Forum Moderators: open
"in" is a very common word and was not included in your search.
So why if I do not include "in" in my search by searching for parking chicago do I get a completely different set of results from the previous ones?
Any ideas anyone?
I know you didn't search for it as a phrase, but Google does seem to give proximity weight in the rankings. Search for parking in chicago. Now search for chicago in parking. You'll see the difference (and the result count changes too, which is what drives me nuts. :->)
RBuzz nailed it, proximity is the key.
After all they don't say they ignored it just that the word was not run against the index.
but won't weigh as relevant
"parking chigago" or "chicago parking".
It works the other way too .. search for "parking chicago" will rank "parking in chicago" as lower.
What I don't know (but maybe someone else does) is if G will find "parking lots chicago" with equal weight as "parking in chicago" in the first search above, since lots is not a stopword.
proximity is the key
thank you RBuzz and NFFC
After all they don't say they ignored it....
They do - kind of - if you click on [details] for an explanation you read....
"Google ignores common words and characters such as "where" and "how", as well as certain single digits and single letters, because they tend to slow down your search without improving the results. Google will indicate if a common word has been excluded by displaying details on the results page below the search box."
