Article Titles in Google vs Google "with quotes"

[ghostofseo]

Most of my content has disappeared from Google's front page or first page or whatever we are calling it now. Takes infinte scrolls to find articles that have historically ranked top 3.

HOWEVER... If I put my article "TITLE IN QUOTES" they show up at the top.

So what logic is being applied here?

In the past "quoting" something out allowed for a much deeper dive. Clearly Google understands the query. Without quotes it penalizes me, with quotes my articles rank. Happy to share examples or play around with your own content.

Again I will continue to create content but if Google decided to massively hit my site that is a 1000% industry leader not sure what can really be done moving forward aside wait and see approach

[edited by: not2easy at 6:40 pm (utc) on Feb 20, 2024]
[edit reason] fixed typo [/edit]

[not2easy]

"Quotes" were a search operator that seems to be deprecated today, but it might work as it did for you if you are logged in at Google. Where you find your own results is not necessarily where other searchers might find them, for the same reason.

[lucy24]

seems to be deprecated today

It is?! I use it constantly when searching for exact text, such as the original (serial) publication of something that later made it into a book.

Come to think of it, I am logged in to G###, not by explicit choice but because it spills over from YouTube.

[not2easy]

I don't stay logged in so it quit working for me, but G never works right for me so I don't use it. That's why I said it seems to be deprecated, it used to work for me logged in or not.

[ghostofseo]

Results look to be the same when logged in out of Google for all the queries I'm trying. When quoting out my article titles we show up #1 for all of our results. Quoting still works and it has been my go to for a decade plus when making sure content is showing in Google... Much quicker than actually googling especially now with infinite scroll and tons of ad carousels.

[tangor]

As an aside: Quotes still work in Bing...