With this latest update from Google, we've been noticing some very odd things in the SERPs. Despite our best instincts and measurements of link quality, quantity and optimization, sites seem to be ranking in very strange orders. In the hopes of making greater sense of things, we wondered if you'd like to list your top search results that make no sense. No need to point out your site or those of your clients, just the term or phrase where you believe the top ten aren't ranking in a very logical order.
We'll see if SEOmoz really can take advantage of user power to get some good information. If so, I'l try to compile a nice comparison report so we can see these SERPs and sites side by side and make some educated guesses.
Here's a few I think are bizarre:
- Mystery Novels
- Edward Hopper (love the image results, though)
- SEO Forum (note how unique this is from SEO forums)
I think that's an interesting conjecture, Jim. The only problem as I see it is that it's almost a disservice not to offer variety in the SERPs. EDUs and old sites and information resources are fine, but what about hip, new retailers with good prices, painters who work in the style of Hopper and sell their work - are search engines really supposed to be providing non-commercial works to the exclusion or at least, detriment, of commercial sites?
I think that much of what we're seeing is a response to search spam and low quality pages. A more detailed post on this subject and its relation to the lack of quality that has been going into recent SEO efforts is due. Funny how much this relates to the post on Texas Hold'em.
I've been thinking the same thing all day Rand.
Rand, I'm going to disagree with you heavily on your last comment.
Some time ago a google representative said that they need to educate searchers to use more complex searches. IMO, this is a good sample of that...
Google is showing the correct results, but the search phrase is wrong. I dont type "Edward Hopper" if I want to buy something - I type shop edward hopper or shop hopper, or try froogle. Instead, if I look for biography or other generic Information, then I might want to try with simple name search... So in other words, google results have become more and more precise. The big issue for SEO side is how many real online buyers use/adapt more precise search phrases.
It's not my site. My sites were all downgraded with this update. I just wonder how this dude doe$ it. $ome say Dmoz will change name $oon, i$ thi$ true?
not to get on a side tanget...but klaus, your domain was registered on 05-Aug-2004, that put it at 14 months old. Congrats on the DMOZ listings, and good luck with your "tricks".
Mystery novels had a few outliers that didn't seem to fit to me - oops... But that was yesterday, and now the results have changed. Well, serves me right for pointing to SERPs.
Check out Hopper, though. The page was dominated (well, 50/50) with commercial sites selling prints, books, etc. Now, there's not a single commercial player in there.
I searched for [edward hopper]...few things I see. results in the top 10 are almost identical to yahoo's top 10. Real old edu's (3) in the top 10. newest site is 2001 and it's wikipedia.org which we all know google loves wikipedia Yea, they're all a bunch of resources....as you said "Now, there's not a single commercial player in there." Google's getting very good at trying to place "information" in the top 10....just goes to show that one aspect of SEO that's getting very important is trying to make pages that appear to be "resources" in the eyes of google....and having a real old domain always helps. Is SEO just going to turn into trying to make the best resources possible? (only way you'll rank high) - If so, then I'd say google has steared SEO in the direction they'd like. Them engineers are pretty clever.
Websites have to be old, hem? How about this baby: www.free-backup.info - It's PR7 *AND* 5 month old! With 4 listing on DMOZ, when some people wait for years! The one who can "uncover" this site tricks will rule this Google katrina update wave. Suggestions? (And don't talk about WordPress, I know the story already)
When I ran "mystery novels" through our "cool seo tool" the top 10 seemed to make sense....combined with knowing google loves old sites, edu's and having good "allinanchor" rank (the right % of keywords as backlinks)