A keyword, in the context of search engine optimization, is a particular word or phrase that describes the contents of a Web page. Keywords are intended to act as shortcuts that sum up an entire page. They are used by search engines to quickly determine the topic of a page, and they appear in bold when they match the user’s search query.
The use of keywords is not new. In fact, the first use of keywords on the Internet predates the World Wide Web. The original use of keywords was in Internet Relay Chat (IRC), where users would type in a keyword in order to find others with similar interests. The first Web browser, Mosaic, also allowed users to search for pages by keyword.
The use of keywords has evolved since the early days of the Web. In the early days of search engines, keywords were the primary means by which pages were ranked in search results. This meant that Webmasters could “keyword stuff” their pages with excessive keywords in order to improve their ranking. However, search engines have since become much more sophisticated, and keyword stuffing is now penalized.
The purpose of keywords is to help the search engine find the best match for a particular query. In order for a page to rank well for a particular keyword, the keyword must be present on the page in a way that makes it clear to the search engine what the page is about.
There are a number of different places where keywords can be used on a web page, including the title, the headings, the body text, and the meta tags. In order for a page to rank well, the keyword should be used in all of these places.
The title of a page is one of the most important places to use a keyword. The title is what appears in the search engine results, so it should be descriptive and contain the keyword.