Latent Semantic Indexing

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Search engine optimization, often abbreviated as “SEO”, began in the mid-1990s once webmasters realized the importance of ranking high amid search engine “returns”.  When a search query is entered, the websites which are shown at the top of the return page will normally get the most visitors, and, therefore, have a higher probability of making a sale.

At the start of the SEO era the emphasis was mainly on keywords, html tags, titles, and other on-site factors.  Reciprocal linking was also in fashion where one website owner would trade links with another webmaster at an exterior website.

At first things were not too bad, but once the overwhelming importance of search engine ranking became apparent a cottage industry of “black hat” and “gray hat” software and techniques flooded the market.  Programs such as Traffic Equalizer “scraped” the Internet allowing webmasters to build sites which appeared to have content but, in effect, contained only paragraphs copied from other websites.  The idea of many at that time was to fool the search engines into thinking that their sites were real, and contained valuable content, so that more visitors would be sent to their sites.

It took a few years for the search engines to catch up with what was happening and to change their algorithms.  Once this occurred, the “easy money” days of the Internet were virtually over.  While there are still countless “get rich quick” schemes, as anyone with an email account can attest, now the situation is different.  Today it is very unlikely to find a “back door” to the search engines which will allow for someone to siphon off a significant amount of money.

For the short time that devious techniques were used successfully an enormous amount of money was made.  However, today the trend, out of necessity if nothing else, has turned SEO into a more ethical pursuit.  In some ways it is easier today to optimize your site for the search engines since there, in effect, is only one that counts—Google.  In the 1990s there were seven or eight search engines which were in competition with Google and time had to be spent trying to optimize for more than one. However, that is no longer the case.

Currently the trend by Google is to favor websites built around themes instead of keywords.  Latent semantic indexing, or LSI, as this process is called, is at the forefront of search engine optimization and will be for the foreseeable future.  If you intend on optimizing your website for Google it will be more profitable to concentrate on LSI instead of looking for that elusive secret method for success that is being hawked by the various self-proclaimed gurus.   Quality websites have always been, and probably will always be, the best choice for long-term Internet success.