"Latent semantic indexing." I've written several articles on latent semantic indexing, but I still think it's a mouthful. Say it again, "latent semantic indexing." It just doesn't roll off the tongue, does it? Not for me, anyway. Maybe it's used as widely as it is because it does sound rather intellectual. And latent semantic indexing is a perfect description of the term itself, when you break it down. So, let's break it down and see where we get, since I'm sure you're interested in discovering more about latent semantic indexing.
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LSI is an SEO term. Search engine optimization is a very important concept to the internet marketing world, as everyone wants their web sites to rank as high as possible on a search engine index. And there's our first clue about latent semantic indexing. LSI is a key part of how a search engine like Google indexes or ranks every document and article on the internet.
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The reason a search engine indexes every article is that it wants to be able to rank them in a list for users who are looking for a specific search term. If a search engine always gives you documents that are useful to the search you're doing, you'll keep using that search engine and the owners will be able to market their search engine better. Thus, latent semantic indexing is a key internet marketing tool.
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So latent semantic indexing is going to be used to rank every article on a series of keywords in order to determine how related the article is to each of those keywords. In order to do this, the search engine must determine the meaning of the keywords and the meaning of the terms in the article to see how well they all match. "Semantic" is another word for meaning, so right there, we see that latent semantic indexing is working on the meaning of words and terms. "Indexing" means it's going to be doing a ranking. Here you might ask how you do a ranking on the meaning of words. Don't words just mean what they mean? Nope, they don't.
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For example, the word "page". You may think of it as a page in a book or a newspaper. But what about the city of Page, Arizona? Or a metaphorical use such as "turning a page of history"? This is where the "latent" meanings of a word or term come in to play, and latent semantic indexing is actually a sophisticated process. The software that does latent semantic indexing needs to be able to evaluate the latent meanings of words in order to determine which of those meanings is most important to the article as a whole. By being sensitive to latent meanings, LSI determines how much an article relates to the keyword, and thus where in its index this article ranks.
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So latent semantic indexing is going to be used to rank every article on a series of keywords in order to determine how related the article is to each of those keywords..... Learn more at Latent Semantic Indexing and semantic
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