<\/p>\n
The increased use of language understanding in search engines has prioritized writing content that is organized by topics and subtopics and communicates the message in a way that lacks ambiguity. Semantic HTML makes it clear to search engines exactly where the content you want to index is located on a web page, so it should be considered for both SEO and website accessibility.<\/p>\n
To be clear, semantic HTML is not a ranking factor. It’s something that makes it easier for search engines to identify where the main content of a web page is, which is a very good thing.<\/p>\n
Google’s Search Quality Evaluator guidelines distinguish between three types of content on a web page:<\/strong><\/p>\n Main content Complementary content Advertising content<\/p>\n Primary content is what search engines want to index and rank.<\/p>\n Supplemental content is useful, such as site navigation, but it’s not what search engines are interested in indexing.<\/p>\n Advertising content is also not what search engines visit a web page to crawl.<\/p>\n Semantic HTML helps web pages achieve their purpose<\/p>\n The distinction between the main content and the other two types of content is that the supplementary and advertising content do not help to achieve the purpose of the web page.<\/p>\n Only core content helps a web page achieve its purpose, and according to the guidelines of the Search Quality Raters, these are the ones that receive the highest Page Quality Score from the raters.<\/p>\n While it’s probably not a ranking signal, creating core content that achieves the purpose of the web page is still a goal that all publishers and SEOs should be working toward.<\/p>\n The Qualifiers Guide states at the beginning of Part 1:<\/strong><\/p>\n “A page quality (PQ) rating task consists of a URL and a grid to record your observations as you explore the landing page and website associated with the URL.<\/p>\n The purpose of the PQ rating is to assess how well the page achieves its purpose.”<\/p>\n The key to achieving the purpose is in the Main Content. Semantic HTML is what helps the search engine crawler zero in on that main content.<\/p>\n The number one rule of SEO is to make web pages easy for search engines to understand.<\/p>\n Semantic HTML can be the most fundamental level of web page content on which the structure of the entire web page can be organized neatly into the three parts (main content, supplementary content, and advertising content).<\/p>\n When we talk about semantic HTML, we’re not talking about the meaning of words. In the context of HTML, the word “semantics” refers to the meaning of a web page, broken down into its component parts.<\/p>\n Just as a body is made up of a head, torso, arms and legs, a web page is also a collection of parts.<\/p>\n The typical structure of a web page is as follows:<\/strong><\/p>\n Header (the top part with the logo) Navigation Main content Footer<\/p>\n See the part called Main Content? This is the part that search engines are most interested in when indexing a web page. This is the part that the search quality evaluators guidelines were referring to.<\/p>\n When indexing a web page, search engines don’t care about navigation, footer, advertising, sidebars, or header sections. They are interested in indexing the main content.<\/p>\n Semantic HTML tells search engines exactly where the main content exists so the indexer can pick it up and rank it.<\/p>\n Telling a search engine what content on a web page to index is as easy as using The And has a closing tag (<\/main>) to mark where the main content ends.<\/p>\n A web page can only have one In the section where the main content starts, just enter it This makes it very easy for search engines to get to your main content and index it.<\/p>\n That’s great right? Well, it gets even better.<\/p>\nMain content<\/h3>\n
Supplementary Content<\/h3>\n
Advertising content<\/h3>\n
Concept of page structure: Semantic HTML<\/h2>\n
The
\n