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What is difference in search performed using quotes vs. no quotes?

To "Quote" or not to Quote?

         

GunnerM

6:03 pm on Apr 22, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I am dumbfounded by the difference in Google's positioning of "Quoted" searches vs. the positioning of un-quoted search arguments.

Specifically, "email troops" provides my website URL with #2 position on page 1, and unquoted, the same search does not include my url in the first 500 listings (10 pages of 50 items each). The disparity dumbounds me.

Please, can anyone explain why?

Thanks, Gunner M
New Bern, NC

amoore

6:06 pm on Apr 22, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



it's a phrase search instead of a search for pages with both of those words.
I recommend that you use the phrase "email troops" on your page at least once if that's the phrase you want people to find your site by.

fathom

6:11 pm on Apr 22, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



Quoted means the precise phrase which there would be far less pages with the precise phrase rather than email and troops appearing somewheres on the page or one not at all.

Unquoted - could be Girl Guides troops content and an email link somewhere on the page -- where the terms in this context has nothing to with email troops -- at least in your context.

Someone might still like the cookies! ;)

jomaxx

7:15 pm on Apr 22, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Unfortunately (for me) most searchers do not use double quotes. My guess would be about only 10% of total searches.

vincevincevince

7:47 pm on Apr 22, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



" " will look for only the exact phrase, not the two words in close proximity. it's a lot easier to show up on these " " searches, because it's like having a single rare keyword search, compared to having two very common keywords...

"John Smith" will only find "John Smith", but John Smith will find Murphy (John), Jones (Mark), Smith (Fred)..

¶öËÀ¶¹

jon80

7:51 pm on Apr 22, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Has anyone actually got any stats for the percentage of searchers who use ""

GunnerM

10:17 pm on Apr 23, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



judging from the respones, i guess that there is no understanding of "why it is", it "just is". or, at least, the understanding escapes me.

it is interesting to note that less that 12 hours after i posed the question, the unquoted search argument - email troops - also jumped up to 2nd position on page 1. that fact makes it even murkier to me.

many, many thanks to amoore, fathom, jomaxx, vincevincevince and jon80.

gunnerm
new bern, nc

Equiano

10:44 pm on Apr 23, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



<edit>oops I should have read the last post </edit>

Ankheg

10:50 pm on Apr 23, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



From my experience:

1. Probably, maybe, perhaps 20%, probably fewer, of the people who -find my sites- do so with quoted search strings. This may just mean that I'm higher in the SERPs for those strings quoted than unquoted, of course.

2. Almost half of the people who find my site via SE's are using fairly specific, abstract searches; not "email troops" but perhaps 'email british royal marines kuwait'. And about half of these searches, or one-quarter of the total, have nothing to do with my site whatsoever. It really makes me wonder, sometimes, the things people search for...

3. "email" is an almost impossible keyword to be competetive for. I've tried, for almost a year, to get a site (a pretty good-sized, pr3/pr2 site with a lot of links) into the top *100* SERP results on Google, FAST, or Inktomi for the phrases "a-certain-minority-religion email", or "a-certain-minority-religion email service". And, while I can get *close* for those two phrases *in quotes*, It's just not going to happen for the phrase without quotes, period. I've diversified towards a couple of other terms, and do quite well for those...

Take heart, though; a lot of people (from my experience) hyphenate "e-mail", and that's a significantly easier word to compete on. :)

percentages

3:40 am on Apr 24, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



My stats for one site show for 500,000 unique visitors from SE's this month less than 1% used quotes to find the site. This site does better with quoted searches than without, so I guess the number is well under 1%.

I would love a quoted search option on the Google home page. Someone suggested a few months ago that the "I'm feeling lucky" button should be replaced with "I would like this exact term"....how may others would like to see this happen?

PatrickDeese

4:01 am on Apr 24, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



The difference is that only SEO guys and computer nerds know how to do quoted searches.

:P

chiyo

4:06 am on Apr 24, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



"..."I'm feeling lucky" button should be replaced with "I would like this exact term"....how may others would like to see this happen?.."

YEs me! I think ive used that button once in 3 or 4 years. It used to give google some sort of brand recognition and backed up their releveance but im not sure that it is as needed anymore. For almost all intents and pruposes the "lucky" button is now a waste of space and seems increasingly more like a gimmick.

Very very few people use quotes. Very few know you can. i never even bother to check rankings for quoted phrases, as these SERPS are very rarely used. Havent seen any figures lately but i think 10% or 20% are major over-estimations. I would guess 1% or much less, especially if you have a non-web savvy or non-research type audience.

Ankheg

4:41 am on Apr 24, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I don't think 10%, let alone 20%, of --all web surfers-- use quotes in their searches. I do know, however, that approx 20% (OK, I just added it all up for this month so far, between three sites, and it's 18.25%) of the --people who found my sites-- via SE's, did so using quoted searches. This is likely a statistical anomaly from certain popular pages ranking far better in SERPs for the key phrases with quotes than without, and, -possibly-, because on a couple of the pages in question I use the terms "in quotes", which the SE's may or may not like.

I don't much worry about it.

wattsnew

5:23 am on Apr 24, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Phrases in quotes work well for me. Although my logs don't give me results for these in regular searches, my AdWords impressions and clicks can be many times better for phrases in quotes. I suspect it's true for regular searches as well simply because for the phrase "tin can" I'm near the top position in the serps; for - tin can - I'm at # 200 and never clicked.

Quotes can bring decent traffic on some phrases. I'll take them!

jon80

7:56 am on Apr 24, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



"..."I'm feeling lucky" button should be replaced with "I would like this exact term"....how may others would like to see this happen?.."

Gets my vote as well.

vincevincevince

8:19 am on Apr 24, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



how about a one line example below the search box?

exact phrase "Fred Blogs", in url inurl:www.google.com, don't miss out words +the +the

whatever?