Google Highlighting Searched-For Terms in URLs

[bakedjake]

[google.com...]

It doesn't look like it's happening in the "old look", but in the "new look", Google is highlighting searched-for terms (and synonyms) in the URL results.

It's hard to describe, I want to post a screenshot. But, suppose you search for "Microsoft Windows", like above. If the word "microsoft" or "windows" or any synonym appears in the actual URL (the green text), it's getting highlighted.

I've never seen this before.

[ThomasB]

just get the "old design", but I'm curious if this means that there are also advantages for ranking if you have the kwds in the url. Or might the clickrate increase?

[idoc]

I see the highlighting too. There is apparently a cookie from google. I don't know that it could be passed around or not. I happened upon the new look last night on my desktop after dumping cookies and then doing a search on google. The new result page shows google logo with "web". Very cleaner look with adwords results on right not shaded. Interestingly also no directory direct link from the results page... just image, group, news and more.

[otnot]

One of the first posts by GG about update Brandy, he mentioned this.

[skipfactor]

Does the highlighting seperate jumbled words in a URL?

[idoc]

Search for KW1 KW2 highlights all occurrences of the words anywhere on the page or URL even when the url contains the keyword only as a part of a larger non-word... ie KW1shop.tld. Search for KW1-KW2 highlights all occurrences of the words anywhere on the page but only the exact occurrence of "KW1 KW2" where they occur together in the text and not individually...The words are recognized as a word pair only and not as individual keywords. Search for KW1_KW2 highlights all occurrences of the words only where they occur as "KW1_KW2" exactly in text.

[bakedjake]

update Brandy

I typically avoid those threads like the plague. ;-)

Does the highlighting seperate jumbled words in a URL?

Yes. If a string such as:

dsajfi3932windowsddskdsa3132

Appears in a URL, and you search for "windows", the URL will appear as:

dsajfi3932[b]windows[/b]ddskdsa3132

What's also notable is that some kw1-kw2-kw3 and kw1_kw2_kw3 pages are not being highlighted.

[allanp73]

I don't see this. Is it something only happening with the new index?

[idoc]

If I hit a certain 64.*.*.* datacenter I don't see it either... only on the one workstation that has the cookie for the new format.

I have been trying to learn more... It would appear a search for KW1, then search within results for KW2, is very similiar to KW1 KW2 to start with. Much different if you search for "KW1 KW2" to start with. It makes me think that combined results of the separate KW searches are being melded somehow now, though it is early to say that for sure.