Search Intent Classifier guide
Paste keywords one per line and get each one tagged by search intent, the word that triggered the label, and the kind of page most likely to rank. Add your brand names so branded searches are caught as navigational. Export the result as CSV.
How the classifier decides
Each keyword is lowercased and run through four rule sets in a fixed order. The first rule that matches wins, and the table shows the exact word or phrase that triggered it, so you can judge the call yourself.
Order matters. Navigational goes first: login, sign in, account, customer service, plus any brand names you list. A bare brand search, or a brand plus one word, counts as navigational; "quickbooks vs xero" does not. Transactional is next: buy, price, coupon, near me, hire, book, download, free trial, template. Then commercial: best, top, review, vs, alternative, worth it, and phrases like "apps like". Last is informational: questions starting with how, what, why, can, or is, plus terms like guide, meaning, examples, and calculator. No signal at all defaults to informational, because that is the most common intent on the web.
What each intent means for your content
Informational: people want an answer. Write a clear guide with the answer in the first paragraph, then depth. Tools and calculators often win here too, because the fastest answer is one the searcher computes.
Commercial: people are comparing. Rankings go to best-of lists, head-to-head comparisons, and honest reviews with pros, cons, and pricing. This is where affiliate content lives and where thin, generic lists get filtered out.
Transactional: people are ready to act. Product pages, pricing pages, local service pages, and downloadable templates rank. For "near me" searches, your Google Business Profile often matters more than your website.
Navigational: people want one specific site. Unless it is your brand, you almost never outrank the official page. Skip these in your content plan, but make sure your own branded searches land on a clean login or homepage.
Worked example: planning a small business finance site
Paste eight keywords: best invoice software, how to calculate profit margin, quickbooks login, buy standing desk, freshbooks vs quickbooks, roth ira meaning, plumber near me, invoice template. With quickbooks in the brand list, the summary shows 2 informational, 2 commercial, 3 transactional, and 1 navigational.
Now the plan writes itself. "How to calculate profit margin" and "roth ira meaning" become guides, ideally with a calculator embedded. "Best invoice software" and "freshbooks vs quickbooks" become comparison articles with affiliate links. "Invoice template" becomes a free downloadable template page. "Quickbooks login" gets dropped, since Intuit will always own it. "Buy standing desk" and "plumber near me" are for retailers and local businesses, not an informational site, so they go too.
Where rules fall short
Short head terms like "standing desk" or "mortgage" carry mixed intent, and no word list can tell what most searchers want. Google can, because it sees what people click. For any keyword you plan to invest in, search it in a private window and read the top 10 results. Their format is the answer: if Google shows product listings, it is transactional no matter what a tool says.
Intent also drifts. "Covid test" was informational for years, then transactional, then informational again. Recheck important keywords every few months.
Google's own Search Quality Rater Guidelines describe intent with a different vocabulary: Know, Do, Website, and Visit-in-person queries. The four-label model used here, and by most SEO tools, maps roughly onto those categories. Know is informational, Do covers transactional, Website is navigational, and Visit-in-person matches local "near me" searches.
Common mistakes
Targeting a commercial keyword with an informational article, or the reverse. If the top results are all "10 best" lists, a 2,000-word history of the product category will not rank.
Mixing intents on one page. A pricing page that is also a tutorial and a comparison serves no one well. One primary intent per URL.
Ignoring navigational keywords about your own brand. If people search your name plus "login" or "pricing", make sure those pages exist and have clear titles.
How we calculate: sources
Frequently asked questions
What are the four types of search intent?
Informational (the searcher wants to learn, like "how to calculate margin"), navigational (they want a specific site, like "quickbooks login"), commercial (they are comparing options, like "best invoice software"), and transactional (they are ready to act, like "buy standing desk").
How does this search intent classifier work?
It applies transparent keyword rules in a fixed order: navigational signals and your brand names first, then transactional words like buy and price, then commercial words like best and vs, then question words and informational terms. Anything without a signal defaults to informational.
Why does search intent matter for SEO?
Google ranks the page type that satisfies the intent. A product page rarely ranks for "how to" queries, and a blog post rarely ranks for "buy" queries. Matching format to intent is often the difference between page 1 and page 3.
How do I check search intent manually?
Search the keyword in an incognito window and look at the top 10. If they are product pages, the intent is transactional; listicles and reviews point to commercial; guides point to informational. The live results always beat any rule-based label.
Can a keyword have more than one intent?
Yes. "Standing desk" could mean shopping, comparing, or learning. Google often shows mixed results for these, and the tool labels them by the strongest signal it finds. Check the results page for mixed-intent terms.
Is this AI?
No. It uses clear, published rules that run in your browser, so the same keyword always gets the same label and you can see which word triggered it.
Is data uploaded?
Everything runs in your browser. Nothing you enter is uploaded to a server or stored by us.
Is "near me" transactional or navigational?
Most SEO tools treat "near me" searches as transactional or local intent: the person wants to visit or hire a nearby business now. Google's rater guidelines call these Visit-in-person queries.
What intent is a question keyword?
Usually informational. Keywords that start with how, what, why, or can are asking for an answer. The exception is questions with buying words, such as "what is the best CRM", which lean commercial.