are Keywords within a word ranked?

[Karl]

I am listed as #2 for a 4 keyword query and yet when I searched for one of the keywords, I found it 3 times by itself and 5 times as part of another word. Does Google rank the word if it's part of another larger word?

I.E. take the word 'Water'. It is used 3 times by itself in a site and 5 times as part of the larger word 'Clearwater'. Does Google even look at 'Clearwater' ?

Thanks!

[ciml]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld.com, Karl.

Google won't find WordaWordb if you search for Worda. I'm not sure if you can be ranked better for Worda if people link to you using WordaWordb, but it seems unlikely.

[Karl]

ty, it is just weird how a page gets ranked so high and yet there is so little.

[ciml]

This is often the case. If you compare the PageRank and of the listed sites, and the link text that other sites use to link to the listed sites, then you will probably see why Google ranks them where it does.

[gmoney]

I found this in the Google Knowledge Base [webmasterworld.com] and it linked to this thread.

Q: [Keywords] Are keywords within words ranked?
A: Not unless it has an underline or dash separating the keywords.

Based on my experiments with some Google searches, I am under the impression that using an underscore for key_word is viewed by Google as one big word like keysword. This is very different from key-word which is viewed by Google as key word.

Has Google changed their policy on the underscore since the Knowledge Base was written or am I missing something?

[WebGuerrilla]

It might be time for us to do some updating to the KB. :)

Google does not treat an underscore and a hyphen the same. The hyphen is the same as a blank space. The underscore is not.

[jamie]

hi webguerilla,

is that 100% - cos we have always used underscore instead of hyphen - it looks so much neater and is easier to read: e.g.

we have three languages in our site:
page_i.htm, page_e.htm, page_a.htm (en, es, de)

keyword_i.htm

as opposed to:

keyword-i.htm

if what you say is true then all of our pages which are 'cunningly' named after their respective keywords, do not actually count as keywords, because google reads the page as keywordi.htm

this would be a major disappointment and a possible cause for renaming all 2000 pages *enormous groan* and having them re-indexed *gasp*

cheers

[chris_f]

Jamie,

I your content I would use key-word to get the extra brownie points. However, in a url I ALWAYS stick to an underscore. It is more compatible with most browsers, caching servers and hosts.

If anyone disagrees and says that a dash (-) is more fully compatible then please let me know. Otherwise, I've been on the losing end of an arguement for quite some time :(.

Chris

[soapystar]

i do not agree that google doeesnt read words within words....i believe it does in some cases..maybe just the url..where people would put stuff like bluewidget.com as one word..or maybe if it doesnt find the word on its own....my own domain name is a combination of two words....widgetwodget...no where else on my site do these words appear seperatly or even together again..since they are not keywords....but if i search for widget wodget i am number one....possibly because of the 700 plus links to me with widgetwodget.com as the title.....but they are common words...1000s of instances of people on there site with widget wodget..but i am number one..,must be because of the points scored by the doamin name....if google wasnt seeing my url as two words there is no way i can be number one!