Top listing but reverse order of keywords - not found

Keyword1 2 3 4 is #4 but Keyword3 4 1 2 not found

[LogicMan]

I have several keyword groups that I just discovered have this pattern.
Keyword1 Keyword2 Keyword3 Keyword4 rates #4 out of 88,100

but reverse the order to
Keyword3 Keyword4 Keyword1 Keyword2 and there are 87,600 results but my listing can not be located (I looked thru all 800+ listings provided)

How can that be?

[soapystar]

filtered

[LogicMan]

>>filtered

What do you mean by filtered?
What would cause it to be filtered?

Same words, same page density, same back links, same very thing except order in search.

[soapystar]

your backlinks cant match both combinations....one combination looks to be tripping a fitter....which is the optimised one?

[irishaff]

Do you have an even spread of backlinks or are you heavily optimised for KW 1 2 3 4 . I found the same order of keywords in backlinks usually meant i was artifially high for that combination but not to be seen for the rest.

Another thought:

Are all the KWs competive´? Would you be better to focus on the two most competitive in backlinks with an even spread and use on the page for the lesser?

[otnot]

It also seems to change the order of the adwords as well.

[LogicMan]

Site is not really optimized for any terms other than just natural presentation of information.

Keyword1 and Keyword2 are location (2 word city)
Keyword2 and Keyword4 define service

For example:
Gotham City Widget Sales
Widget Sales Gotham City

Any backlinks that contain all 4 keywords are in the form "more Gotham City .... Widget Sales", so maybe the order could be important but for a search on Gotham City Widget Sales to rank #4 and a search on Widget Sales Gotham City is not found, that seems to be extreme.

[Bobby]

It is my experience that not only word order plays a role in the algorithm but "combination order" too.

So while Gotham City Widget Sales might bring results, Widget Sales Gotham City might not due to the fact that "Widget Sales" and "Gotham City" are 2 different keywords so to speak.

Google might interpret your 4 word phrase as a 2 word phrase, thus the reverse order of the keywords weighs in more heavily than the 4 words.

[inbound]

Although I can't explain the complete absence of your pages from the alternative search I can shed light on the reason that results could be very different.

Obviously, the words used in a search phrase have to be given relative weights so that relevant results are returned. The closer to the front of the query, the higher the importance of the word for the search.

If the search has location first and service second then and your site ranks better for the location than service then you will appear higher than the alternative search.

You can check this by doing a search such as service location location. This gives the location more importance so will change the results, don't expect the results to be the same though.

With careful experimentation with this technique you can find out the relative relevance that each keyword/keywords combo is for your site.

I have seen this for sites of mine that are location and service based.

[surfgatinho]

G don't seem to have any problem doing broad matches on adwords!