What does "related:www.site.com" shows?

[Jessica]

what does this command show?

[Stefan]

It's not a command that I've ever used much... the whole "related" thing... but for my site, it only shows about 25 results and they all appear to be other sites that use many of the same words that are used on my index page.

[DerekH]

stefan wrote

they all appear to be other sites that use many of the same words that are used on my index page.

*most* of the sites it offers as related to mine are pretty similar sites, but I'm also related, so it says, to a Speed Dating site, whose cache seems to have nothing in common with my site at all!
Curiouser and curiouser!
DerekH

[nakulgoyal]

Guys, try the Google Hacks book. Contains pretty good stuff and everything one can know about google.com! :-)

[abates]

DerekH: Google regards pages A and B as "related" if page C links to both of them.

This can lead to some problems, as I posted on someone's blog, and then that blog got comment spam, and Google decided that my site was "related to" the spammer's porn site. It wasn't pretty.

[HughMungus]

Funny, I was just wondering this yesterday. I have a lot of links to other sites that do not link back to me (e.g., bbc.co.uk), yet I have 10 or 11 "related" websites listed for my site. So, in my case, it looks like it's based on who I'm linking to but with no particular logic.

[DerekH]

abates wrote

Google regards pages A and B as "related" if page C links to both of them.

Thanks! You've nailed that for me!
A quick "link:" command into Google showed that there is indeed a site that has linked to both of us. Actually, it was a site giving out web excellence awards and there are 400 websites listed. Quite why mine is associated with *just* the Speed Dating one still remains a mystery to me.

I mean, my wife will tell me I have a problem in the speed department, but that's something that wouldn't show up at the dating stage, and I can't believe Google knows EVERYTHING about me... <grin>
DerekH

[abates]

DerekH: I'm not sure how Google picks and chooses which will be related sites, though I suspect it is relative position of the links on page C...

[glengara]

Here's how G described it at launch
[google.com...]