seo-entity

Entity-Based / Semantic SEO 2026

Google parses meaning at query, document and passage level. It extracts entities via NLP, resolves them against the Knowledge Graph (~8 billion entities), maps relationships, and indexes content by concept, not by keyword. TF-IDF / keyword density is obsolete — optimize for embeddings and topical coverage instead.

Entity Map (start here)

Strategic inventory that drives everything else. For the target topic, list every entity the site should cover:

Entity	Type	Relates to	Page covering it
RankBrain	concept	Google, ranking	/guides/rankbrain
Google	organization	search engine	/about

Types: person, concept, organization, product. Breadth of entity coverage + internal linking density + publishing consistency = topical authority.

Salience (0–1, relative)

• NLP scores each entity's prominence; scores across all entities on a page sum to ~1.0 — entities compete for share.
• Entity in the H1 + first 100 words = max salience.
• Repetition does NOT raise salience. Clear writing in proper context does.
• Example: a passage can score RankBrain 0.584 vs Google 0.231 even when "Google" is the grammatical subject — salience distribution reveals the real topical focus.

Passage-Level Ranking

Google scores per passage, not per page. Each passage is judged on entity salience, relationship clarity, and topical relevance. A page ranks for broad topic queries when its entity signals are clear and unambiguous — not just for the exact keyword.

Schema Linking (resolve identity, don't make Google guess)

• about → Wikidata URI of the page's primary entity (the node in the Knowledge Graph).
• sameAs on author/organization → LinkedIn, Wikipedia, Wikidata profiles.
• knowsAbout on author/organization → entities they have demonstrated expertise in.

{
  "@type": "Article",
  "about": { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Knowledge Graph",
    "sameAs": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3882486" },
  "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Jane Doe",
    "sameAs": ["https://www.linkedin.com/in/janedoe",
      "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Doe"],
    "knowsAbout": ["semantic SEO", "NLP"] }
}

Validation (before publishing)

Send content to the Google Cloud Natural Language API (free tier). It returns identified entities, types, salience scores, and Knowledge Graph links. Use it to confirm the primary entity actually wins salience; rewrite passages if salience drifts off-topic.

Related

• seo-schema — JSON-LD types and templates
• seo-geo — entity signals drive AI citations
• seo-content — topical coverage and answer capsules