How synonyms affect SEO
Yesterday, Matt Cutts blogged about an official Google post on synonyms by Google engineer, Steven Baker, and how they affect search results. I find this a very interesting subject, and one that is clearly very relevant for SEO.
The fact that Google can understand many synonyms, I find amazing, because as Steven Baker states:
“An irony of computer science is that tasks humans struggle with can be performed easily by computer programs, but tasks humans can perform effortlessly remain difficult for computers.”
The tasks that computers find difficult are the understanding of the nuances of language. The English language, like all languages, has many subtleties that as humans we can understand effortlessly. Many of our words have more than one meaning, where the context in which they are placed makes all the difference to our understanding of them.
Steven Baker used the example of ‘pictures’ and ‘photos’ meaning the same thing within certain contexts. Google has the ability to understand that these two very different words can mean the same thing, and I think Google are right to be proud of such an achievement.
How does this affect SEO?
Well, the advice from Google has always been to use synonyms where possible. You should think about other terms, such as slang, for the same word and use those within your text as much as you can to ensure your copy is relevant for as many searches as possible. Where one person may call a USB drive a ‘flash drive’ and another may call it a ‘thumb drive’ you will need to make sure that both these terms are present on your page in order to be successful.
You shouldn’t just cram these words into your content, but make it read as naturally as possible, because there is nothing worse than clumsy, keyword stuffed text. You should always have your end users at the forefront of your mind when composing text for online consumption. So, make your text readable but include synonyms where possible, to ensure you get the best from your content.
