The power of TITLE and H1 in Google's algo

The examples actually use H2

[Mohamed_E]

I just did a search for Mount Widget This State where the state name is spelled out in full and consists of two words. The third ranked site (out of 46,700 matches) had PR of 2 and basically no text (four photos, all as widgetN.jpg, no ALT).

How did it get there? Both the title and the H2 tag were precisely the string "Mount Widget, This State". The site which had two pages in positions 1 and 2 had a longer title, but it included these four words in that order (separated by other words).

None of the other pages (many with much higher page rank) included all four words in the title, though these words were found many, many times in the text.

Predictably a search for Mt Widget AB where AB is the state's abbreviation gave a substantially different set of results on page 1. In this case a page with PR of 1 came in position 5 (out of 111,000). The title had the three words in the correct order, as did the H2 header. Once again no text, just a ton of jpg's with no meaningful ALT tags (ALT=file_name minus the jpg, single letter).

[Macguru]

Hi Mohamed_E,

I agree title tag and H1 are important (dont we all?).

If I where you, I would :

A) Wait untill Google's index stabilise before conducting research on regular algo.
B) Not rely on a single search for any conclusion.
C) Enjoy this tread [webmasterworld.com].

Hope this can help.

[NFFC]

Try "Mount Widget This State", how many results then?

[Slade]

NFFC, is that supposed to be a joke? (not critical, just confused)

I can't figure out why someone would search for that, or did I miss something due to editing/desensitizing?

[msr986]

I think NFFC meant to suggest that the search phrase be tried with quotation marks.

Eh?

[gmoney]

Slade, I think NFFC is suggesting that you try putting quotes around your search to see if it is really all that competitive. I have a PR2 site that ranks #1 and #2 for a keyword/phrase that has 270,000 matches and so it seems like I am a SEO champion. However, when I put quotes around the phrase there are only 310 exact matches so I am not quite as much of a champion I would like to think.

[fathom]

Quotes are a good way to see just how feasible a targeted phrase really is.

[Mohamed_E]

NFFC,

Mount Widget This State shows 46,700 matches
Mt Widgets AB shows 111,000 matches
"Mount Widget This State" shows 10 matches
"Mt Widgets AB" shows 55 matches

I am not quite sure what this shows. The search is a perfectly valid one, not a contrieved example. There are three Mount Widgets in the USA, all three are major mountains, so a search for Mount Widget with no qualifier will get very confusing results.

[NFFC]

>I am not quite sure what this shows.

To me it means that there are only 10 other pages with the exact phrase, which makes Macguru's point b) important.

[WebGuerrilla]

The amount of PR you need to rank for a given term is diretly related to the level of competition that exists for that term.

Using quotes ie the only way to really establish ho much competition there actually is.

With only 10 pages, you might even be able to rank #2 with a PR0.. :)