OntoSearch

Have you ever wondered how Search Engines (SE) know which pages to give you when you do a search? For example when you search for “Apple” the pc, how does the SE know not to give you pages about Apple juice or Apple farming?

The answer that handles this is what is frequently referred to here as a SE algorithm. An algorithm is mathematical formula for solving complex troubles. SE algo is the formula utilized by SEs to rank the pages contained in its index depending on the query. Years back when SE algos had been still rudimentary they utilized, what in retrospect are really crude indicates to supply most relevant outcomes to a query. Among them was the use of keyword density. This utilized frequency of a particular word or term to determine if it should rank higher or lower.

But sadly this does not represent complete reality. For example it was the assumption of the algo that if a page is about dieting, the word need to be the most frequently employed word apart from other grammatical necessities like me, I, and, the, or etc. But this is not always true. This is simply because in most writings, to prevent monotony there is a mix of words of similar meaning – synonyms. So a page about dieting may possibly also consist of lose weight or weight loss.

Enter LSI; LSI or Most recent Semantic Indexing is an informational retrieval system that depends on a technique employed to procedure natural language into a mathematical form that the computer can realize and procedure.

The use of semantics is truly central in LSI for SE. They are used to try to emulate what a human being would rank extremely. Semantics refers to the aspect of meaning in a language. Its here we get terms like synonyms and polysems (i.e. the same word with different meanings e.g. Apple for the Macintosh computers and Apple for the fruit)

The question doing rounds in SE forums around the net is whether or not Google is using LSI in their ranking. What is known for positive is that Google Inc. did purchase Applied Semantics, a company that creates software applications based on LSI technology. We also know that LSI is in their systems. How do we know you ask? Just use the toggle key just before your search query. The toggle key is the key frequently to the extreme left of the pc keyboard just below the escape key with the “~” sign. You will require to hold down the shift key.

If you type it just before the term “apple” you will notice that in the resulting SERP are about computers with words like Mac, Macintosh, G4, Apple Computer bolded. If you toggle the plural i.e. “apples” you will notice that now you have pages on apple fruits and the word fruit is also bolded. The bolded words are what the SE also considers as synonyms to the search queries “apple” and apples” respectively.