For this topic, searches and queries will be used interchangeably – both are identical, query is a more technical term for what an individual types into an engine. Web searches entered into search engines such as Google are quantified into three categories: informational, navigational, and transactional. If an individual types in “President Obama or George Bush”, these individuals are searching for information - hence it is an informational query or search. If an individual types in Apple or Verizon or brand names, they are searching for a particular website – which is classified as a navigational search. Transactional searches occur when an individual is looking to purchase something, for example “iphone price, red grapes for sale, etc.”
In addition to these categories of searches, there are particular ratings which are assigned to queries/searches and their destination pages. These include:
- Vital
- Useful
- Relevant
- Not Relevant
- Off-Topic
- Vital pages: contain the highest ratings for a given query. Vital pages are web pages which are the Official page for the query in question. These are typically navigational and informational queries. For example, an individual who types in “President Obama” is given the website, whitehouse.org. This is the official page for the President of the United States and as such it will score a vital rating for the query “President Obama.” Sometimes when official pages cannot be found, the vital rating is given to pages which possess information with the same grade of an encyclopedic article.
- Useful pages: are pages which are not official pages but contain substantial information about the search in question, these are pages which are one tier below encylopedic grade documents. Wikipedia documents will typically rank for these queries.
- Relevant pages: are pages which contain less comprehensive information with regards to the query. For example, a search for “salon software” will return a page which contains information about one or two salon softwares but not every single kind of salon software in existence. These pages are still relevant, they are not classified as useful or vital to the query “salon software.”
- Not Relevant: are pages which are not relevant to the query. These are pages with heavy marketing collateral whose sole objective is to market a product and not provide information about the query. The key here is information – relevant information and highly useful quality information. Putting up a quick web page without putting any thought into what keywords it may rank for – is a quick recipe for disaster.
- Off-Topic: self-explanatory. These pages contain nothing about the query and often talk about something else. Avoid these at all cost.
