Entities are possibly the most essential concept to grasp in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). An entity is far more than a noun, object, or place. They cover everything from colors to ideas; it can be a computer, the color black, the laws of thermodynamics, etc. The reason they are so crucial for SEO is that search engines use the connection and relationship between keywords and entities to understand the intention of the search, allowing them to find content more accurately.

So, how does Google recognize these entities and ranks them?

There are a few factors that the search engine considers when ranking these entities:

• Relatedness. When you search for words that are related to each other, Google makes the connection. For example, if you type ‘Leader’ and ‘Radiohead’ you immediately get the result that Thom Yorke is the leader of the band Radiohead.

• Notability. Google uses a method that superficially is not very logical. The formula consists of studying how notable the entity is (determined mainly by links, reviews, and relevance), and seeing how low its value is in the category it falls in. The lower the value, the higher the notability. An entity, put simply, is most likely to succeed if it’s highly valuable in a small market instead of being highly valuable in an equally big market.

• Contribution. It is determined by external sources and measures how much an entity contributes to its topic. For example, a movie critic writing a review is more valuable than someone who writes reviews for a hobby.

• Prizes. As the name suggests, Google uses awards to identify the most valuable entities. For example, prices like the Nobel or Oscar can play a significant role when searching for a specific person.