Part of: Full Stack SEO Best Practices
Part of: Tenured Evergreen SEO
Published:
Updated:
by Wayne Smith
Conceptually keyword proximity as a factor for ranking documents was initially pioneered by Altavista, however, Altavista's implementation of search did not scale with the size of the internet. Hotbot or Inktomi's internet search did and proximity has been a forever algorithm factor in determining relevancy ever since.
It is conceptually easy to understand and implement.
Or a sibling text element
If both keywords exist in the same in the same HTML text element, (or a sibling text element), they are near or close to each other. Proximity is almost a qualifier, not a factor; However, because relevancy is quantifiable and a factor ... proximity can be best called a co-factor for relevancy. However, there is also nuance in the implementation of the search engine side.
Altavista vs Hotbot/Inktomi implementation
Before Altavista implemented proximity as a factor of their search engine, searching for "apple, pie" could result in landing on a page that had apple as a type of dessert and a pie as a type of dessert, which was not very helpful. A search for, "apple ~ pie" or the keyword apple near the keyword pie was far more helpful.
Inktomi's implementation
Inktomi had the advantage of seeing where others were struggling. "Apple Pie," can be treated as a keyword phrase made up of two words and have a dedicated index as part of the core database.
Inktomi added additional number crunching for keyword proximity: Looking at proximity and keyword density for each keyword a page can be selected that is about "apple pie." Keyword proximity is part of the set with keyword density algorithms, not only if the page has both keywords -- both words needed to appear frequently in the document and at least once in the same element.
Inktomi's improvements in the algorithm efficiency, (Not requiring brute computer power), made keyword proximity a forever algorithm for search and an evergreen SEO technique.
Google's implementation
Google benefited by seeing where Altavista was struggling and Inktomi's solution. But built their index based on sorting the internet based on page rank and then building their indexes from the query terms sorted in the natural order of page rank.
... WordPress is Good for SEO ...
WordPress typically follows the HTML coding rule of inline elements that go inside block elements and block elements do not break or go inside inline elements. Typically this is so that posts do not break or go outside the bounding box of the WordPress theme.
This is not keyword proximity:
A block element is between the text elements. WordPress backend is based on an editor which adds inline elements that are formatted by the theme.
Creative mixing of inline and blocks is not keyword proximity
By default, the width of a block is 100% of the size of the container. When margins and/or padding are also used a block element can break the theme.
Mixing block elements with inline elements is not invalid HTML. As a use case ... if one wanted to make a tabbed interactive element using just CSS ... they could create an HTML like:
The CSS can then display the block when the mouse is hovering over the li element. Additional CSS would style the tabs and windows that are displayed.
But the only text that could have keyword proximity is the words inside each block. There is no keyword proximity between the blocks; for good or bad.
... Semantic HTML Tags ...
While the majority of tags that work with keyword proximity are inline tags. Inktomi took the time and effort to consider how tags were used for semantics.
The UL and OL lists are technically blocks but semantically they are an inline block.
Blockquote is semantically a block but its usage is as inline flow of an article.
Aside is a semantic tag that did not exist when Intomi innovated search with keyword proximity, its semantic usage is for supplemental information that can be skipped over but is an inflow element.
... Headline tags ...
Headline tags even though they are not near each other, operate as if they are in terms of page structure.
The headline tags used on wikipedia pages, (the structure of wikipedia follows the rule of inline tags are contained in block elements), work like the headlines are siblings or sub-categories.
... Keyword Research ...
Having pages show up for several different search queries can double the number of people who see the page without doubling the work to create the page. There are numerous tools to find related keywords that can be included on the page.
The type of keyword research for proximity is not based on semantic meanings but keyword phrases based on the main keyword.
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