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I decided to write this little article as a result of being asked countless of times how to conduct proper searches on the internet. Search Engine saturation and well the explosion of the amount of web pages on the net has lead many into a complete state of confusion when it comes to searching the internet.
So let us clear some things up. Search engines use very complicated algorithms when they index web pages. Let us not forget why that is. Search engine programs are written by mathematicians, science majors and computer programmers. Ok what does this all mean? Well those guys are extremely well structured and follow very specific guidelines not at all the way a common user would think. Knowing that, the result is very clear. You have two different mind sets. Search Engines are trying to humanize their indexing algorithms but to be honest we are still very far apart.
Here is how it works. Search Engines scan the internet for websites, indexing them as the come across them. They attempt to index sites based on Keywords found in the content of the pages and specified by the web page owners or webmasters, matching keyword frequency with content plus a whole slew of other requirements in order to rank each page or site. So Keywords are in fact the focus of the search, and indexes are based on those keywords. Since no one has the time to read through the billions of pages on the net to determine which pages best fit the keywords, algorithms are used.
The user then inputs their query. Now here is a little known rule. Due to the magnitude of web pages on the net be very specific when you search the web. Here is an example. If you are looking for a car, having the year, model and make of the car is a good idea. This will of course limit the number of results you’ll see. Having only the make and model of the car will of course result in many more pages, and having only the make, may turn out every page with the make word in them.
A little know fact is that you can even be more specific when it comes to conducting searches. Surrounding the search query in quotation marks, forces the search engine to find all pages with those specific words, as typed. This will of course limit the number of pages the search engine finds, and that’s exactly what you want and is referred to as a user specific search.
If you don’t surround the words in quotes you are essentially telling the search engine to find you all pages containing either, or any of the words you typed. This process yields a greater number of results for you to sift through.
One final note on all this and this is directed to Webmasters and SEO experts all over. RANKINGS VARY. Using quotes will give very specific results and not using quotes yields a whole new set of results, especially with the top three search engines.
Here is an example of that. One of our clients using the keyword phrase English Phonics Program appears at positions 5,12,19 at Google for that phrase when it is surrounded by quotes, but is not ranked in the top 30 when it is not surrounded in quotes.
They also appear at position number one on MSN when surrounded by quotes but also not ranked when they are not surrounded in quotes.
Finally they appear at position numbers 1 and 2 on Yahoo when surrounded in quotes but at positions 6 and 8 when not surrounded by quotes.
Another example of the phenomenon another one of our clients using the keyword phrase data recovery Thailand
On Google Not ranked at all with or without quotes.
On Yahoo with quotes it occupies positions 1 and 4, and without quotes position 12.
And on MSN with quotes positions 1 and 2 and without quotes also positions 1 and 2.
So what does this all mean? It is beyond my means to explain that. All I can determine is that if you are very specific you are more likely to find what you are looking for. If you don’t, you find what others want you to find.
Archie Glikakis
Position Front Page
SEO Consultant
http://www.positionfrontpage.com
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