Hey google, we shouldn't show up for these keywords. Thanks.

[Shepherd]

Just looking through some keyword stats in WMT and was thinking I wish there was a way to tell google when we see that we are ranking for a search that isn't even close to what we're doing.

I doubt that many would use it, but I would.

[aakk9999]

What would be a problem if the page ranks for wrong keywords? I can see these two: wasting bandwidth and poor user engagement metrics.

On the other hand, at least seeing that you are ranking for wrong keywords can make you go to scrutinise your page and figure out why. If Google is getting page signals wrong, then the same signals can be the reason why the page is perhaps not ranking for keywords you wish to rank for.

[Shepherd]

poor user engagement metrics

That's the only real issue and it's not a huge problem.

We want the right people finding our site, google wants to provide accurate search results, seems like a type of "disavow" system for outlier, off-topic keywords would be a good way for webmasters and google to work together to provide better results.

[aristotle]

One way this can happen is if the "wrong terms" occur in the anchor text of external backlinks to your site, as well as the content of the pages that contain those backlinks. The problem has gotten worse in recent years because Google decided to de-emphasize relevance, which was an obstacle to their goal of boosting the rankings of big brands and big organizations.

[not2easy]

I've seen the same confusion in what they are giving me high marks for, (one phrase that has never been on my site) and by moving my position up it probably hurt someone who wants to rank for that. It ends up making people unhappy whether they are searching or trying to rank.

[Shepherd]

What we are seeing, as google moves/tests the waters in semantic search, is our site ranking for some very off topic searches.

One way this can happen is if the "wrong terms" occur in the anchor text of external backlinks to your site, as well as the content of the pages that contain those backlinks.

I just don't believe that to be true now any longer. I'm seeing pages about "toilet paper" ranking for searches about "trees", perfectly logical to an algo trying to understand a searcher's intent based on entities, not so relevant in the real world...

google asks searchers about the quality of the search results (sometimes), if a website is registered with WMT and has access to the search queries, why not add another data point by asking the websites what they thought of the queries and how they relate to the subject website?

[aristotle]

I just don't believe that to be true now any longer

Do a google search for "click here" and look at the first result

[Shepherd]

Miss-read "One way", thought "only way"...

[Dymero]

If Google released a tool to report bad results, Webmasters would complain that Google is trying to get Webmasters to do their work for them. This is exactly what happened with Disavow. Webmasters clamored for it, got it, and then complained about it.

I'd rather Google just fix its algorithm.

[netmeg]

Yea well I get tons of misguided traffic for Bonfire Night because apparently UK people don't recognize the "Michigan" in the domain name and we have a lot of cities with the same name as UK cities*. On the grand scheme of things that I worry about, this getting misguided traffic that I'm not paying for is pretty low on the priority list.

* opportunity here for someone in the UK who has time for it that I don't

[Shepherd]

On the grand scheme of things that I worry about, this getting misguided traffic that I'm not paying for is pretty low on the priority list.

Absolutely Netmeg, it would be low on my list also. My main concern, without giving it much thought of course, is that mismatched traffic might grow into a problem. Using semantic search could "toilet paper" associated with "trees" morph into "leaves" into "plants" into "weeds" into "pot"... all the while degrading users metrics sending one's site into an abyss of disgruntled visitors who thought they were going to find the new "silk road"?

Probably not, that's a pretty far fetched scenario but why risk it? We have negative keywords in adwords, why not in WMT? I can see no downside.

It's not something that needs to be hard-coded like neg keywords in adwords, maybe just a place to make a suggestion, "hey google, thanks for sending us searchers that were looking for "trees" but thats not really what we're about, we just sell "toilet paper".

[rish3]

maybe just a place to make a suggestion

There is the "send feedback" at the bottom of the search results page. It's feedback from the "user" perspective vs the "webmaster". But...it is pretty detailed. You get to highlight areas of a screenshot of the SERP results and enter explanatory text.

As to whether anyone really looks at it, well...

[trabis]

I had a similar issue which was posted here:
[webmasterworld.com ]

My main conclusion was this:

Also, if your site is only about BLUE WIDGETS and the majority of websites about BLUE WIDGETS are also about RED WIDGETS, you may find yourself ranking for RED WIDGETS!

[lucy24]

Unwanted traffic isn't just static. It's human users who then make your site look bad by bouncing right back to search results-- not because there was anything wrong with the page, it just wasn't what they were looking for.

Up until a couple of years ago there was another and better way to identify these wrong hits: the search terms returned with search results, as seen in raw logs and/or analytics. That's almost entirely gone now, especially for google dot com. I still see it on at least some google dot other-country.