Effect of body-text keyword prominence on website visibility

Abstract

In this empirical pilot study, the author aims to identify the role that body text keyword prominence plays in website visibility. The search was based on the top twenty websites returned by search engines namely, Alta vista, Google, Yahoo, MSN, LycoS, Ask Jeeves and AOL. The occurrence of the keyword 'book' was counted in three designated areas of the body text area of the source code, and a result set compiled. A Spearman Correlation indicates that there is a significant relationship between the visibility of the website and prominence of keywords in body text for some search engines, and no relationship for other search engines.