Glossary/Keyword
Revision as of 21:36, 4 January 2011 by Aliza Earnshaw (talk | contribs)
A keyword is a single word or phrase defining a topic, subject area or concept.
When people refer to keywords in websites and Internet search engines, they're talking about the words and phrases that tell search engines what a website is about.
Search engines take note of keywords that have been placed in the text of a website. This includes both text that people view and read, and text that is hidden from view and "seen" only by search engines and other software.
Website owners who want their sites to rank high in search results -- which can help attract more visitors -- must choose their keywords carefully. They must be relevant to the website, and should be both well understood and commonly used by the people the website owner hopes to attract. That's because most people look for information on a specific topic by typing into a search engine the words they associate with that topic.
Keywords must appear often enough to "tell" a search engine what the site is about, without occurring so often that human beings can't easily read the website. A very high incidence of keywords can also indicate that someone is trying to "game" search engines, leading to a lower ranking in search results.
Keywords should also be used in the tags, alt attributes, meta descriptions and meta tags that are part of the website's code. These additional pieces of text, which are associated with images, video, sound files and other elements of a website, also tell search engines what a website is about.
For more information about keywords, read: