Topic Sensitive Search

It used to be so simple. Make good titles, meta information, optimise your content, check the document outline build as many good quality links as you can. As more people become aware of the importance of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO),  it is becoming more difficult and it could be about to get even worse with the idea of topic sensitive searches and personalised search results. Does this mean the end of traditional SEO? Can a strategy be developed to ensure your site still stays at the top of the TS-SERPs. (Topic Sensitive-SERPs) pages.

How does it Work?

One published algorithm on topic sensitive searches makes use of the existing PageRank methods and combines this with the search query.  By comparing how well the query fits within 16 different categories of the Open Directory Project for the topic-sensitive PageRank. The query will usually fit in with one or more categories to a greater or lesser extent and web pages which are biased toward these categories will be displayed. By varying the weight of each component of the topic sensitive  PageRank, it can also be used to create a personalised topic-sensitive search.

Results

The result seem impressive. A small test study was carried out on 5 volunteers. They were shown the top-ten rankings for a random query from an ‘non-topic-sensitive’ and topic-sensitive search (they didn’t know which was which).  When they were asked to choose which results were more relevant in each case and then which were more relevant overall, they were significantly preferred the topic-sensitive search results.

Impact of Topic-Sensitive Search Results

If it works like it is supposed to, it should mean that any visitors that come to a page from these results have arrived because the search engine brings up the page as a relevant query. This especially true if the results have been personalised using information collected by users searching habits.

For businesses that already have good rankings through being relevant the topic-sensitive search may increase their conversion even if traffic is reduced overall, but other firms may find it harder to gain positions. If users can find what they are looking for in the first few positions they are not going to look further. The effect is to make SEO and usability even more important.