If you search enough at Google, you're bound to end up with some strange results, but as search marketers, we're often able to take a closer look and understand why something is ranking or appearing where it is. However... even I was stumped, surprised, or just tickled to see some of the results below:
Search for "craft test dummies" and Jenny Rohrs' crafting site shows up with - Hey! Are those ASCII stars? Guess what the next trend in meta descriptions is about to become (although Google has said many times that they won't use them in the results - maybe they just forgot about Jenny, or, better yet, decided she really deserves those stars).
If you've been feeling like you've seen it all, you might have a search query like "jaded." Apparently, to help cure the fatigue of the world you're growing to despise, Google offers a solution - you probably aren't jaded, you just want a dictionary! Seriously - read that and you'll snap right out of it. I know when I'm hanging out with my disillusioned Seattle post-grunge buddies, I always keep Webster's nearby just in case.
The above search for the word "body" was performed with safe search turned on, and trust me, you're very glad I put that black box where I did. Seriously, how often do you have to put a NSFW label next to a safe search result at Google?
How about a little self-referential results issues? In the query for SEO, everyone else who uses "Search Engine Optimization" in the title tag gets it bolded (as SEO is an acronym), but not SEOmoz... Why? I can't puzzle it out and a friend has the same issue with another acronym/expansion in the SERPs (though they'd prefer not to share, sadly). We thought it had something to do with the hyphens and pipe bar, but testing hasn't born out that hypothesis, either.
The kids over at URI were thrilled when they got sitelinks on the URI query, only to discover that Google has managed to break their usual CSS on the financial data AND add the rare "refine results" section atop the query, pushing them down to position-7-like screen real estate. Those poor URIers can't catch a break, but at least they're trying hard with the exclamatory title. :-)
As if the local results weren't bad enough (they don't show up for any other city's papers - Seattle Times, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, etc - what gives?), the New Times is, apparently, "hardcore," though I can find no reference to that in their title tag, their DMOZ listing, or any overuse of anchor text. How did that get there?
And - one more in case you didn't notice - the "tip: Save time by hitting the return key..." at the top of every SERP is a friendly reminder, but using Opera, it shows up every time, even when you do hit "return," causing me to shout - "But I did!! I did, dammit!"
Any favorite weird results in search queries you'd like to share?
You think that's weird?
I giggled like a madman when I searched for "Obama logos" in image search and found this.
I wonder if its the same one they used in Borat?
That is some crazy stuff! Who taught you how to search anyway? ;)
I like Google suggestions in Russia. When one wants to search for [Google is the worst search engine] - Google suggests [Google is the best search engine] was meant :)
Here is a screenshot (with translation); well if you don't know Russian, you'll have to trust my word :)
I wonder why nothing of the kind can be found in US.
lol - thats hilarious - thanks ofr sharing - made my day Ann!!!
If Google suggests it is the best search engine, what it thinks about its competitors?
I decided to enter similar search strings for Yahoo, Yandex and even George Bush ;-) Here are the screen shots from Google.ru along with my translation.
https://useshots.wordpress.com/2008/03/05/which-search-engine-is-the-worst-no-one/
So, which search engine is the worst?
How about these results I found last week - https://www.voasi.com/2008/02/video-results-below-ppc.htm
Pretty weird - I wonder how that little test went.
If you go to yahoo.com and type in 'search' with search assist option on, the top suggestion is 'google search'....
Yahoo what are you doing? :)
lol - probably "saying dont use us, we will use you..."
(pun on their lack of search expertise, but their strength in social projects)
well, supposing that Google doesn't rank himself (herself?) neither for [search] nor [search engine], they both do not recommend using themselves for searching...
"Search Engine Optimization" in the title tag gets it bolded (as SEO is an acronym), but not SEOmoz... Why?
Try using the words in the description tag. It may have something to do with the usage of the actual words on the resulting page - with a quick scan. most the sites that have it bolded have a high incidence of the usage of the word - "on page relevance".
Just a theory, but worth the test - the extra bolding is an incentive for higher clickthough and you should aim to achieve it.
My thought as well. I noticed Taree and another I checked have both 'SEO' and 'Search Engine Optimization' in the meta description.
Also odd, the Times home page doesn't come up for an:
intitle:hardcore site:phoenixnewtimes.com
search.
If you're looking for funny results then run a query for:
learn how to use impress
For those of you who are not familiar with Open Source Software, Impress is the equivalent of MicroSoft PowerPoint.
This is my exact query and I see the funny one at #6 as I write :)
https://www.google.com/search?q=learn+how+to+use+impress&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=FlockInc.:en-US:official&client=firefox
I'm not impressed with the www.funky*****.com spam in that SERP.
Maybe SEOmoz is SE Omoz. The way it's capitialized, google is breaking it up at the wrong point. It would be different if it were SEOMoz. I have a similar issue with my site name on the Ttimes part. If it were TTimes google would interpret it as Tee Times or T-Times (for golf), but because it's Ttimes google thinks it's a typo for times.
My theory on the non-bolding of search engine optimization (US spelling to avoid confusion) is that you have SEOmoz in your title tag (unsurprisingly) which means Google isn't sure you mean the kind of SEO that is Search Engine Optimization. This also explains the seo.com result Tom talks about above (because that has seo.com as well as 'SEO') and also tools.seobook.com which has seobook.
In slightly plainer english, I think it needs to see 'SEO' surrounded by spaces (or brackets etc.) and if it sees it as part of a word, it doesn't make the association.
This is entirely guesswork though and I could be totally wrong.
Some of the others are cool...
I think this is likely to be a factor. No more evidence than Will's comment though...
Just to muddy the waters (and because I love algorithms and deconstructing code logic), I tried a different acronym search that I figured would be popular, "UFO". Some auto-highlighted the longer version:
Unidentified flying object - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
...some didn't:
UFOs (unidentified flying objects)
Here's where it gets really odd, though. I assumed this was only for common, recognizable phrases, but one highlighted for a unique phrase:
bobbyvandersluis.com | Unobtrusive Flash Objects (UFO) v3.2
Unfortunately, "UFO" didn't have a lot of examples, but another search did: "PLO". That might be a good one for data collection. There doesn't seem to be a strong rhyme or reason, but it supports Will's suggestion that this is about more than just simple text parsing.
Edit: Found another one. Search "SUO" and the first two breakouts of the acronyms are highlighted and unique. It's clear this isn't just for common terms and must be fairly elaborate.
Until now I just knew search results with 2 lines description. Ever seen 3?
Check it out
Check the first result. This search is German and means "stag night T-Shirt".
good spot! do you think its an allowance due to language variations (cause normal spellings are so long? )
Honestly I don't know.I haven't seen this for any query I made. Neither in English nor German.
I followed this up with a post over at my blog, Rand. My example is more annoying than weird/wacky. It's about sites with sitelinks that still have their old, second indented listing -- only it's not indented anymore, and taking up a slot that someone else should have in the Top 10.
If you have sitelinks, shouldn't your old indented listing go away? I say so.
Example is here:
https://www.smallbusinesssem.com/one-really-annoying-search-result-at-google/1095/
Matt, I thought your post was interesting from a users point of view, but from an SEM point of view:
More than one result in SERPs page one = SEOGOLD!
Not gold when it's the competition getting the extra spot, Rishil. :-)
Hi Rand,
Did you try adding "search engine optimization" to yout meta description?
Great post. I used "where is it found?" as a search and only 6 video results are displayed out of a possible 557,000 !! click on the pages from the uk and you get loads. interestingly simlar search without the ? returns no results. Can anyone explain this result ?
Excellent post Rand. On the 'body' search, I tried it and saw the image you did. I then went to preferences to see what my 'safe search' option was and that's when it got very interesting. First of all there are three options
1) Use strict filtering (Filter both explicit text and explicit images)
2) Use moderate filtering (Filter explicit images only - default behaviour)
3) Do not filter my search results
My selected option was (2) - filter explicit images, yet the image showed with this option set!!!! I amended the option to (1) filter both text and images and the said image did not show in the results !!!! In fact no images showed, just text results.
Not sure what's going on there with Google's filters :-o
I got the "See results for dictionary" when searching for [idiosyncratic].
I have a feeling that this "dictionary anomaly" will appear for the phrases that the majority of clickthroughs from the SERPs are to the definition and dictionary pages.
Just a hypothesis
Hello, I'm sure you get tons of requests to talk about seo problems and people trying to get #1.Your post here is interesting, yes, google lately seems to not know what it is doing, the results do NOT make since quite often, and I feel there is something seriously wrong with google.here is why I think this. I have a somewhat unique of a problem.I'm not asking for help to get #1 in Google, I'm already there.What i need help with is a little more complicated, I don't know the solution to get help with.My problem is this, For over a year I ran a Computer Repair company in Knoxville Tennessee, It took 4 months, and I was able to get #1 in Google for the keywords "Knoxville Computer Repair"After about three months of bouncing back and forth between 1 and 5, I stuck there on 1 like glue, in fact I have not moved since, I'm really stuck there!I sold my business, and invested in some rental cabins in Pigeon Forge Tennessee, so.. keeping my domain because it has served me well in the past, I change my sites design, change my keywords, and meta tags, post this.problem.Google grabbed the new information, even cached my new page, BUT. the new information still appears for "Knoxville computer repair"I'm nowhere to be found in my new keywords "pigeon forge cabins"and to make things worse, I get the feeling I'm going to be considered spam as my site does not even belong in the keyword where it exists, yet i feel this is google's problem, as they are not following the hint with changed content and keywords.Is there a solution? or am i just a fly stuck in googles web forever?
This is old news to most people, but doing a search for 'search engine' in google brings up AltaVista as the #1 result. We blogged about this on our blog today by pure coincidence.
We were really trying to figure out Yahoo's backlink priorities and got sidetracked to Google. What fun!
ehm. nice for this short report. I like it. So far, its depend on you which one search engine you prefer. Of course sometimes you will feel wierd. So, its up to you guys..choose which one you think familiar with you to get a better result.
Hi Rand,
Here is my weird SERP: https://blog.useshots.com/2008/03/05/google-any-idea-already/
It looks like the top (estimates) and the bottom (pagination) of the SERP are from two completely different pages. ;-)
Check out the lack of title tag for our branded search, https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=evisibility&btnG=Google+Search.
Yet in some data centers it is showing our complete title.
Thats probably because its picking up your title from DMOZ - see Matts example. Add the noodp tag and you should see that change.
It is not pulling our DMOZ results, we are well aware that they pull from DMOZ. It shows the actual title in some of the datacenters, is not our DMOZ info, and that is what makes it unusual!
lol - which is why I said probably... no offence intended...
I see the non-bold thing all of the time, which is both strange and disapointing.
I've found that placing the search term in quotes forces Google to embolden the keywords, but how many people are going to do that?
The craft test dummies search just returns question marks instead of stars for me. I'm using Firefix 2. Maybe Matt already cleaned that up, but in the past I have seen special characters flip flop between displaying or not for me.
While search engines (in general) are getting somewhat better at it, the [URI] query is a perfect example of how the next generation of search engines really need to understand "user intent". [URI] is definitely one of the tougher cases since they are both "informational" results that aren't targeted and the user's query is highly general, but maybe one day the SERP UI will make it easier for a user to drill down on the intended search easier.
The "negative match supplemental leak" that I discovered a few years ago (and which Google "fixed" within a few weeks) is back...
That is, a simple [site:domain.com -inurl:www] search shows a few erroneous URLs that begin with "www" in special cases.
Additionally, a [site:domain.com -inurl:foldername] search will show several instances of "domain.com/foldername" URLs in the results.
I think the pipe ("|") might be breaking Google's text parsing, at least for that specific function. I noticed another one later in the SERPs that also didn't get highlighted:
SEO Elite Software | Search Engine Optimization | Link Popularity...
Anecdotally, it seems that, if the phrase is immediately in front of the pipe, it's not getting auto-highlighted.
Edit: Somehow, I missed that bit about testing not supporting the pipe hyptohesis. It does seem more than coincidental, though; it might be a more complex interaction between that character and other parsing factors.
We tried having it as just hyphens for a while, and it still did the same thing, but maybe we could try some other separator...
could it be that for Google , SEO is associated with the expression Search Engine Optimization, and the fact that SEO in your description is written SEOmoz (therefore another word, no space between SEO and moz) makes it that it is not bolded and cannot find that relationship ?
to show you what I mean I have done the test , and you can see it for SEOBOOK or SEOCHAT : both of them do have a space in their description/titles, and their SEO are bolded :
seo test
Pete,
Check out this Example,
SEO | Search Engine Optimization | by SEO Works - Australia
How could this be? Even here both "SEO" and "Search Engine Optimization" have been bolded and finally the phrase "Search Engine Optimization" comes after the pipe symbol.
Hmm. [URI] looked fine to me now and the [body] websearch query already doesn't return the image you mentioned. I'll pass on the other feedback, though.
Matt - I logged in and logged out and I'm still seeing the image result for body with the NSFW pic in the third position. Also - you'll love this. Check out where the link points to - https://www.google.com/images?q=tbn:W_FR_TPO6YgJ: v7ndotcom-elursrebmem.xavfun.com/images/vn7-body-body.jpg
That's right... It's somehow related to the old V7N SEO contest. I guess SEOs really are responsible for everything bad that shows up at the engines :)
Regarding the body search and having an SEO thing show up:I'm not as up-to-date as any of you people, but I noticed something the other day that made me think it might be related to this. I was doing a search for my son: "kid websites dirt bikes" I got a lot of stuff back including lots of adword ads for dirt bike stuff. I then did another search...just looking for regular old kid web sites this time using the query "kid websites" I don't remember if it was just in the Ads or in the organic stuff too, but it included lots of stuff for dirt bikes that time which surprised me since I didn't have ANYTHING about dirt bikes in that query.I guess my point is that you search for SEO a lot probably. I wonder if this is related to a more personalized search thing.
I just tried it and received the same images as well.
Matt,
Michael Gray found a few examples that you may want to hand edit as well (which, for the record, I think hand editing is fine).
https://www.wolf-howl.com/google/google-bombs-defused-not/
Brent D. Payne
>In the query for SEO, everyone else who uses "Search Engine Optimization" in the title tag gets it bolded (as SEO is an acronym), but not SEOmoz... Why?
Rand I thought everyone knew this :)
It's not just you and it's not just the SEO acronym. If you remove the preceding colon, hyphen, whatever you will see why.
- Michael
Hmmm, seems the algorithms are only human after all......hahahah
Notice the Taree site, though, uses the : before their phrase, yet they still have it bolded. Others have the hyphen in those SERPs (check pgs 2+) and also get it. It just doesn't seem consistent to me.
weird and wonderful post - pity I couldnt replicate any of the results above in the UK ;(
Worst thing is I couldnt find SEO moz ranking for SEO in up to the first 5 pages.
To other UK peeps: Any of you found them on your results?
Did you use the "pages from the UK option"? If you specify "the web" you'll get similar results to Rand(including the stars showing in FF2).
lol - I am not that much of a novice i did use .com search... heres a screenshot.
The Crash test dummies one shows me 5 squares...
I was not trying to imply you were a novice :)
I was not sure if Rand had specified google.com or not. I use the FF bar which defaults to google.co.uk for me. Using that I got the results Rand described.
lol, trust me no offense taken... ;) But good point about FF - I dont use it because my target market doesnt use it much ahence have bad habbit of using IE... if I remember correctly, you from UK?
What rank do you see for SEOmoz for "SEO"?
Yep from the UK. On google.co.uk for web and UK SEOmoz don't show up for "SEO" in the first ten pages. I also checked using the Rank Checker tool here and it reports not found in top 100.
Some of those are pretty funky! I'll try and dig out a few funny ones too.
Regarding the seo bolding issue - this is only based on looking at a handful of websites but the other sites all seem to mention SEO and search engine optimization really close together in the text on the page. e.g. "SEO (search engine optimization)" whereas SEOmoz doesn't do that anywhere on the page (though it does of course mention both it doesn't mention them next to each other anywhere)
Again - only based on a handful of sites but thought I'd throw it in the mix
Edit: I don't think this is the reason for it. Seo.com also don't get the bolded text and they do have the text together on the page. Ah well, just a thought.
Another non-bolding of SEO theory:
Search for Pepsico and get pepsico.com - broken out results for brand name.
Search for Pepsi and get pepsico.com ranking 7 with the pepsi part of pepsico in bold for url, description but NOT title.
Same if you search for seomoz - broken out results. No bold for seo search.
So is it to do with the broken out results thing? A branding thing?
Supports my theory that it breaks if you include it in a longer word...
I think it has more to do with the meaning, which is in our case 3 letters, that represent a phrase Search Engine Optimization. So Google has got no clue about the meaning of this new combination(SEO+word) , and cannot "bold" it as it isn't sure about this website title.
That's why, as you mentionned in your first comment and as I wrote above yours, that SEO with a space after, can be recognized as SEO, especially into the title. i'll stick with this theory..
So it does Rand...
But if you search for taree seo it doesn't...
That is weird...
- Michael
Thats because the relevance is in the brand name (other keypword in the phrase) and not the definition - the definition gets highlighted in cases of search for pure abbreviations only in my experience.
Searching for SEO Moz highlights the word "SEOmoz", sespite it being at the end of the title.
Searching for SEOmoz Search Engine highlights the phrae as well.
See a non related example:
Search for BMI Calculator doesnt highlight the definition, while search for BMI does.
Hilarious post! And thanks for the branding on the Chicago Tribune . . . glad to hear one of the Tribune Interactive properties is 'front of mind' with you. ;-)
That's great - nice post Rand.