Surprise result for new site

fast indexing but surprising content

[PhilWattis]

Hi all,

Some surprising results with Google. I registered a brand new domain last week and created a single web page consisting of:

- a logo, with alt tag
- Coming soon in a h1 tag
- Address, Telephone, Email in p tags

I also created an xml sitemap.

Within less than 1 week, the site has appeared on Google. I'm amazed by this, previously I've waited weeks for new domains to appear, and wonder if this could be due to the submission of a sitemap?

Also, the description on Google is taken straight from the meta tag. Again, I'm amazed by this, I thought the meta description was ignored.

I can't find the site based on any of the meta keywords - no surprise there. I can find the site based upon the content in the p tags.

Im surprised that Google even looked at the meta description (I thought meta descriptions were ignored, and especialy since there is text on the holding page (albeit uninformative) that can be indexed.

Phil.

[theChronic]

No, google definitely looks at descriptions, just not keywords

[Woz]

Um, actually, last I heard, Google does look at keyword tags, but only as a last resort.

Onya
Woz

[OptiRex]

They are used extensively...gee...why am I giving this away for free?

[edited by: engine at 3:40 am (utc) on Nov. 22, 2005]
[edit reason] TOS#4 [/edit]

[OptiRex]

Um, actually, last I heard, Google does look at keyword tags, but only as a last resort.

OK, I'll try again...incorrect!

Keyword tags are important and not only as a last resort...

[mgpapas]

I agree they are used extensiveley. One of my sites lets say was about Stephen King Books (term used for illustrative purposes only) I had Stephen King Books at the beginning of my tile and at the beginning of my description. I realized I was ranked 20th on google for horror books (as well as already being #1 for stephen king books) so I simply changed my title and description to Horror Books by stephen king and I moved into the top 5 for horror books within days.

While topic may be meaningless either the topic or description is apparently quite important at least when you're already recognized as an authoritative site on a related subject.

[annej]

My impression was that Google often uses the meta description for their snippit on the search result page but it's not used for ranking on the page.

Does it appear they also use it in their algo for search engine results?

[ogletree]

Google uses the description if they can't find anything else. It is often used for flash and graphic sites. Titles are important but changing your meta description is not going to do anything for your rank. The keyword tag is completly worthless in Google. Anybody who tries to say meta tags have any importance in SEO are trying to keep up the myth so they can charge people to add them to their site.

[mgpapas]

My situation may have been a coincidence however, many sites add links or index sites based on title and description so having a title that and description that are the very best match for your page content would be very important given the apparent increase in the importance to google of anchor words and text that surrounds the link.

[Woz]

Hmm, this is getting way off-topic, but I was simply passing on information provided to me by Google-type people themselves that they use Keywords when little or no other information is available, such as ogletree's flash example. Make of it what you will, I have no vested interest.

Back OT, Phil, are you seeing referrals for high profiles keywords, or only 2+ word phrases that are less competative?

Onya
Woz

[PhilWattis]

The site (which is literally just a holding page at the moment) is getting no visitors. There are a few unique phrases you can search on which causes Google to list the site, but searching on anything else gives no result. Let me give an example:

The person's name that appears on the site is unusual. Searching on this yields a result.

Picking a few key terms, combined with the name of the village, which all appear on the holding page gives 100 or so results on Google, but this site is nowhere to be seen.

I'm not concerned about this at the moment. I only put the holding page up in preparation of the whole site being ready in Jan in the hope that I got a headstart on the time taken to get a Google listing. I'm hoping for better results once I actually have put the site together.

Thanks everyone for your guidance on this.