The goal behind a search: to learn something (informational), reach a specific site (navigational), compare options before buying (commercial) or buy now (transactional). Google ranks pages that serve that goal.
Example
Someone searching 'how to wash linen' wants a guide. Someone searching 'buy linen kurta online' wants a product page. Meera writes a care guide for the first and builds a category page for the second.
How you'll hear it
“We are trying to rank a blog post for a buying query. Look at the SERP: it is all product pages. Wrong format for the intent.”
What it helps you decide
What kind of page you build for a keyword: a guide, a comparison, a category page or a product page. It also decides which keywords to drop because your page type cannot serve them.
Where people misread it
People guess intent from the words alone. The surer test is to look at what already ranks: if Google shows mostly shopping pages, a long article rarely breaks in, however good it is.
The story
The blog post that would not rank
Meera wanted to rank for 'linen kurta for women'. She paid for a 1,500-word article on the history and benefits of linen.
Three months later it sat on page four. Then she looked at the first page of results.
| Category and product pages from stores | 7 |
| Marketplace listings | 2 |
| Guides or articles | 1 |
| Total results checked | 10 |
|---|
The searchers wanted to see kurtas and buy one. Google was rewarding pages that let them do that. Her article answered a question nobody had asked with that keyword.
She built a proper category page instead: 24 linen kurtas, sizes, prices, fabric details and delivery information. She moved the article to target 'how to care for linen clothes', an informational query where guides do rank.
Now each page matches what its searcher wants.
Counts are illustrative. Check the live SERP for your own keyword before choosing a page type.
Don't confuse it with
- Keyword: the words typed. Intent: why they were typed. Two keywords with similar words can have different intents.
In India: Many Indian searchers type in Hinglish or in a regional language written in English letters. Check the results page for those versions separately; the intent and the ranking pages can differ.
Related terms
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Sources
- Search intent, Moz
- Search intent, Ahrefs