Stemming and keywords in blogs

My columns on stemming and on keywords in blog posts, as part of the Google algorithm, has caused some confusion.



My friend Tristam Bielecki of New Meeja and Blogopoly has alerted me to a possible contradiction in my posts.



My thanks to Tristam for keeping me alert to any misunderstanding my posts might create.



In one of my posts, I pointed out that Google is possibly employing "stemming", in their calculation of which websites are most relevant to a search for entered words.



Stemming means other forms of a word.



In my post, I used the example of "blog". Stemmed searching would include "blogs", "blogging", "blogger", "blogged", and so on. Speculation in search engine optimization (SEO) circles, is that stemming is also extended to include synonyms (words with the same meaning), of your main keywords as well.



Take note of the following, and remember it well.



If anyone tells you they have all the answers for getting high rankings in search engines, let's just say they are.....well....exaggerating. What we are quite sure does work, is fresh keyword (and perhaps stemmed) content, and adding lots of good quality incoming links to your blog or website.



Everything suggested by everyone, including me, about how to score high search engine placements, is an educated guess. What is recommended by SEO experts are their best ideas, about what works in the search engines (mainly Google), and what might not get as great results.



No one knows everything about search engine optimization.



The search engines prefer to keep it that way too!



Digression over, and back to business.



In my following post, I recommended using keywords related to your blog content, to score high rankings in the various search engines.



The idea of sprinkling a lot of keywords around your blog posts, and the concept of stemming, are not mutually exclusive.



In fact, they work together very well.



Since you write about your main topic, let's say it's blogging, you can include many forms of the word "blog" in your post. Without stemming, the word had to match the search, as "blog". Now, you can enrich your writing, and add many more potent keywords in stemmed form.



It improves your writing, by introducing some variety in your choices of wording. That is always great for your readers.



You benefit in the search engines by having more keywords.



You benefit in the search engines by having more stemmed forms of your keyords.



The two concepts work together, to your benefit, and for your readers as well.



This is my best educated guess on the subject, combined with the best testing and understanding of search engines, of other experts in the field of search engine optimization (SEO).



SEO is partly an art, and partly a science. The art is in the interpretation of the search engine results, and understanding how to achieve them. The science is in testing the possible variables, and seeing which ones give better or worse search engine placements.



Over time, it has been discovered that fresh, keyword rich content has worked in a site's favour.



So has incoming links from quality blogs and static websites.



Of course, the search engines (notably Google) are given to changing their calculation algorithm all the time.



That fact makes keeping up with what works, and what fails, a major challenge for anyone involved with search engine optimization.



As bloggers, you can adapt to any changes in the search engine results calculations very quickly. After a few days of heavy posting, your blog has changed its form entirely. It can then become highly ranked (or not) depending on the algorithm employed by the search engines.



Oh yes, stemming and keywords work together.



So far as we know!