Rank for keyword with no spaces lower than expected

[subgenius]

I have a relatively new client that's really upset because they don't show up in the results for "bluewidgets", yet their placement for "blue widgets" and longer variations with "blue widgets" is top 5 or top 10.

This client's rank is #4 in Yahoo for "bluewidgets", but I didn't find it in the top 200 results on Google or MSN. The "bluewidgets" in this case doesn't have a lot of competition (less than 1,000 search results in Google), and is actually part of my client's domain name.

Does Google ever just accidentally exclude a site from its search results? BTW, site hasn't been banned. all pages show up with "site:" search.

[treeline]

If the site shows up well for Blue Widgets but not for bluewidgets, then take a look at the site and at the inbound links. Blue Widgets is probably getting more attention.

You can try and shift some of the emphasis to bluewidgets by adjusting the site and getting some inbound link text "bluewidgets" just keep in mind it's possible that you either improve one at the expense of the other, or create such an unnatural keyword situation that that gets you in trouble.

The real question is which version generates more traffic?