Highlighted terms in search results

[dodger]

Can someone tell me if the highlighted terms in the search results are the only words that determine the position of the site in the search results.

In other words could it be that other text on the page contributed to the sites positioning but were NOT highlighted?

(btw - I know all the other things that effect position - I am just enquiring about the text on the page)

[hakre]

hi dodger,

do you mean the hilighted words in the archived pages? i guess google does this on the fly an places a spam around it so it'll find all words on that page. but if these words are hidden (i.e. non visible source, <!-- or similiar), you can't see them.

i think this is absolutely not connected to search results at all, just a feature for the archive.

[HitProf]

At least the place on the page and the type of text (H#, bold) has it's influence.

But if you know "all the other things that effect position" you already know that..

[dodger]

Not in the archived pages - the highlighted words in the actual search results. Are they the words that gave the site it's position? or could other words and/or links on the page have contributed.

[HitProf]

I'm lost. The highlighted words in the SERPS have nothing to do with ranking. They are just a reflection of the typed in search and make life easier to select a link to click on.

[dodger]

I thought the highlighted words in the results indicated that's what Google found on the page and used to place the site in that position?

"Car radios in Denver" highlighted because the search term used was "car radios Denver"
You mean to say that if those words weren't on the homepage the site would still have the same search position?

[hyperion]

No, surely it would affect the position if some of the keywords are missing. But the string-replace algorithm that highlights the text in the search results has no necessary relation to the database query that determines the rank of a page. As far as I can see, google uses something simple like: take the first two occurences of the keywords in the page, and some words around them, and highlight it.
If the keyphrase is repeated 20 times after that, it will affect ranking, but it will not get highlighted.

[dodger]

Ok so it may be that the words that are highlighted might be further up the page but the position of the site in the results may be determined by how many times and where those words were repeated elsewhere on the page.

So if you include new keywords on your page the position may improve because of this but the highlighted words may remain the same as before.

Is this right?