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As a semi-professional webdesigner I do a lot of searches in
google and other SE's to try and understand why a site ranks well.
The past two months I have a feeling that title relevance is becoming more and more a less important faktor.
More than once I've seen no 1 rankings on one word keywords
(dutch) with a title and description like this:
UNTITLED click here to continue. How on earth can a page with a title and description like that be no 1 in google?
I even found a comment tag saying <!--cloaked page-->
in the source of this page. Well , the keyword was valid more or less for the content of the site but what value has a title and description like "UNTITLED click here to continue" in the search results for someone doing a search in google?
How can google rank a page whit a title like that at no 1?
Does anyone of you have the same feeling/experience?
Or am I missing something here?
I've actually noticed the same thing...not the cloaked page comments, but I have seen that Google seems to 'upgrade' pages with the search strings NOT in the title currently.
Eg, if you have the search string in the title of your page, your page seems to not do so well at the moment.
And some of their data in the db that I get to is about 4 months old...so ya, it seems they are working on something.
Everyone here on webmasterworld knows a lot more about SEO than me but I'll do my best. So far I've learned a great deal by reading a lot of posts on this forum.
Do you think it's too early to jump to conclusions at this time and that google is only "experimenting"?
I've read on this forum about decreasing value of keyword and description tag, if the title tag is next
than anything is possible in the future....
However - I've also noticed that the results I'm getting in the office here are very different from results I'll get at home, and I only live about 45 minutes from Googleplex (the office is even close).
My hunch is that it was a test by them, to see if they could counter on page SEO stuff, by rewarding pages with the keywords, but farther apart than closer together.
Everyone here on webmasterworld knows a lot more about SEO than me
Not so, many of us are learning everyday - it's why we come back here, time and again. Soon you'll be an old pro (if there is such a thing). :)
It wouldn't make much sense to devalue the title tag, IMO, since a properly designed page will have an appropriate title.
On the contrary, it makes perfect sense.
If Google periodically devalues a specific portion of their algorithm, they will knock down those sites that are only trying to please the search engines.
Now, since they have devalued the title, does that mean that everyone is going to rip apart their good titles? I doubt it. They will work on improving the portions of their sites that are now more highly valued. Pretty amazing, google can get you to improve your site by just changing their algo around from time to time.
The sites that do good consistantly through all the algo changes will be the ones that always take everything into account, instead of just the current so called important pieces.
Remember, that the HTML title is the default text as entered as the name of a bookmarked page.
Exactly, so there's no reason to assume that the title tag has had any emphasis removed by Google, merely that more people are using proper titles and because of that, they appear to be less effective.
I can't find a single good reason to change a title so that it less accurately reflects the content of the page. I'm certainly not seeing as many pages in the top ten that have New Page 1 as a title. ;) Unless of course, you search for New Page 1.
I guess your right. It's only the second time I mentioned it though:)
Pr 5 is all you need to be #1.
Because there are less pages then in the english results competing in those results, and i think it's therfore possible to rank #1 with a url without keyword in the title .
Bwith other things like incoming/outgooing achortext and page text.
try your search in english, i bet you he's not #1 there.
-->are you using dutch language preference btw with this search?
The search i'm referring to was a dutch keyword in an "all language's" and "dutch only " both search.
What hit me was the fact that by far the most of the other sites in the first 20 did had the keyword in their title and in their content. The UNTITLED page at no1 did have no content whatsoever...
You may have missed the following post back on Oct 8th which is pretty self explanatory. It was one of many at the time. People accept what their own eyes tell them... the fact that no-one is sending you examples does not mean that comments about bad results all bs.
It's possible some the results shown below may have changed in the meantime... I don't have the time to rerun the checks nor do I have the time for a drawn out "yes, but " point and counterpoint discussion about the quality of the search terms. The results are what they are.... make of them what you will.
------------------------------------
"no emotions please, just the facts"
There seems to be a quietening down of the roars of protest and anguish after the latest index with a shift of focus to search relevance. Why do some say "great results" and some say "no way" and to what extent is their vested interest driving their responses?
What does Joe Public see when he/she runs their search.... good results or off topic offerings? The only way to know that is to emulate Joe Public so that's what I did with a tiny little selection of about 15-20 very random 2 word, 3 word and 4 word searches, making sure I was well clear of my own pet areas.
While this hardly qualifies as a rigourous test, I was looking for some indicators as to why we are seeing these 2 camps of "it's great" vs "no it's not".
When Google hit the mark with a search, the results were incredibly good. Absolutely on the money. But when it missed the mark, it often missed by a mile (sorry, that's about 1.6km).
I'm hoping forum rules allow me to post the results (no URL's given) but substituting "widgets" won't work. Given the amount of debate that has gone on I hope the moderators will clear it... and I think Google Guy invited us to give examples of our concerns, although I can't remember if that was only relating to accusations of spam or all matters of concern.
Anyway, here are the "misses" which I suspect are indicative of what other posters are seeing in their pet areas.
Search = New York Hotels
#1 = New York New York Hotel & Casino (in Las Vegas)
Search = vehicle accessories
#1 = Movie1 (Chinese Scooter Manufacturer)
Search = surf beach in florida
#2 = real estate operator
#3 = site has been closed
#4 = Volusia County Beach Safety + webcam
#6 = BuyDomains.com
Search = bathroom renovations london england
#1 = Backpacker Hostels and discount hotels in London England
#2 = The Selfridge Hotel London - England Hotels from England-Hotel
#3 = Amazon.co.uk: At a glance: "Reader's Digest" Complete DIY Manual
#5 = Coast Orange County / Travel / London
#6 = Discount Cardiff Hotels. Reservations Discount Lodging
#7 = a young couples personal travel experiences
#8 = Division of Records - Management and Archives
#9 = UK news site for expats
#10 = John Lewis Department Store - Edinburgh
Search = english national anthem
#1 = Bangladesh National Anthem English Text
#2 = National Anthems of the World
#3 = National Anthem: O Canada
#4 = Soviet National Anthem in English
#5 = The Finnish National Anthem
Search = toy shops san diego
#1 = Wild Animal Park Visitor Information......
#2 = Model Shops- A--E
#3 = BBB of San Diego and Imperial Counties - File a Complaint
#6 = TUM YETO 2002: Events
#10 = San Francisco Travel Guide
OK... that's enough, and before anyone jumps all over me, this is not about Google bashing. And please don't shout "spam" because the sites do contain the search words somewhere.
I don't profess to be a SEO analyist but it seemed as if search word proximity had no relevance, just being anywhere on the page was enough. Presumably the sites have high PR pushing from the back to move them up the rankings.
We keep making the point over and over again that it is the results delivered to the public that count and these are some examples of what they are currently getting. Let's hope that in a few months time we can look back on these concerns as being a very small price to pay for Google shaking out the rubbish.
I have a site #1 in google with a PR4
:>
Heres one for you .. the very first listing under "<snip>"
it's a spam site.. had hundrds of porn links in pushing it up... you cant see the backlinks now but nothing but MLM and porn..
took for ever to get Googles attention..theis person has hundrds of similiar sites all rank excellent ..all are junk spam and porn..
Fact is I could provide you with a list of thosands of search terms and the same garbage..how? because there are hundreds of webmasters building hundreds of sites with thousands of pages pushing each other to the top in Googles flawed "link" algo ..and these sites are nothing more than spam and Google keeps pushing higher and higher..
You want relevancy..get rid of the bogus "link" algo
[edited by: NFFC at 6:25 pm (utc) on Oct. 28, 2002]
[edit reason] No snitching here, take it up with Google [/edit]
