Member Avatar for InsightsDigital

i read a blog post this morning on Search Engine Land about how the number of keywords or keyword phrases have increased, thus the power for one individual keyword has decreased. I think people do this to increase the chances of obtaining relevant SERPS.
http://searchengineland.com/coming-soon-paid-search-without-keywords-25312
So what do you think?

  • 2 Contributors
  • 1 Reply
  • 178 Views
  • 3 Days Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by John LA

Dani AI

Generated

Short answer: yes — but it depends what “without keywords” means. ’s mention of the idea and ’s question about site search point to two different realities: advertiser-side keywordless targeting, and search UX that returns results when users don’t type exact keyword phrases. On the ads side, Google’s goal‑based Performance Max campaigns show how keyword lists can be replaced by campaign goals, creative assets and AI-driven optimization across Search, YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail and Maps. ()

How that plays out in practice: Performance Max uses asset groups and audience signals as guidance rather than hard keyword rules. Audience signals act as “hints” to jumpstart the model; the system then expands to find conversions, which reduces query-level control compared with traditional keyword campaigns. Practical inputs that materially affect outcomes are clear conversion tracking, diverse creative assets, and first‑party audiences to steer the automation early. (developers.google.com)

On the organic/search side, search engines have moved toward intent and entity understanding (BERT, MUM and successors), so exact keyword strings matter less than helpful, well‑structured answers to real user questions. Content that solves specific problems, covers a topic comprehensively, and uses structured data for clarity is the modern way to be found when users aren’t thinking in tight keyword phrases. (blog.google)

For site search or product search where users literally don’t provide clean keywords, implement fuzzy/synonym matching plus semantic (vector) retrieval and hybrid re‑ranking so relevance doesn’t require exact terms. Test with real query logs, measure click‑through and task completion, and iterate on synonyms/embeddings and relevance tuning. Elastic’s semantic and fuzzy‑search docs are a good technical starting point. (elastic.co)

Caution: keywordless systems trade fine control for scale and can surface irrelevant traffic if signals, assets or tracking are weak — monitor early performance and keep guardrails (negative lists, landing‑page checks, conversion validation) where possible.

Member Avatar for John LA

Maybe typing it in a website search box can give it a result without keywords or giving you link results. Ultimately, I think that's not that possible.

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.