A keyword is a word which

In corpus linguistics a key word is a word which occurs in a text more often than we would expect to occur by chance alone.^[1] Key words are calculated by carrying out a statistical test (e.g., loglinear or chi-squared) which compares the word frequencies in a text against their expected frequencies derived in a much larger corpus, which acts as a reference for general language use. Keyness is then the quality a word or phrase has of being «key» in its context.

Compare this with collocation, the quality linking two words or phrases usually assumed to be within a given span of each other. Keyness is a textual feature, not a language feature (so a word has keyness in a certain textual context but may well not have keyness in other contexts, whereas a node and collocate are often found together in texts of the same genre so collocation is to a considerable extent a language phenomenon). The set of keywords found in a given text share keyness, they are co-key. Words typically found in the same texts as a key word are called associates.

In politics, sociology and critical discourse analysis, the key reference for keywords was Raymond Williams (1976), but Williams was resolutely Marxist, and Critical Discourse Analysis has tended to perpetuate this political meaning of the term: keywords are part of ideologies and studying them is part of social criticism. Cultural Studies has tended to develop along similar lines. This stands in stark contrast to present day linguistics which is wary of political analysis, and has tended to aspire to non-political objectivity. The development of technology, new techniques and methodology relating to massive corpora have all consolidated this trend.

There are, however, numerous political dimensions that come into play when keywords are studied in relation to cultures, societies and their histories. The Lublin Ethnolinguistics School studies Polish and European keywords in this fashion. Anna Wierzbicka (1997), probably the best known cultural linguist writing in English today, studies languages as parts of cultures evolving in society and history. And it becomes impossible to ignore politics when keywords migrate from one culture to another. Gianninoto (Underhill & Gianninoto 2019) demonstrates the way political terms like, «citizen» and «individual» are integrated into the Chinese worldview over the course of the 19th and 20th century. She argues that this is part of a complex readjustment of conceptual clusters related to «the people». Keywords like «citizen» generate various translations in Chinese, and are part of an ongoing adaptation to global concepts of individual rights and responsibilities. Understanding keywords in this light becomes crucial for understanding how the politics of China evolves as Communism emerges and as the free market and citizens’ rights develop. Underhill (Underhill & Gianninoto 2019) argues that this is part of the complex ways ideological worldviews interact with the language as an ongoing means of perceiving and understanding the world.

Barbara Cassin studies keywords in a more traditional manner, striving to define the words specific to individual cultures, in order to demonstrate that many of our keywords are partially «untranslatable» into their «equivalents. The Greeks may need four words to cover all the meanings English-speakers have in mind when speaking of «love». Similarly, the French find that «liberté» suffices, while English-speakers attribute different associations to «liberty» and «freedom»: «freedom of speech» or «freedom of movement», but «the Statue of Liberty».

ReferencesEdit

BibliographyEdit

• Cassin, Barbara, 2014, «Dictionary of Untranslatables», Oxford, Princeton University Press.
• Scott, M. & Tribble, C., 2006, Textual Patterns: keyword and corpus analysis in language education, Amsterdam: Benjamins, especially chapters 4 & 5.
• Underhill, James, Gianninoto, Rosamaria, 2019, «Migrating Meanings: Sharing keywords in a global world», Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
• Wierzbicka, Anna, 1997, «Understanding Cultures through their Key Words», Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Williams, Raymond, 1976, «Keywords: A Vocabulary of culture and society», New York: Oxford University Press.

External linksEdit

• Understanding the role of text length, sample size and vocabulary size in determining text coverage, by Kiyomi Chujo and Masao Utiyama
• Frequency Level Checker

For those who work with the text, it is very important to find keywords in it. What is a keyword in the text? Let’s understand.

Definition of concept

If you find the right words in the text, thenit will not be difficult to recover the entire text. Alexander Blok said this about this: the text is a blanket stretched over several pegs. Key words are the basic fragments of the text that carry the content load of the whole statement and are arranged in a certain order.

If they are found and located correctly, then the meaning of the text will be clear and understandable.

Supporting words in the fairy tale «The Chicken Ryaba»

Take as an example the most famous text — the tale «The Chicken Ryaba». Each sentence contains the following keywords:

1. grandfather and woman;
2. Chicken Ryaba;
3. testicle;
4. golden
5. they did not break it;
6. mouse;
7. it broke;
8. cry;
9. I’ll take down a simple one.

With these reference fragments, the entire text is easily recovered.

How to find keywords

What is a keyword in the text? Usually it is the main member of the proposal, well, at least one of them. If you select a keyword from the stem, then select the one that is associated with the subsequent context. Usually, secondary members are elected in the role of support on this principle — in connection with the following proposal.

Find the keywords on the example text

Let us turn to a concrete example and find in it the supporting words:

1) Conscience suddenly disappeared. 2) Until recently, she flashed here or there, and suddenly disappeared. 3) The internal turmoil and certain eternal restlessness of the soul have subsided, which forever bore and disturbed the conscience by their mere presence. 3) Became freer and somehow more expansive. 4) People, getting out of the yoke of conscience, sighed with relief, hurried to take advantage of the fruits of neglect. 5) They became frenzied: robberies and robberies, fraud and fraud began. 6) In the end, there was general chaos and ruin. (According to ME Saltykov-Shchedrin)

So, we have to search for keywords in the text, and we will write out parts of the fundamentals of sentences or the whole of the basics:

1) conscience;

2) has disappeared;

3) Trouble and restlessness subsided;

4) became freer;

5) people hastened to take advantage;

6) were furious;

7) chaos and ruin.

To verify the correctness of the work done, you need to try to restore the text by these words. Try to do this, if you succeed, then we successfully coped with the task.

Drawing up of a supporting summary

When we know what a keyword is in the text, you can use this knowledge in the process of compiling a basic summary. Let’s take an easy text-description for training:

The night threw her blanket over the autumn forest. There was peace and quiet in it. Silence fell silent in the trees. They seem scared. A lonely leaf falls from time to time with a soft rustle. Milky white fog broke away from the lake and swam to the edge of the forest.

And suddenly a breeze came. He reassured the tops of trees encouragingly and dispersed the fog. And then the mischief dashed off to meet the dawn.

The stars shine in the sky, imparting mystery and splendor to the picture of the night.

Here’s the dawn! Awakened the world from a dream. The forest moved, fluttered and stretched towards the sun with joy and delight.

Create a reference note — find in the text keywords	Bright text expressions that need to be preserved when the text is retold, but they are not key.
First paragraph Night. Silence and peace. The trees fell silent. Frightened. The leaf is falling. The fog swam. Second Paragraph Breeze. He crashed and dispersed. Went away. Third paragraph The asterisks are splendor. The fourth paragraph Dawn. Forest with joy.	Cover They reigned Alone Milky white. The mischief Shine Awake. He stretched.

If we are faced with the task of writing, then, having written down the left part of the sheet (reference note) on the first reading, and the right part (bright expressions) on the second reading, we can easily cope with this task.

Keywords — search engine helpers

Nowadays the concept of «keywords» has moreone meaning is what is the content of the site and what the search engines are looking for. For example, I am a seller of pans, and I have an online store. On my page I place text in which I use this word several times. A person who wants to buy a frying pan will enter the name of this item in the search bar, and my site will be published.

In this case, you need to consider the density of keywords in the text. If it is too large, in almost every sentence, the search engine will find the site spammed and will not display it as one of the first results.

Let’s do a practical lesson and try to find keywords in an article from a website, for example, in the following way:

This journey changed my life! Altai is a truly fabulous place! It reveals in a person hidden opportunities, which he himself did not even guess! Every day here is full of events: that day, new impressions. You come to a new place and you think: here it is, the most beautiful place in Altai! And in half an hour you are at another point, which is even more beautiful, even more magnificent!

Separately, I want to thank Alexander, ourguide, conductor and just a specialist with a capital letter. He could infect us with love for Altai, and now we are like all relatives united by one connection — affection for this magical place. Although everything is far from each other, but we correspond and communicate, remembering this beautiful fairy tale, whose name is Altai!

Answer: Altai

So we figured out what a keyword is in the text. Without it, it is impossible to imagine a coherent statement, as you can see.

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We have talked plenty about SEO for e-commerce in this blog.
We have analyzed a thousand strategies to conquer Google, but we have never talked about one very important aspect for SEO: keywords.
And that just can’t be the case, so today we are going to tackle them in detail.

What are keywords and how can you find the best ones for your shop’s texts?

This post provides you with everything you need to know in order to determine which keywords should be included in your content without becoming an SEO expert.
Is it necessary to repeat a keyword ad nauseam so that we can position it?
Do we need to use synonyms? Which free tools can we use?
Keep reading – today we’re going to shed light on all of these questions.

Before we start talking about keywords in depth, there’s one concept that we want to explain first: the users’ purchase intention.
Or, as we can also say:

The information users want to find when they type things into the Google search bar.

In most cases, their intentions can be grouped into three main objectives:

• To be informed
• To make a purchase
• To surf the Internet

The fact is that if two people are looking for the same thing, it is quite probable that they do it in a different ways (they likely use different terms for their Google search).
For example:
If I want to know some NFL results, I can find the information by typing different things:

• “NFL scores”
• “NFL games”
• “National Football League”

…among other options.
That is to say, there are different ways of asking the question even when the intention is the same.
Actually, for many different keywords, such as football, Google is already able to offer the same SERP (Search Engine Results Page).
Now let’s get to the definition of a keyword:

Keywords are the MOST common terms or phrases used by users to express their search intention.

Did you notice that we used capital letters for MOST?
We’ll explain why in just a second.

1. Keyword vs. query

A term that you see often and that is typically used as a synonym of keyword is query, but they are actually different concepts.

A query is any word or phrase that a person looks for, even if it is not properly spelled, while keywords are those queries that are repeated often and those that we want to use to position our shop.

Talking about SEO is almost synonymous with talking about Google, but the same idea applies to Bing or any other search engine.

2. Long tail: when the keyword is more specific

Another term than can be confusing is the long tail keyword, but it’s simpler than it may seem.
Think about any keyword that is highly searched for – “hotel Paris”, for instance.
It is a very short keyword (only two words), which receives many searches and is highly fought over (there are many websites that want to position themselves for those words).
Now add one or more word either before or after those:

• “Hotel Paris romantic”
• “Best hotel Paris Latin Quarter”

The result is a longer and more precise keyword that will probably have fewer searches than just “hotel Paris” alone.

Those longer and more specific keywords that are created by adding more information to the main keyword(s) are referred to as long tail keywords.

Replace “hotel Paris” with “football shoes” and start adding words to lengthen the main keyword.
The most important thing is that the new keywords have concrete and unique search intentions.
Here you have another example:
The person searching for “football shoes for kids” does not want to find the same information as somebody typing “Cristiano Ronaldo’s football shoes”.
You get the idea, don’t you?
Never forget that satisfying a user’s search intention is always the main goal of any text that you are trying to position.

Key concepts when talking about keywords

Beyond understanding what a keyword is, the most important thing is to know how to use them to get more traffic.
And for that, you need to understand the following concepts:

1. LSI keywords – the age of semantic keywords

Some years ago, when Google was just starting out, websites only needed to repeat a keyword over and over again to position it.
That practice, taken to the extreme by many, has become a punishable tactic and is referred to as keyword stuffing (adding the keyword in a non-natural way just to position it).
This is why we recommend monitoring the number of times that you type the keywords. We revisit this topic later in the post.
Nowadays, instead of that, Google rewards what is called text relevance. A text is more relevant when it has more semantically related words – words that normally appear together.
Let’s go back to the Paris example.
If I want to position the keyword “Paris”, we have to include words that are usually written when people talk about Paris.

• “Eiffel Tower”.
• “Notre Dame”.
• “Latin Quarter”.
• “City of Love”.

If those words are included in most of the top 10 websites, your content should also include them.
Those words are the so-called LSI keywords (Latent Semantic Indexing). Google understands that a text talks about a topic in depth when it includes all of those words.
You shouldn’t confuse or mix long tail keywords with LSI – the former are extensions of the main keyword while the latter have no morphological relation with the main word or with each other.

• Main keyword: Paris
• Long tail: what to do in Paris with kids
• LSI: Notre Dame

Google’s objective is naturalness; when you talk about a topic in detail, some words will come up naturally.
Could a text that talks about Paris avoid mentioning the Eiffel Tower? Obviously not.

2. Keyword density

If your goal is to position your website and to see long-term results, you know that writing relevant content that includes as many LSI words as possible is the way to go.
Despite that, Google is just a robot that scans and interprets what it read, so you can’t forget about the number of times you repeat the main keyword or where it’s placed in the text (URL, H1, H2, etc.).

The keyword density is the number of times that it’s repeated, in percentages.

There is no definitive rule, but, just in case, your keyword density should not exceed 1.5% (in this text, the main keyword density is 1.3%).

Trick #1

One common SEO practice is to look at the keyword density of the content shown in the first 3 or 4 results on Google.
That way you can check what percentage is OK for that keyword.
For some specific topics, such as recipes, Google accepts a higher density without penalizing the post.

Trick #2

Before creating a text, make a list of the main keyword synonyms and check to see how the first results that appear refer to them.
This will help you to avoid sounding repetitive.

3. Prominence

In addition to text relevance and the keyword density, there is another important term: prominence.

Google not only checks how many times a keyword appears, but it also checks where in the text they are located.

If they are located in the title (H1) or in the first header, they will have more prominence/importance. The same happens when the word is placed at the beginning or at the end of the paragraph.
But don’t over use this strategy! Don’t finish every paragraph with the same keyword.
We just did it in the last paragraph. 😉

Tip

In order to check keyword density and prominence you can use a very useful Chrome extension called SEOQuake.

Tools to find keywords

Before you start creating posts for your e-commerce blog or writing your product cards, you should carry out a small keyword analysis.
This process doesn’t need to be overly detailed but you should at least determine:

• What people search for on Google.
• Which words your competitors use.
• What the average density of their content is.
• In which headings their keywords are placed.

Remember texts that are relevant for Google and useful for users.
OK, so let’s start analyzing the tools.

1. Google keyword planner

This tool is limited to those accounts that have active campaigns, so its popularity has decreased, but it’s still a great option.

• Pros: Nobody knows more about what is searched for on Google than Google itself.
• Cons: Since it’s an AdWords tool, it focuses on transactional keywords (purchase intention). This is a pro when working with online shops.

You can find it here.

2. Ubersuggest (Neil Patel)

Neil Patel is a very well known marketing specialist who acquired an extremely popular keyword research tool: Ubersuggest.

After purchasing it, he cleaned it up and now offers it for free.

• Pros: Under “keyword ideas” there are two tags: “suggestions” and “related”. The first one gives you long tail keywords and the second one shows semantically related words. It is free for now. 😉
• Cons: It focuses on the American market, so don’t trust the “success probability” percentages that it offers.

You can try it out here.

3. Keywordtool.io

Although the free version doesn’t offer search volumes, this is still one of the most comprehensive tools out there:

• Pros: In addition to Google searches, it offers searches on YouTube, Amazon, and eBay. If you are looking for transactional keywords, this is incredibly useful to discover what people are looking for on Amazon.
• Cons: It’s quite expensive – a decent plan can cost upwards of $68 per month.

You can try it out here.

4. Kiwosan

This is more than just a keyword tool – it’s a complete, low cost SEO suite and it’s becoming more and more popular as an alternative to the paid options such as Ahrefs or Semrush.

• Pros: It looks for transactional searches and website analyses to get keywords and their density. This is probably the best price-quality option.
• Cons: It’s still in a beta phase, so we’ll have to keep an eye on it. It is currently only available in Spanish.

You can try it out here.

5. Keywordshitter

If you are trying to get every single long tail keyword that’s been searched for on Google, this is the tool you are looking for. Its design leaves much to be desired, but it does what it’s meant to do perfectly.

• Pros: It’s free. It starts with the letter “a” and doesn’t stop until you tell it to. Keywords, keywords, and more keywords – maybe too many.
• Cons: There are no filters or control over the results, which can be a bit overwheleming.

You can try it out here.

The key to keywords…

The best content to position is the one that meets users’ needs and pleases Google at the same time.

Google always advises to aim for naturalness, but it’s also essential to take density and prominence into account.

And regarding relevance, if you have quality text that talks about a topic in depth, relevance is assured.
Go get those keywords!

When looking for information about keywords in relation to SEO, you get bombarded with information about keyword research. And of course, this is crucial if you’d like your page to rank. But it’s also important to understand what the basic principle of a keyword is. And that’s the thing I’ll explain here. I’ll also share some suggestions about how and where to add keywords for SEO.

In this post:

• What are keywords?
• Why are keywords important?
• How to use keywords

What are keywords?

A keyword, or a focus keyword as some call it, is a word that describes the content on your page or post best. It’s the search term that you want to rank for with a certain page. So when people search for that keyword or phrase in Google or other search engines, they should find that page on your website.

Let’s say you’ve got a website about pianos: you sell all sorts and types of pianos. You blog about what to look at when buying a piano and you share reviews about the pianos you offer on your online shop. You sell digital pianos so you’ve created a product category page about digital pianos. Ask yourself this:

• What kind of search term do you want to be found for?
• Which words do you think people will use in search engines to find you?
• What would the search query look like?

Probably [digital piano], right? Because this keyword reflects what’s on the page best. If you’d have to explain the bottom line of your content, how would that look? What words would you use? That’s your keyword or keyphrase – if it consists of multiple words.

We use the word ‘keyword’ all the time; this does not mean it consists of only one word. A lot of times it consists of multiple words. So when talking about keywords, a lot of times we mean a phrase instead of just one word.

Read more: Keyword research for your online shop »

Why are keywords important?

One of the things Google looks at when ranking a page is the content on that page. It looks at the words on the page. Now picture this, if every word on, for instance, a blog post about a digital piano is used 2 times, then all words are of equal importance. Google won’t have a clue which of those words are important and which aren’t. The words you’re using are clues for Google; it tells Google and other search engines what the page or post is about. So if you want to make Google understand what your page is about, you need to use it fairly often.

But Google isn’t the only reason why keyphrases are important. Actually, it’s less important, because you should always focus on the user: on your visitors and potential clients. With SEO you want people to land on your website when using a certain search term or keyphrase. You need to get into the heads of your audience and use the words they use when they are searching.

If you use the wrong keyphrase, you’ll never get the visitors you want or need, because your text doesn’t match what your potential audience is searching for. But if you do use the words people are searching for, your business can thrive. So if you see it like that, your keywords should reflect what your audience is searching for. With the wrong keyphrase, you’ll end up with the wrong audience, or none at all. That’s why having the right keywords is really important.

How to use keywords

There used to be a time where you could add a lot of keywords to your pages and posts, do some old-fashioned keyword stuffing, and you’d rank in search engines. But a text with a lot of the same words in it is not a pleasant read. And because users find this kind of copy terrible to read, Google finds it terrible too. That’s why ranking in Google by doing keyphrase stuffing, fortunately, became hard to do. Nowadays, you’ll need to add your keyphrase in a natural way by writing focused content.

Use them in moderation

Getting the right amount of keywords onto your page is a balancing act. If you don’t use your keyword enough, you will find it hard to rank for that phrase. But if you use your keyphrase too much, your page will become spammy and unreadable, and that will also make it hard to rank.

You need to find that sweet spot where you’re using your keyword enough, but not excessively. Make sure you don’t stuff it into almost every sentence. In general, if your keyphrase makes up 1 or 2% of all words of your copy, then you’re not overdoing it.

Use them naturally

Aside from trying to add enough-but-not-too-many keywords, you need to make sure you include them in a natural way. Your keywords should be part of logical, coherent sentences that tell users something about that topic. Don’t force keyphrases into text (or headings) where they don’t make sense, or where they’re not adding any value for your readers.

And, that’s not all. Make sure your keywords are all well-distributed throughout your text. Don’t put all your keywords in the first paragraph thinking you’re done with that part of the optimization. Naturally spread them throughout your page or post.

Where to add your keyword

As well as distributing your keyphrase throughout your text, there are some other places that you should also add your keyword. Remember, always add keywords in moderation and put readability first!

• Page title and SEO title
  You should always add your keyword in your page title. Ideally you want to add it at the start of your title, especially if your title is long. The same goes for your SEO title, or meta title.
• Subheadings
  You should add your keyword to some of your subheadings (H2 and H3), but not all. It’s just the same as with the keyphrases in your main text. Use your keyword in a heading or a couple of subheadings, depending on the length of your page or post.
• Introduction
  The introduction is the first paragraph of normal text on the page. Your introduction should get straight to the point, so Google and your readers know what you’ll be talking about. This is a great opportunity to include your keyphrase!
• Image alt text
  Hopefully, your page or post includes an image related to the topic you’re writing about. Add some alt text to your images and see if you can find a natural way to include your keyword.
• Meta description
  Your meta description is part of the text Google displays in its search results. It should contain a short description of what users can find on your page. It’s another great place to add your keyphrase, too!
• URL slug
  The slug is the second part of a URL (web address) that identifies a specific page. For instance, the URL for this post is https://yoast.com/what-is-a-keyword/. The slug is the ‘what-is-a-keyword‘ part. You should try to create clear, descriptive slugs for each page you make, and if possible you should include your keyphrase in them too.

The Yoast SEO plugin checks all this for you

Want to get the right amount of keywords in all the right places? The Yoast SEO plugin makes it much easier! Simply add your focus keyphrase and the plugin will automatically check the points listed above — including whether you’re using it too much, too little, and whether it’s distributed well throughout your text.

These super helpful features are available in both the free and Premium versions. However if you upgrade to Premium you’ll be able to add more related keyphrases in addition to your focus keyphrase, too!

Up next: doing keyword research

Now you have a common understanding of what a keyword or keyphrase is. This knowledge will really help you with your keyword research, which of course is the next and vital step!

Keep reading: Keyword research: the ultimate guide »

Willemien is the Manager Content of yoast.com. She loves creating user-friendly content and making it easy to find for people and search engines.

Coming up next!

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• #2

These are two totally different contexts. In s1, they’re words that are key/important. In s2, they’re search-related keywords.

You’ll have to decide which is appropriate for your use.

• #3

Hi Copyright,

Thanks for your nice reply.

Let me confirm one thing.
Do you mean as follows?

Key word is a word that is key/important.
Keyword is a search-related word.
These meanings don’t depend on the context or the usage and are fixed.

In other words, I’d like to know if their meanings depend on the context or the usage because you emphasized context or usage.

You said «You’ll have to decide which is appropriate for your use. «
So I think you mean their meanings don’t depend on the context or the usage. But it’s a little bit ambiguous for me.
Please help me.

• #4

The one-word «keyword» could be considered as a special use of the two-word version «key word». If you write an article and are asked to provide a few keywords to help people find the article, you will almost certainly choose words that are important to the subject.

• #5

Hi Hildy1,

Thanks for your nice reply.

Do you mean their meanings don’t depend on the context or the usage and are fixed?

So sorry to ask the same question many times.

• #6

In AE, either is correct, whatever the meaning, according to the American Heritage Dictionary, which I consider the most reliable source.

• #7

Hi Parla,

I looked up the words in American Heritage Dictionary.
It says as in the quotation marks.

«keyword also key word n. 1. A word that serves as a key to code or cipher. 2. A significant or descriptive word. 3. A word used as a reference point for finding other words or information.»

So I think the meanings of keyword and key word are quite the same.
So I think their meanings do depend on the context or the usage.

Am I right?

note.
The phrase in the quotation marks is quoted from American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language.

• #8

Setting aside the dictionary, I’ll just tell you how I use the words I mentioned in post 2:

In the first line of the second amendment, a key word is «militia»: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.*

To help people find our company online, we are including these keywords: drain cleaning, roto-rooter, plumbing repair.

I only use keyword in a search context. Others can do as they like.

*Although this version is better: A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

• #9

Hi Copyright,

Thanks for your nice replies.

I agree with you about the explanation of dictionaries. They usually omit small differences between similar words because they have to list many entries. I well understand their situation or standpoint.

Your new explanation is so clear for me and all of my questions are completely solved.

Thanks.

• #10

My point was that you can spell it either as one word or two; both are considered correct in AE. (Yes, you’ve quoted the dictionary correctly.)

• #11

Hi Parla,

Thanks for your nice reply.

Yes, now I know both are correct.
But my point is their meanings or nuances are the same or different.
Are their meanings or nuances the same or different?
What do you think or feel?

• #12

Their meanings are totally different, we’re not talking about «nuances.» I think that got lost in the spelling discussions. As Copyright said in post 2, «These are two totally different contexts. In s1, they’re words that are key/important. In s2, they’re search-related keywords.»

Identifying some words out of a bigger text as being extremely important or relevant for understanding is a subjective judgement and an action of «labeling» somewhat similar to identifying the actual topic(s). You might circle some words in teaching students to grasp the essence of what is being said, or even just write them down for yourself as quick notes. That is s1.

s2 is an aid to more efficient online searching for texts or a particular text, rather like having placed markers or tabs in dictionaries or encyclopedias in pre-internet, real-book days.

Judging and selecting is not at all the same as searching.

If I write «The whole city of Paris is beautiful» I can say I find two words that are essential,PARIS, BEAUTIFUL. Those words are «key.» That is what my sentence is «about» as opposed to finding subjects and verbs.

If my little sentence gets published online and I want to search for it, that is keywording, trying to find it out of the millions of hits on the internet I’d get if I just enter «Paris.»

I notice my pronunciation as far as stress goes is different:

s1 «The key WORDS are «Paris» and Beautiful.»

s2. «Some keywords (by me pronounced something like KEE-wards) to find my sentence might be «Paris» or «beautiful.»

My preference is to use only key word for essence and keyword for search. Even for those who use keyword for both, it may well be that many do in fact stress the words differently in speech.

Last edited: Oct 28, 2015

• #13

Hi Dale Texas,

Thanks for your nice reply.

Your explanation is so powerful, full of confidence, and blowing everything away.
I’m so happy to know you have the same opinion as Copyright.
I feel the ice crystal in my brain, my question, is melting away.

Thanks.

• #15

So I think their meanings do depend on the context or the usage.

Indeed they do, keeley, as do so many words in English.

Even written as one word, «keyword» can have different meanings. In a search-related context, the meaning is the one already described by others, above. In the context of cyphers or codes, it’s a word that provides a basis for encoding and decoding a message. In a sentence such as «Secrecy is the keyword in this operation», it means that secrecy is the most important factor or consideration.

Ws

• #16

Hi Wordsmyth,

Thanks for your nice reply.

Now I well understand the difference between key word and keyword is a very, very subtle problem.

Thanks.

• #17

I understood a little, BUT in the example above should I write keywords or key words when I write an essay and put an abstract. also, the one with hyphen exists? key-words??

Abstract

Keywords/key words: Workers. Poverty. Exploration and social protection.

Thanks in advance.

• #18

«Social protection» isn’t a word at all — it’s a term.