Searching Search Engines Part II

What a Surprise

Who would have thought that my first article on this subject would have generated so much attention. The truth is that this quotes no quotes thing happened by accident. I was working on a client file and we were running a diagnostic on their site when we noticed the results really had changed but not by just a bit but by a lot. We thought, really that we had hit the mother load in Search Engine Optimization. So I loaded up my favorite browser and off I went to see it for my own eyes. I surfed over to yahoo typed in my query and when the results came through our client was no where to be seen. I tried it again still nothing. Then I ran our scanner. Voila it said our client was in position number 3 page one for the keyword phrase we were targeting. Back to Yahoo enter the Keyword phrase press search, nothing. Look on page 2. Still nothing, page three nada. On and on until page 7 and there it was.

Something is Wrong

At first we thought it may have been a bug in our system. Were we actually giving clients false results? I ordered a full investigation. Got the whole staff involved. Pulled all our client files. Staff was manually going to search every keyword and record the position for every client.

Lucky for us the results we got were not off. A change here or there but nothing to worry about. So back to the problem. Finally I spotted it. Comparing searching criteria I saw one keyword phrase was surrounded by quotation marks and on the other page the same keyword phrase was not. So off to MSN I went. Entered our client's Keyword Phrase with quotes and made a note of the results on the first three pages. Then same keyword phrase no quotes. Listed the top 30 results and was I surprised. I then repeated this exact same query on the other two search engines. That's when it hit me.

Back to Basics

I ordered another audit. From now on we would query the search engines using quotes around the keyword phrase and run another query using the same keyword phrases but this time with no quotes. Every result would be made note of. After three months and 200,000 queries, I reviewed all the results. They were so staggeringly different. So we wrote to Google, Yahoo, and MSN, submitting our results as evidence. We are still waiting for a response.

Coming To Our Own Conclusion

So I wrote the first article. Today I'm willing to back it up and since no one can tell me why, I have come to my own conclusion. Users who want exact searches need to surround their queries in quotes. The search engine's algorithm will then display a result which may be the correct ranking for that search, because the search is precise. Basically speaking the user is telling the search engine, find me this exact string, in your index, and the engine's algorithm then scans its database. The displayed results should be perfect, because the query is perfect, right? If that is so then the rankings should be right as well. And if that's true then the algorithm for a search without quotes is wrong, or at least based on something entirely different. Which would mean it was flawed. The logic being that the algorithm should turn up the exact same results no matter if the query was surrounded by quotes or not. Which is not the case.

The Mystery Continues

I believe we need to hear from the Search Engines. They are the only ones who can unravel this mystery. Users don't usually surround their queries in quotes so they are at the mercy of the search engine's algorithm. The engine will search for any page that contains the words in that query in no particular order and based on a rank it decides to assign indexed pages based on their algorithm. Which brings up the question, why do I need to see a result for a banana sellers when I want to know about growing bananas?

Web 2.0

The hype surrounding Web 2.0 is all the buzz right now. The Search Engines would like you to know that they are planning major changes. Content sites are being pushed to the forefront and algorithms are being re-written. Their push is, give me substance. Funny thing is they have had it all along. They just were not ranking it. We believe that ranking a keyword or keyword phrase should yield a pure result. Yes search every page that produces that exact string regardless of whether it is surrounded in quotes or not. Then use an algorithm that is an industry standard to display the results. Why is it a secret? That's why we have cheaters out there and phonies that try to dupe us to their pages so they can earn pay for click dollars. If the algorithms were known and SEO experts prepared sites the right way, fair play is assured. Then algorithms can be written on merit not on structure.

Conclusion

So that is all I know thus far. There is a flaw. Which way it is flawed I'm not sure. All I can tell our readers is that there appears to be two methods of indexing and of ranking out there. Which one is right is left for you to decide. All we can tell you is that if you want an exact search surround it in quotes. We believe that the results you get will be of better use to you than if you leave the query without quotes. And is that not what we all want? If I want to find a used computer part seller in Montreal, then a query for "used computer parts Montreal" should yield me the results I need. Not some dealer in China, or a pay for click guy who has optimized his page to attract the Engines. Give me some feed back on this ok. Visit our site at www.positionfrontpage.com and send us an e-mail.

Archie Glikakis
Position Front Page
SEO Consultant
http://positionfrontpage.com