is google really using latent semantic indexing? a friend of mine, who's a copywriter, got a work order from an seo company. i actually saw the template and guidelines for creating the article. from researching, i got the impression that this was just speculation, but then if companies are paying writers to do this maybe there's more to it
LSI is an indexing method that determines how words relate to one another when being indexed and searched for. For instance: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-40,GGLD:en&q=~car Notice the bolded words. Those words are 'like' the search term. You can do this in google by typing in ~searchterm. This is why when looking for link partners and article writers you want to make sure you are theming correctly in order to rank higher in SERPS since Google appears to be using LSI. For more on LSI: http://www.cs.utk.edu/~lsi/papers/index.html http://javelina.cet.middlebury.edu/lsa/out/lsa_definition.htm
We work with a group of copywriters who employ LSI in web content. I dont think it makes a huge difference but we work on an "every little helps" principle.