but they are not \u00a0exactly the same. The website that used to be listed 2nd for the query \u201cseo consultant\u201d is listed 6th for the search query \u201cseo expert\u201d. This is because Google identified the synonym between the two words but it ranked better other sites that targeted the exact “seo expert” keyword. If this page was a bit more optimized, by using the phrase “seo expert” a few more times than this page could have ranked higher in the SERPS as the relation between the query and the page was stronger. These differentiated results had us thinking about the effects that synonyms might have in the overall ranking of a site. As we were intrigued enough by this fact, we went further with our research and we found a relevant example of webpage whose ranking is influenced by the Google’s synonym detection algorithm. Just like in the previous case, the site Towerhobbies.com ranks different for the search queries \u201cremote control airplanes<\/strong>\u201d and \u201cradio control airplanes<\/strong>\u201d. But there is more here than meets the eye.<\/p>\n

\"Remote<\/p>\n

Google understands that RC (or R\/C) is a synonym for remote or radio control and highlights it with bold even if we didn’t search for this specific keyword. Even more, www.towerhobbies.com ranks high for the keywords \u201cremote control airplanes\u201d<\/strong> even if it doesn’t contain these keywords in the title, in the domain, in the snippet or anywhere else on the site.<\/p>\n

\"Exact<\/p>\n

Another important metric that might influence the ranking of this page in Google are the Anchors that might be pointing to this site. Looking at the anchor text profile of this site\u00a0we found out that the keyword \u201cremote control airplanes\u201d is not used as an anchor text for this site on external backlinks. However, the website ranks very high for these keywords. Quite interesting, right?<\/p>\n

\"Anchor<\/a><\/p>\n