"Latent Semantic Indexing, or LSI, is a technique in natural language processing, in particular in vectorial semantics, patented in 1988 by Scott Deerwester, Susan Dumais, George Furnas, Richard Harshman, Thomas Landauer, Karen Lochbaum and Lynn Streeter. In the context of its application to information retrieval, it is sometimes called latent semantic indexing (LSI)."

Thanks to a new series of online videos about effective ways to do Search Engine Optimization (SEO) everyone can now learn a bit more about this apparently complex term.

Latent Semantic Indexing in fact is nothing else but the ability of search engines to make sense of the actual topic/content contained in a web page, by way of looking not simply at keyword density but more specifically at the relevant and related keyword combinations that are part of the content. Keyword associations and keyphrases give Google and other major search engines a much better idea of the content focus in a specific web page then the simple absolute count of specific keywords in it.

The new video series is called 'Going Natural' and is conducted by SEO experts Andy Jenkins and Brad Fallon. I was alerted to it thanks to a news alert from WordTracker, the online keyword search engine service which provides an effective way for online marketers to search, spot and identify the most competitive and higher paying keyword and keyphrases around any topic.

"The presenters believe that if you're having trouble with SEO, it's not your fault, it's just that you haven't been given the right information (yet).

The explanation of how you must use 'related terms' to succeed on Google is one of the most practical they have come across. The approach is called 'Latent Semantic Indexing' but as the guys say, you don't need to worry about that."

Here is a short 3-minute video excerpt of the whole tutorial clip which was published just before this past weekend:

N.B.: The video was originally available at: http://www.convertlinks.com/whitehatseo. Unfortunately, and for reasons unknown to me, this video seems not to be accessible anymore on the site, while newer ones have appeared. I don't know whether to be glad of this or not, but it is certainly makes me feel good to have been able to capture some of this good explanation before this sudden departure.

It may be that this vixdeo has now been included in the free offer for learning more about white hat SEO, that Andy and Brad have setup at http://www.convertlinks.com/fastresults.php?whitehatseo.

If you know where the full video about Latent Semantic Indexing, let me know and I will gladly point to it here.