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To be number 1 you need to have a higher PR than the others. This only works if you have your keyword first in your title and at least once in your description. I am sure it is a little more complicated than this but it is something that can be measured. How many people link to you with keyword anchor text or if you have keywords in URL just can not be measured because it has so little weight. The only time that come in to play in my opinion is if sites come to a tied with PR, Title, and description.
Example SERP
Site1: Keyword in description but is a Google directory listing and is a .org site
Site2: Has keyword in Title first word and keyword in description twice
Site3: Same as site2 but has keyword in description twice
Site4: Has keyword after 4 other words in title but has keyword twice in description.
Site5: PR7 site only has keyword in description once.
Other example:
If you type in a 2 word phrase a high PR site with just one keyword of the phrase as the first word in title will beat out sites lower PR sites that have the exact phrase in their title but after several other words.
Please sticky me with examples if you think I have just lost it. I am doing this just to figure things out. It also assumes that things don’t completely change which they may.
[webmasterworld.com...]
Do a search for "solutions"
You will see variations in Pagerank and rankings and "solutions" being in title.
Compare normal searches with allinachor: searches and you will see the power of motivated links.
[edited by: ogletree at 3:22 pm (utc) on May 30, 2003]
I look ar basically "info" queries, not "money" queries, so what you are seeing may just be specific to the type of queries you are testing?
As for me, I am #1 for a 4 word phrase, the first 4 words in the title in both mine and the #2 spot are the same, and #2's PageRank is higher than mine by 3.
My incoming link text is the exact 4 word phrase, his is just the name of his company, that's the only difference.
I'd be nowhere without anchor text on most of my sites, I've seen several examples of it overcoming PageRank difeerences.
DS
Consider the sizes of wardrobes. One person might say that height is important, and then width if the height is the same. Another might say that width is important, then height if the widths are the same. Neither person is wrong as such, but if they continue to argue over which is more important then we can assume they don't quite realise how size is calculated.
For width, height and size, read PR, on page factors and rank.
Anyway, a third person might turn up and say that the depth of the wardrobe is important. The first and second people both scoff but then he points out that there are some wardrobes that are so deep that they are very big, even though they're not very high or wide. For depth, read anchor text from other domains.
The way that search engines calculate rankings is not like sorting three spreadsheet colums by column 1, then column 2 and lastly column 3. The relationships are more complex.
GoogleGuy says that we should just try to make good sites; if they're good enough then people will appreciate them and Google will like them too. A lot of successful webmasters think this way, but this forum fortunately contains plenty of people who like to try to work out the minutiae whether we really need to or not.
> What I want to see is a site with a lower PR beating a site with a higher PR and the lower PR site and the higher PR site have the keyword in the same place in the title.
If you check the 88th listing you'll see it's "Google Search Solutions", a very high PR page with solutions in the title, the body text and in the link text of some very high PR pages. So your question can be answered by looking at most of the 87 above it. (It's a good example as we've discussed it long before Dominic and the old Toolbar values)
Please sticky me an exapmle if you think I am wrong don't just point and laugh at how stupid I am. I want somebody to prove me wrong.
If anchor text is not important, then how do explain sites that rank number one for a phrase without even having that phrase anywhere on the page.
The only place they have it is in the anchor text from incoming links.
I've seen time and time again low PR sites beating higher PR sites because of this.
When all things are equal, then the higher PR site will beat the lower PR site, but rarely are all things equal between two sites.
If it so easy, what are you complaining about. You should be number one for all your spots;)
Site1: PR6
Site2: PR2 keyword in Title
Site3: PR4 no keyword in Title keyword is in description
Site4: PR3 keyword second word in Title
Site5: PR0 keyword fourth word in Title
Site6: PR3 keyword fourth word in Title
Site5 may actually have a higher PR or Google is being weird. Right now may be a bad time for this discoussion with things changing daily.
go to Alltheweb where you can play and combine with the advanced search options such as "must not contain in title" and "must contain in the link to url". Much of the same goes on at Google.
Do a Google allinanchor: search for things that are often in anchortexts such as "buy".
It's a trick to get somebody ELSE to the top for an undesirable phrase.
The classic one I heard about was when the top place for "go to <expletive deleted>" was Microsoft.com. I'm quite certain MS didn't have that phrase on their site!
Such things work simply b/c of anchor text -- has to be b/c the phrase isn't on the page. Did MS have a high PR? Sure. But if it weren't for all the "go to ____" links, Microsoft.com would never have been relavent for that search.
Site b) targets the exact same keyword with a PR 2/3/4
Site a) will win...almost always (accepting the present google update fiasco)
Just because you see a site/page positioned well for a search query does not mean the webmaster is targeting the said keyword, many a time a page is top of the pops through good fortune, this is especially true for high PR sites.
(although they will never admit it)
Single keywords are a lottery, unless niche, single keyword targets should hardly ever be targeted.
A complete waste of your available resources.
LOL, M$ could quite easily get the number one spot themselves, without googlebombing.
I suspect they were not targeting the said phrase -;
I can prove you are wrong. But it's not on the points you think you are making.
What you are suggesting is based on the thinking of trying to be #1 in a specific result. Google does NOT work that way.
Google orders all the sites for a result, not just the site to end up at #1. Google comes up with a numeric value for all the pages *as they relate* to a keyphrase and orders according to that value.
What you are suggesting is a series of if...then...else if statements, and that just does not work in this case.
You have picked out some of the most important factors, but you are incorrect in the way that they are applied.
Oh yeah, you obviously have not lookd around the results much if you think the keywords have to be at least once in your description to be #1. Most web pages, including those at #1 do not have the meta description element.
..Nope many pages are number one, with no mention of a keyword in the title or description.
You are making the common mistake, where because a page ranks well they must be targeting the keyword, not true.
As the google bomb M$ points out
After some thought I agree that this conversation is kind of silly right now because we have no idea what Google is doing at the moment. The rules I have mentioned do seem to be in effect right now but that may change.
I don't think anybody is saying that if you do what I say you won't get higher up. These rules are true most of the time. There are always exceptions. Right now I don't think that current PR is factored into the SERPS. I think the SERPS are using older PR. There are just too many PR0 sites ranking high right now. I have seen a lot of big companies get PR0 lately.
ogletree "I have seen a lot of big companies get PR0 lately"
I give up
#1 - PR3
#2 - PR5
#3 - PR5
#4 - PR0
#5 - PR5
#6 - PR4
I'm hoping the number 4 spot is just a quirk with hurrican dominic ... prior to the update it was running a PR3
All have keyword in title and description, but #1 does not start with keyword in title 2-6 start with keyword
