Keyword
A keyword is the word or phrase a person types into a search box, and, by extension, the phrase a page is written to be found for. When the search box is an AI assistant, the unit stops being a phrase and becomes a question with a place and a need in it.
From phrase to question
A search query is compressed: a trade, a town, perhaps the word near. A question put to an assistant is the sentence the person would have said aloud. The probe behind this site’s audit used one buyer question per business, of the form who are the best electricians in Brampton, and checked whether the business was named in the answer. The panel used for paying clients runs twelve such questions per trade and place, put to Claude with live web search; the method is on the methodology page. The audit’s finding on how many sites hold any question-and-answer content is in what 9,483 small business websites serve to an AI crawler.
Keyword and intent
The keyword is the string. The intent is what the person wants done, and one string can carry several: a trade name typed into a search box may be a request for a definition, a price or someone to book. A page written for the string alone matches all of them and satisfies none. Writing for the question resolves this, because a question carries its own intent.
A common question
How does a query typed into a search box differ from one put to an assistant?
A typed query is compressed, often a trade and a town and perhaps the word near. A question put to an assistant is the whole sentence a person would have said aloud, with a place and a need inside it. The difference matters because one string can carry several intents at once, from a request for a definition to a request to book, and a page written for the string alone matches all of them and satisfies none. A question carries its own intent.