What is the Reverse Index?
A reverse index allows search engines to produce fast searches. It is also commonly known as an inverted index.
Simply put, it is a system that enables search engines to organize online information. They then display the relevant results to the queries.
This process involves the mapping of different terms on a specific page. This helps in understanding the importance of keywords and their distribution in the content.
When a search engine crawls web pages, it stores the information in a reverse index. It then keeps track of which page has which term.
Look at the below example. Consider three pages with the following content:
Page 1: Optimizing your website for search engines
Page 2: The importance of keyword research in SEO
A reverse index for these pages may look like this:
Optimizing: Page 1
your: Page 1
website: Page 1
for: Page 1
search: Page 1, Page 3
engines: Page 1
importance: Page 2
keyword: Page 2
research: Page 2
SEO: Page 2
role: Page 3
backlinks: Page 3
engine: Page 3
rankings: Page 3
This enables search engines to identify which pages contain terms relevant to searchers' queries and present the results.