Page Segmentation and the affect on SEO

What is Page Segmentation?

Page Segmentation is a method of Information Retrieval (IR) where content on a page is split into blocks. IR tries to improve the signal to noise ratio by identifying the "noisy" blocks from the more relevant unique content.

No one knows exactly what part page segmentation plays in the search engine algorithms but it is always a good idea to bear in mind anything that could impact your search engine rankings.  If you use a CMS system, your site is already split up into segments which are read easily by humans and search spiders alike.

How Does Page Segmentation Work?

The search engine robots assign a value to each block on the page. The information passed back categorises blocks based on their value. Low value blocks contain ads or spammy content. High value blocks will contain unique content, site navigation etc. The quality of each block determines how often the robots crawl that block.

There are four types of page segmentation these are:

Fixed Length Page Segmentation. FixedPS strips out the semantic code leaving only the raw content. Based on this fact you need to make sure the content on your site is good.

Dom Based Page Segmentation. DomPS is where the page content is split by elements within the DOM, such as title, header and paragraph html tags. This is why building a site using tables is bad for SEO.

Vision Based Page Segmentation. VIPS sums up what page segmentation is. It doesn't just view each web page as a separate unit but analyses page structure by looking at the individual blocks on each page. Here is a graphical representation taken from the research performed by Microsoft.

Combined Page Segmentation. CombPS as the name suggests combines FixedPS and VIPS.  This is because often blocks are very small and the search engines need large blocks of information to work with.

The advantages of page segmentation are to split the page into areas to make it easier for search engines to understand. Search engines use page segmentation to know what parts of a page to crawl and index, assigning less importance to navigation and adverts and more to the content blocks. By ignoring these blocks during indexation the search engine can gain better relevance and save processing resources.

The size and position of a block signals to the search engine robot how to deal with that block, with larger blocks more likely to be viewed as content.

We are not entirely sure exactly what affect page segmentation has on SEO but I recommend you use distinct blocks to construct your web pages. Use CSS, colour and div elements to break blocks up.

Page segmentation is an onsite SEO technique BDR London uses to optimise websites. If your site does not have the right foundations your SEO efforts will be diluted in a competitive market. The top players in any industry invest large amounts into get site structure correct in order to compete effectively you also need to employ on site optimisation factors. To find out how we can help you request your free web site audit by emailing your URL and contact details to Louise Goldstein.