Inconsistency between results and websites

[asapla]

Google results frequently display search terms I have entered, but when I go the the site, the same term(s) aren't there. I've tried searching those sites that provide internal searches, thinking the terms were hidden somewhere other than the page that was initially displayed, but no luck.

Thanks for solving this riddle.

[AussieWebmaster]

Originally Posted by asapla

Google results frequently display search terms I have entered, but when I go the the site, the same term(s) aren't there. I've tried searching those sites that provide internal searches, thinking the terms were hidden somewhere other than the page that was initially displayed, but no luck.

Thanks for solving this riddle.

Do a search for miserable failure and then try and find it on Bush's site... what is driving a site's position in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Page) is the inbound links - though there is a small reward given for the terms in the title and other onpage factors.

[Michael Martinez]

Originally Posted by AussieWebmaster

Do a search for miserable failure and then try and find it on Bush's site... what is driving a site's position in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Page) is the inbound links - though there is a small reward given for the terms in the title and other onpage factors.

That is misleading. Google bombing is a well-documented feature which relies upon external anchor text that capitalizes on a known (but poorly understood) vulnerability in Google's system.

However, Google emphasizes on page content more than links. A Google bomb, in order to work, has to be intense. It takes a LOT of links to drive irrelevant content to the top for any search phrase (and "miserable failure" is not a normally competitive term).

You don't need many links to get relevant content to the top of most searches.

[seobook]

Originally Posted by Michael Martinez

However, Google emphasizes on page content more than links.

proof meet pudding, etc.

I moved my site and Google cached it while no site existed at its location

its ranking for "search engine marketing" was the exact same as when the site was there

content or no content rankings don't change. hmm. must mean that the links do something, eh?

[Michael Martinez]

Originally Posted by seobook

proof meet pudding, etc.

I moved my site and Google cached it while no site existed at its location

Since that link doesn't go to the Google cache, all you're offering is more smoke and mirrors.

With all due respect to your successful eBook sales, I urge you to do some REAL research, rather than just rehashing what others discovered prior to two years ago (much of which is largely outdated by now anyway).

[Mel]

For once I agree with you MM, it would be nice if there were some proof behind some of the more argumentative statements here, but I for one do not doubt that if Aaron said that was the case then it probably happened just that way, more so since I have had similar experiences.

However I have more of a problem with this statement:

However, Google emphasizes on page content more than links.

Could you please provide some support for this statement, given all the research you have done surely you must have it at your fingertips.

[AussieWebmaster]

Originally Posted by Michael Martinez

Since that link doesn't go to the Google cache, all you're offering is more smoke and mirrors.

With all due respect to your successful eBook sales, I urge you to do some REAL research, rather than just rehashing what others discovered prior to two years ago (much of which is largely outdated by now anyway).

Let's try and keep this on track and avoid the personal jabs.
What Aaron has linked to is a screenshot of a cached page taken Dec. 20th that shows below that there was no page info but it still got cached as the inbound links were going to that page.
You cannot seriously still believe Google is all about the on page content... you are joking...
that or you just like starting aimless debates...
The research is in Google is based on the activity of the random surfer... how that person gets to a page is through links... PR stands for Page Rank (but that is as in Larry Page, not the elements of a page).

[krisval]

Let's try and keep this on track and avoid the personal jabs.

Absolutely. I have seen way to many arguments just to prove that someone is right rather than discuss possibilities and ideas that can be explored.
By the way...Aaron makes his living on the web so he most know a thing or two!

[Michael Martinez]

Originally Posted by AussieWebmaster

What Aaron has linked to is a screenshot of a cached page taken Dec. 20th that shows below that there was no page info but it still got cached as the inbound links were going to that page.

I have explained Aaron's (and your) mistake with respect to that page here.

But I will reiterate the main point: the site DID have content, at least as far as Google, the Web server, and the browser are concerned.

As a moderator you should take a less hostile tone because, frankly, your analyses are not justifying what you say. I have been as kind and gentle as one can be while feeling almost complete and total exasperation at some of the things being posted here.

[Michael Martinez]

Originally Posted by krisval

Absolutely. I have seen way to many arguments just to prove that someone is right rather than discuss possibilities and ideas that can be explored.
By the way...Aaron makes his living on the web so he most know a thing or two!

A lot of people make their livings on the web. That doesn't mean they know what they are talking about. It just means other people are willing to pay them money.

So, if we're REALLY going to keep this from getting personal, followups like yours are also completely unnecessary.

[seobook]

Originally Posted by Michael Martinez

if we're REALLY going to keep this from getting personal

then we shouldn't call screen shots "more smoke and mirrors"

[AussieWebmaster]

Originally Posted by Michael Martinez

A lot of people make their livings on the web. That doesn't mean they know what they are talking about. It just means other people are willing to pay them money.

So, if we're REALLY going to keep this from getting personal, followups like yours are also completely unnecessary.

It is actually comments like this one that are written with the pseudo-air of objectivity but really are shots that are completely unnecessary.

[krisval]

Edited my own post...Not bothering to reply.

Absolutely. Links have a huge impact on results in Google. No question.

The real question is what kind of links impact the results. Is it necessary to have a link from a page with high Page Rank? Is links from most relevant pages? Is a footer link weighed less than a link in the body of the page? Is one link on a page worth more than if there are 10? This is what we should be focussed on.

[AussieWebmaster]

Originally Posted by krisval

Edited my own post...Not bothering to reply.

Absolutely. Links have a huge impact on results in Google. No question.

The real question is what kind of links impact the results. Is it necessary to have a link from a page with high Page Rank? Is links from most relevant pages? Is a footer link weighed less than a link in the body of the page? Is one link on a page worth more than if there are 10? This is what we should be focussed on.

Moving right along....
Authority to the theme seems to have the greater impact on your keyword placement. PR is part of it - but the number of links from other authority and similair topic sites has higher impact for my sites.

That being said - get whatever links you can to start and position for variations on your keyword will help move you up the SERPs.
Depending on the competitive level of the keyword you then have something to work from.

[I, Brian]

Originally Posted by Michael Martinez

You don't need many links to get relevant content to the top of most searches.

The problem is when you bring any degree of competition into this equation. That's when links come into their own - though of course not all links are of the same value. Pretty much any Google patent you can pull out shows how Google primarily uses links to ascertain relevancy, and values links in different ways. It's a links-powered search engine, and always was.

[Michael Martinez]

Originally Posted by I, Brian

The problem is when you bring any degree of competition into this equation. That's when links come into their own - ...

That is a sweeping generalization.

As I have maintained all along, there are certain industries which are so highly competitive that people have forced the link popularity issue to the forefront of the competitive tool use: real estate, gambling, adult entertainment, search engine optimization, to name just a few of these highly targeted search terms.

According to Mike Grahan's interview with Jim Lanzone and Apostolos Gerasoulis, "the majority of searches on the web are non commercial!"

Now, there is a sweeping generalization which carries a little more authority with it.

Another sweeping generalization (now a year old) says that "local commercial searches...represent 25.1 percent of all searches being performed by online buyers...."

Now, honestly, competition comes in all forms. I have gone head to head with other sites on the basis of links, and I have done it on the basis of content. I prefer doing it with content because content is easier to generate and control.

And I produce a LOT of commercial pages as well as non-commercial content (for the record -- the majority of my content is NON-commercial).

...That's when links come into their own - though of course not all links are of the same value. Pretty much any Google patent you can pull out shows how Google primarily uses links to ascertain relevancy, and values links in different ways. It's a links-powered search engine, and always was.

I have looked at Google patents myself. Most people in the SEO industry tend to focus on just a small part of what is actually written in them.

For example, their Method and apparatus for finding information on the Internet patent hasn't garnered much comment in the SEO community.

That patent explains how Google tracks the search results it serves up to a user, and MODIFIES THEM on subsequent searches:

When a search is made for information on the Internet, certain search parameters are saved in the user's system. If a subsequent related search is made, these search parameters are transferred to the internet search engine and used to reorder or otherwise modify the search results. Preferably, every time a search request is made, an entry is added to a cookie, containing the search terms and date of search. The search engine re-orders search results by dividing the results into multiple groups, including (in order of priority: (a) those URLs which are new since the last search; (b) those URLs which have been previously visited by have changed, the magnitude of change determining the ordering within this group; (c) those URLs which existed before the previous search, but have not been visited by the user; and (d) those URL's which the user has previously visited and have not changed. In the preferred embodiment, the user may optionally manually specify certain URLs to be included or excluded. The ordering of search results in accordance with the present invention provides the user with greater control and more meaningful information than current search technology.

So, link popularity is tossed out the window on this patent.

Another interesting patent (which also seems to have earned little commentary) deals with Methods and apparatus for using a modified index to provide search results in response to an ambiguous search query:

A system allows a user to submit an ambiguous search query and to receive potentially disambiguated search results. In one implementation, a search engine's conventional alphanumeric index is translated into a second index that is ambiguated in the same manner as which the user's input is ambiguated. The user's ambiguous search query is compared to this ambiguated index, and the corresponding documents are provided to the user as search results.

Again, no mention of link popularity (only, in the detailed explanation, is there mention of a linking relationship which bears no significance on what is embedded in the links).

Google has another patent about Detecting query-specific duplicate documents.

An improved duplicate detection technique that uses query-relevant information to limit the portion(s) of documents to be compared for similarity is described. Before comparing two documents for similarity, the content of these documents may be condensed based on the query. In one embodiment, query-relevant information or text (also referred to as "snippets") is extracted from the documents and only the extracted snippets, rather than the entire documents, are compared for purposes of determining similarity.

Now this one is interesting because it refers to the original PageRank (not the Toolbar PageRank):

The advanced search facility uses the link structure of the World Wide Web to improve search results. In particular, the search facility uses a page rank algorithm to rank the importance of each web page. An exemplary page rank algorithm is described in the article S. Brin and L. Page, "The Anatomy of-a Large-Scale Hypertextual Search Engine," Seventh International World Wide Web Conference, Brisbane, Australia. The search facility may also use other techniques to improve the quality of search results, such as: using anchor text information for a web page; maintaining location information for all hits (so proximity in search may be used); tracking some visual presentation details such as font size of words (so that words in a larger or bolder font may be weighted higher than other words); and maintaining a repository storing the full raw HTML (or other code) of pages. As will become apparent in the following description, the present invention may exploit this repository.

Emphasis is mine. Clearly, they are not limiting themselves to counting links, or even to evaluating only anchor text.

That paragraph, by the way, is the last reference to hyperlinks in the patent.

Another inrteresting Google patent that deals with Detecting duplicate and near-duplicate files also avoid more than a casual mention of the original, non-Toolbar PageRank.

Improved duplicate and near-duplicate detection techniques may assign a number of fingerprints to a given document by (i) extracting parts from the document, (ii) assigning the extracted parts to one or more of a predetermined number of lists, and (iii) generating a fingerprint from each of the populated lists. Two documents may be considered to be near-duplicates if any one of their fingerprints match.

In their detailed discussion of the patent, they distinguish between using PageRank and "relevance" to order search results:

In the context of a search application, a search operation will often return search results in response to a query. (See, e.g., FIG. 2.) The search results may be grouped into a predetermined number (e.g., ten) of search results (e.g., snippets of documents with hyper-text links to the documents). A query-responsive duplicate detection operation 384 may function as follows. If the search results include two documents that belong to the same cluster, and those two documents match (in terms of traditional information retrieval) the query equally well, then only the higher quality document (e.g., more recent, higher PageRank, more relevant, etc.) is kept, the other being eliminated. Exemplary methods that may be used to effect the query-responsive duplicate detection operation 384 are described in .sctn.4.3.2.5 below with reference to FIG. 9. An example illustrating the operation of an exemplary query-responsive duplicate detection operation 384 is described in .sctn.4.4 below with reference to FIGS. 13 through 18.

Emphasis is mine.

So, I hope people don't mind my pointing to a few authoritative examples to show that Google is not totally preoccupied with link popularity when it comes to determining relevance or how search results should be ordered.

Yes, I HAVE done some research on the subject. There is more to what Google does than simply count links or calculate PageRank.

As I said before, people can (and do) bludgeon their ways to the top of search results, but until you have a group of people doing it for a specifically targeted search term collection (I have not explained that -- briefly, I mean all searches related to generic "real estate" or generic "search engine optimization", as examples, can be treated as collections or sets) -- anyway, until several people start going at it with link bludgeoning tactics, most search terms can be handled through a modest number of links and page-and-site optimization (the latter of which is very important, in my opinion).

[krisval]

I have looked at Google patents myself. Most people in the SEO industry tend to focus on just a small part of what is actually written in them.

Although understanding the patents is useful as a starting point, only testing and verifying results can determine what is being used currently. Owning a patent doesn't mean it is in full use. It could have once been in use or a possibility for the future.

Example: IBM filed 3,277 patents in 2004. The most of any company worldwide. Not all of these are in use. Many will never be used and are created to stomp possible competition.

As I have maintained all along, there are certain industries which are so highly competitive that people have forced the link popularity issue to the forefront of the competitive tool use: real estate, gambling, adult entertainment, search engine optimization, to name just a few of these highly targeted search terms.

No one has disputed that Google doesn't look at other factors besides links.

Your example above points out exactly why everyone is focused on links. MONEY. Why would anyone bother to SEO a site that gets a whopping 55 visitors / month for a keyword? People generally spend the most time and effort on the most competitve terms that generate traffic and income. If it cost a person $1.00/Click for the top real estate spot in Adsense, it might make more sense to SEO the site because it would cost less money. When you are up against stiff competition, links make a huge difference - Both Quality and Quantity.

[AussieWebmaster]

That comment about the Method and apparatus for finding information on the Internet is actually examining the database and recording changes as opposed to the ranking of the information in the database on any metric on page or off.

[Michael Martinez]

Originally Posted by krisval

Although understanding the patents is useful as a starting point, only testing and verifying results can determine what is being used currently. Owning a patent doesn't mean it is in full use. It could have once been in use or a possibility for the future.

I agree that owning a patent doesn't mean it was implemented, but let's be COMPLETELY honest here. No one outside of the people at Google KNOWS what Google is doing. Unless maybe it's Apostolos Gerasoulis, who asserted in the interview I linked to above that Google has not yet implemented PageRank.

In which case, everyone's concern about bleeding PageRank, backlinks, and so forth is unjustified.

No one has disputed that Google doesn't look at other factors besides links.

That's really dodging the bullet, since the point that I, Brian made was:

Pretty much any Google patent you can pull out shows how Google primarily uses links to ascertain relevancy, and values links in different ways.

I grabbed several patents at random and took a quick look at them (I don't try to remember what the numbers apply to).

Your example above points out exactly why everyone is focused on links. MONEY. Why would anyone bother to SEO a site that gets a whopping 55 visitors / month for a keyword?

I don't know, since I don't bother to do that myself. But though I do optimize my affiliate pages, I am more concerned about building a community and establishing my content where people will see it.

I'm not doing badly, and I've been able to help other people do well, too.

The biggest challenge I have had to contend with is teaching people to ignore all the stuff they read in the various SEO forums, because they go out and get links and don't see their rankings improve.

Naturally, I am sure many of you would be quick to say they are doing it wrong.

Yes. They are. They overlook the fact that their content needs to be relevant to their targeted search terms FIRST. Links come second, and most people don't need many of them to get thousands of visitors per month.

I participate in a very large email discussion group (150,000 subscribers by last count, I think) the majority of whose subscribers are business site operators. These are mom and pop business owners who are trying to build their visibility on the Web. Some of the regulars here are also on that list. They, like me, are sort of pariahs in the SEO community because they struggle to debunk all the link popularity mantras that the business owners carry away from SEO forums.

Search results are not as easily manipulated through link popularity as through other factors these days. Most of you guys just don't get it, though. The reason you don't get it is that you are intensively competing in very small categories, one-upping each other, with no real perspective on what the majority of Webmasters are dealing with.

Yes, MANY OF YOU are optimizing for real world clients. Some of you are taking advantage of them (those guys won't come forward and admit it, but we all run into their victims). Some of you just go into overkill with these business sites.

I very seldom see any significant discussion on the SEO forums (any more -- there was a time when people DID talk about it) concerning the almost total confusion that is pervasive throughout the business community.

There are a LOT of people out there who are saying just enough popular things to sound like they know what they are talking about, and those popular ideas -- as outdated as some of them are, as irrational as some of them are -- get passed around from forum to forum without any valid substantiation, and people nod their heads sagely and say, "Yes. This is so."

And it's not.

That's not why I am here. I know I cannot change the SEO world. Frankly, I don't really want to. So many of you guys are so lost in the link popularity mess that you'll never dig your ways out of the forest. I can't help you. No one can.

But while I have a reason for participating in the discussions, I cannot help but share what I know, comment on what I observe, and know that some people do eventually get it.

And, yes, I learn things to. I just don't rush right out and start repeating them. Not to the SEO community.

I have learned a great deal over the past couple of weeks. The timing of the conference in New York could not be better.

It's just a shame that so much has slipped past many of you. You've been sharpening your swords, trying to take me on so you can look great by swatting down the Martinez fly.

I'm not in your ointment. You just don't like to be disagreed with. That's natural. Most people don't. In fact, none of us likes it when someone challenges our illusions.

How long will it take for someone to followup and point out the exact same things can be said to me (or of me)? I doubt it will take long at all.

It's easier for people to slam what they disagree with than to stop, think, and evaluate it.

I have for many years regarded myself as a junior member of the SEO community. But these past two weeks have taught me that I am now an old dog. I've been doing this longer than most of you.

And I don't scream every time Google changes something. My rankings remain pretty solid, when other sites I compete with go up and down.

So, it's not that the science fiction markets are not competitive (some of them are INTENSIVELY so, especially anything to do with The Lord of the Rings). It's that I have developed consistency.

Marcia has pointed out to others on occasion that one of my advantages is that I have large sites with LOTS of content. I notice Hugo Guzman is in the same position.

You guys really need to stop sneering and hiding behind slams and snide remarks and think about that.

Because, frankly, the only thing that impresses me is results. Not insults. Not smoke and mirrors. Not dodgy quick-changes of topics. Just results.

I get them. If you do too, then we don't really have anything to argue about, do we? We can both present our methodologies and hope that people learn from both, and profit from both.

Right?

[Michael Martinez]

Originally Posted by AussieWebmaster

That comment about the Method and apparatus for finding information on the Internet is actually examining the database and recording changes as opposed to the ranking of the information in the database on any metric on page or off.

The patent documents a method for refining a user's search results across several searches. Clearly, it's not concerned with counting inbound links.