Basics · also called user intent, query intent
Search intent
Search intent is the goal a person has in mind when they search, such as learning something, finding a website or buying a product.
Every search has a purpose behind it. Someone typing "what is a mortgage" wants to learn. Someone typing "mortgage calculator" wants a tool. Someone typing "best mortgage rates today" is close to choosing a lender. That underlying purpose is search intent, and it is usually sorted into informational, navigational and transactional or commercial.
Intent is what makes search advertising valuable. An ad shown to a person who has just said what they want is far more likely to produce a customer than an ad shown to someone scrolling a social feed. That is why search clicks command high prices and why search arbitrage exists at all.
The weakness of arbitrage is that the intent is often borrowed. A visitor from a native or social ad did not type a query. They clicked a keyword the publisher suggested. If that keyword reflects a real interest, the advertiser gets a good prospect. If the visitor clicked out of idle curiosity, the advertiser pays for a click with no intent behind it, and engines respond by lowering the payout. Strong commercial intent is the form buyers look for.
Think of it like this
Someone who walks into a hardware shop and asks for a 10 mm drill bit has clear intent. Someone drifting past the window has none yet, however nice the display.
Related terms
Commercial intent
Commercial intent is how likely a search or click is to come from someone ready to spend money.
Keyword
A keyword is the word or phrase that triggers search ads, either typed by a person or passed to the search feed by a web page.
Forced keywords
Forced keywords are search terms chosen by the publisher, not typed by the visitor, and passed to the search feed to shape which related searches or ads appear.
Advertiser conversion
An advertiser conversion is the valuable action, such as a sale or lead, completed on the advertiser's own site after someone clicked their ad on a search feed.
Smart pricing
Smart pricing is Google's system for automatically lowering what an advertiser pays for a click on a partner site when that click is less likely to lead to a sale.