A semantic field is a set of words whose meaning is related in some way. The relationship can be of several types:
- Hyponymy: when one of the elements contains in itself the meaning of another. For example, they belong to the same semantic field: car, convertible, vehicle, saloon, coupe…
- Meronymy: each of the elements designates a part of another element. For example: casserole, saucepan, frying pan, kitchenware…
- Linear: the elements are part of a series, such as Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday…
Search engines group words that share a semantic field according to their relevance, so that we can use the discarded terms (those that did not become a thesaurus tag) to use them in the texts and prominent areas of the pages grouped under that tag in order to achieve excellent relevance for a wider range and variety of related searches that will most likely include terms of the same semantic field.
Similarly, the subsections and detail pages that make up a thematic section of a website should ideally be concentrated around the same semantic field.
Both usability and relevance support this principle.
