📌 What is Page Segmentation for Search Engines?
Page segmentation is the process of dividing a web page into distinct sections based on their purpose and content—such as the main content, navigation menus, sidebars, headers, footers, and ads. Search engines aim to understand web page segments based on their function and content. The amount of boilerplate content (headers, footers, sidebars, ads, pop-ups) can affect how similar web pages appear.
👉 If there is too much boilerplate content, the prominence of the main content decreases, which can impact SEO. A web page should prioritize its main content rather than excessive design elements.
To determine which links and content sections are most important, search engines segment web pages and assign different weights to text, images, and links.
✅ Why is Page Segmentation Important?
- 🔹 A consistent header and footer, as per Google's Quality Rater Guidelines, helps both users and search engines quickly understand a web page’s main content.
🏗 Google Layout Algorithm
📖 According to Miranda Miller from Search Engine Watch, page segmentation techniques vary. Google’s Layout Algorithm examines:
- 🔍 Logos
- 🔍 Functional blocks
- 🔍 Visual elements
- 🔍 HTML structure
These factors help Google determine the prominence of different content sections.
⚡ Web Page Segmentation & SEO Benefits
An experiment was conducted to test the effects of reducing boilerplate content:
- ✔ 70% of links & 95% of content were in the main content area.
- ✔ Minimal boilerplate content led to lighter pages without extra page speed optimizations.
- ✔ Page similarity or Content similarity between different web pages was less than 6%, making each page highly unique and focused on user intent.
The experiment also tested whether Google assigns more weight to main content terms and PageRank to main content links. Even after removing headers and footers, no negative impact on rankings was observed.
This experiment shows that web page segmentation plays a crucial role in helping search engines understand and rank pages effectively.