Google not showing exact phrases from WebmasterWorld

[pavlovapete]

So I was looking for a post I made recently here. I recalled I had used a make up phrase and did the site: search thing using that phrase.

No dice "Your search - did not match any documents"

Got interested and took a few other phrases - some return results, some do not.

Would you like to speculate what is going on here?

I would have thought Google would return a result if that phrase was somewhere out there on the indexed web. Apparently not.

So some posts deserve phrase results and some do not?

Any ideas?

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

[google.co.uk...]

Looks OK to me?

[pavlovapete]

Hi BeeDeeDubbleU,

try - [google.com.au...]

From my post (last one) on this one - [webmasterworld.com...]

So? :)

[Syzygy]

So some posts deserve phrase results and some do not?

Interesting, if I understand you correctly, as I had the same experience yesterday. Exact phrase searches (not within the "site:" modifier) were not returning exact phrase results. It was as if the "speech marks" weren't there at all.

Must admit I sighed a heavy sigh when I saw the results as it seems further evidence of Google's desire to presume to know what I'm looking for better than I do and interpret my intentions using "vague match".

Syzygy

[santapaws]

its been like this for a long time. Its hard to see this as a move towards presuming anything. How does ignoring word proximity help with guessing what you wanted. To me its a backward step in the algo that reduces the weight of the exact words and proximity and weighs far to heavily related words and snapshots of subjects related to the perceived term. Perhaps a case of trying to be far too clever for ones own good or simply an intended consequence within a desire to see a broad serps of related material rather than tightly answer/show information for the phrase. I think its part of a long running process to change the expected nature of a search engine.

[robzilla]

I remember reading about Google indexing only of parts of pages, parts they think are most important, in order to cope with storage limitations, though I don't recall exactly in which topic that was. Whatever the cause, if this is (or becomes) widespread, then that would definitely have a negative effect on my search experience as I do a lot of exact phrase searches; not just for my own sites, but also when doing research.

[santapaws]

originally not being found for an exact long phrase was a sign of demotion/penalty.

[webdude]

Mmmm... Interesting... this if from the top of the page...

[google.com...]

And it returns a result. This is from the bottom of the page...

[google.com...]

Proximity of phrase? I wonder how much of this page was actually indexed?

[pavlovapete]

Thanks to all who have replied.

webdude -

I wonder how much of this page was actually indexed?

I've certainly assumed that google indexes all of a page, once the page is deemed good enough.

Why would google not show anything for the exact phrase "dynamic replacement" at WebmasterWorld?
[google.com.au...]
I would have thought DR would be a legitimate phrase occurring thousands of times on the WebmasterWorld site?

[Robert Charlton]

Why would google not show anything for the exact phrase "dynamic replacement" at WebmasterWorld?

It actually may never have been used here until now. I've heard the term a lot, don't remember having seen it discussed on the forums. When I do a site search for [dynamic replacement] without the quotes, I get 329 results... and quickly scanning down the highlighted snippets in the first 100 (admittedly not a thorough inspection) doesn't show any exact matches except for this thread.

This thread ranks #2 because "dynamic" and "replacement" are in the title of another thread. Interesting that in the snippet, the words in the search url are highlighted rather than the plain vanilla phrase.

[webdude]

I've certainly assumed that google indexes all of a page, once the page is deemed good enough.

Obviously with the example I threw out there, only the top of the page was indexed. Both the phrases were on the same page... the first was the opening phrase for the 1st post, the second was the opening phrase for the last post. Checking both phrases today pulls up the page correctly... I think we may have to add time as a variable too... that or maybe I hit 2 different datacenters. Might want to do the same experiment using IPs rather then just google.com.

My head hurts ;-\

[Receptional Andy]

My understanding of these symptoms from other situations is:

- Partial indexing was/is a common symptom of pages in one or other supplemental index - i.e. supplemental indexing ;)
- Depending on the search query, you may get results from one or more supplemental index (note that many advanced search operators seem to force the retrieval of supplemental pages
- The "wrong" search query will only return the basic indexed criteria from supplemental - particularly titles, but potentially other aspects of a page.

Note that "supplemental index" is not clear terminology these days, and IMO does not necessarily imply something negative about a URL within it. It was simpler when the tag appeared in results, but since then seems to have got muddier and muddier.

[pavlovapete]

Checking both phrases today pulls up the page correctly... I think we may have to add time as a variable too

Yep agreed - time is a variable I had not considered on rapidly changing\ growing pages.

My head hurts ;-\

So does mine. But think how much this will help us make better websites and rank better in google!