Getting indexed on a word not present in my page

[BenF]

Hi folks. I have problem.

With Yahoo and MSN search, my page gets the top spot for the phrase "Gran Canaria Puerto P l a t a" (take the spaces out - I just did that because I didn't want that word getting indexed here too).

Under normal circumstances, getting the top spot on a major search engine is nothing to complain about. However, this one involves a political hot potato (sorry if English isn't your first language, it's nothing to do with potatoes at all).

When I built the page, I was careful not to include the word "p l a t a" (again without spaces). And to some extent, that was successful as google doesn't find my page if you include THAT WORD in the search phrase. However, MSN and Yahoo seem convinced that the word is in there.

I did have words that include those letters, e.g. holisnaps.com/pplata/index.htm and also I had in a mailto link the mail subject "PPlata". The other thing I have in the text is PIata (which in the font chosen, looks just like "P l a t a". I never thought that any of these would be picked up by the crawlers as THAT WORD.

I've made some changes now: the holisnaps link is now generated by document.write in javascript joining 2 strings which split THAT WORD. The mailto link is also created by javascript and the string is split and I've used the capital I instead of the l.

Will my changes do the trick? I really don't want people finding my page if they search on THAT WORD, though I'm very happy for people to find it by searching on any phrases to do with holiday apartments in Gran Canaria.

[AussieWebmaster]

The problem is if you are using enough words associated with plata then you can get listed for it even though that word is not there... they see puerto and think plata - especially given Gran Canaria is most probably included too.... try a search dropping the plata and see what comes up

[jimbeetle]

Welcome Ben, though I must say I'm a bit confused here. It might be because I'm on the other side of the pond and not aware of some things, but can you amplify as to exactly why THAT WORD is such a political hot potato?

[AussieWebmaster]

He just does not want us using it and possibly ranking for the term

[jimbeetle]

AW, I'm curious as to why he doesn't want his page to rank for it.

[BenF]

My situation is that, by advertising the apartment for rent on the web, I'm breaking the rules of the apartment complex (the complex is called Puerto PIata - deliberately mis-spelled). Rules which can't technically be enforced anyway as there are laws which give owners the right to let property... however the administration is rather mafia-like and I don't want to aggravate them. And I'm pretty sure that the administrator will occasionally do searches for "gran canaria" "puerto pIata" to see if any of the owners are advertising. By not being indexed under PIata (deliberate mis-spelling) they are unlikely to find my page because there are thousands of holiday lets in Gran Canaria advertised on the web.

If the indexing is by association, then I think it's pretty difficult to become less visible under that search phrase. Any ideas as to how I can get yahoo and msn to make my site less conspicuous for that search phrase?

[jimbeetle]

Okay, got it. Not at all sure what you can do about it. I can't find anything with THAT WORD in links or even used in text on pages linking to the site.