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Seo'ers - UK SEO, Internet Marketing and Webmaster Forums
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« on: February 04, 2009, 12:07:04 PM » |
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ash
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« Reply #1 on: February 04, 2009, 12:26:27 PM » |
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Another bug bear i have with their results.
I was analysing some competitor sites backlinks, and for one generic phrases the number 1 ranking site had at leadt 95% of its links coming from a DMOZ listing and then DMOZ scraper sites / pages. The 5% normal links were'nt exactly earth shattering either.
In this particular niche, i've come across lots of similar backlink profiles on older sites too. The good thing is that it means these sites are beatable but really they should'nt be there in the first place!
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Nobby
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« Reply #3 on: February 04, 2009, 02:16:44 PM » |
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As i mentioned in another thread Google seems to be all over the place with local searches, i am still trying to figure out their local business results, just a quick look at any local general business type term will see stacks of annoying directory entries etc. Quite what they are up to i'm not sure, but lets hope its a a work in progress.
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HHI Golf Guy
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« Reply #4 on: February 04, 2009, 02:42:55 PM » |
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Guess what folks? You're going to have to get used to stuff like this. If you remember what Matt Cutts said at CES, Google is integrating both local and personalized search into the SERP's.
Have you checked the results across multiple data centers to see if they are consistent?
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Matt Bennett SEO
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« Reply #5 on: February 04, 2009, 02:46:12 PM » |
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When i search for "plumbers" i get the localised listings for Leeds! The only geographical relevance that Preston has to leeds is that theyre both on the same line of latitude. But in reality preston is far nearer to manchester so theyre way way out.
My conclusion... Whoever works at google.co.uk is really letting the side down. If im not mistaken arent we the biggest Google users in the world (as in the percentages of searches)? We still dont have half the google extras that have been out on .com for ages - such as google suggest (ok its on google toolbar but it's still not on the main search).
I might set-up a website stopusinggoogle.com in an attempt to move users over to... erm... erm... oooh... erm... i always liked ask!
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Matt Bennett SEO
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« Reply #6 on: February 04, 2009, 02:52:28 PM » |
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The pollution of serps with job sites and directories seems to be a yearly occurance though... At about this time last year i was moaning about clients loosing rankings to these crappy irrelevant sites - mostly job sites. In the UK most regional searches result in pages from job databases. Google really needs to address this. Why not have "Google Jobs" - in the same way we have "Google News" - and have those results highlighted in the main search results?
How many people/seos/affiliate dudes/companies have created job search and cv upload type sites in the past 2/3 years! LOADS! Google needs to split them from the main results.
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HHI Golf Guy
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« Reply #7 on: February 04, 2009, 03:22:11 PM » |
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When i search for "plumbers" i get the localised listings for Leeds!
But what is the geographical location of your IP address? I mean, you might be in Preston, but the demographic location of the you server IP address is in Leeds. What would be interesting to see is someone else (person A) in the UK (outside of your localized IP range) do a Google search and see what their results are. Then jave that same person perform the same search on the datacenter that you saw your first results. Are there any significant differences in the results. Then what happens when person B, who is in the same geo location as person A, runs the query? Yes, this sound I a bit confusing. But it might shed some light on whether or not personalized / local search is being used in your area. |
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ash
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« Reply #8 on: February 04, 2009, 06:08:15 PM » |
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For the search term plumbers using this search query i get: www.iphe.org.uk as no.1 result, no localised listings at all. |
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Seo'ers - UK SEO, Internet Marketing and Webmaster Forums
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« Reply #8 on: February 04, 2009, 06:08:15 PM » |
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Webnauts
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« Reply #9 on: February 24, 2009, 12:04:26 PM » |
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Matt which site are we talking about?
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Boogaloodude
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« Reply #10 on: February 26, 2009, 05:24:37 PM » |
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I know what you mean but I agree with Ash that since they can be beaten it's not really a problem, in fact if someone searches for one of my clients (in niches that suffer form that sort of problem) and they find a bunch of directories and my clients site which is about the exact thing they're looking for, they're more likely to click through to it.
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www.ImgWebDesign.co.uk - Web site design, Buxton Derbyshire "Scientists have proof but no certainty, religions have certainty but no proof"
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HHI Golf Guy
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« Reply #11 on: February 26, 2009, 09:27:18 PM » |
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Do the PPC ads show local results? They may not, because I think its doubtful that the average local plumber runs a PPC campaign. As for local organic results, I would say that I see the new custom search results once out of ebery 40 or 50 searches I perform. So it's obviously not fully integrated yet. |
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Matt Bennett SEO
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« Reply #12 on: February 27, 2009, 10:50:28 AM » |
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Theyve got some way to go with this. There are so many variables and problems that can occur with personalisation and geolocation! I dont see how they can effectively do it without a compulsory login.
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Boogaloodude
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« Reply #13 on: February 27, 2009, 04:01:56 PM » |
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Theyve got some way to go with this. There are so many variables and problems that can occur with personalisation and geolocation! I dont see how they can effectively do it without a compulsory login.
I suppose that for the rest of us they'll just have to show the same SERP as before, with whatever the latest modifications are. |
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www.ImgWebDesign.co.uk - Web site design, Buxton Derbyshire "Scientists have proof but no certainty, religions have certainty but no proof"
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HHI Golf Guy
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« Reply #14 on: February 27, 2009, 06:46:36 PM » |
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Theyve got some way to go with this. There are so many variables and problems that can occur with personalisation and geolocation! I dont see how they can effectively do it without a compulsory login.
When you perform a search, Google knows your IP address. That data can easily be stored even without a login. I imagine that Google will combine individual search with some sort of group analysis, recent searh trends, historical trends, and a thousand or so other factors. |
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HHI Golf Guy
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« Reply #15 on: February 27, 2009, 11:22:35 PM » |
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Here's more on what Google is saying about customized/personalized search: When you perform a search, a message may appear in the upper right corner of the search results page if the results have been significantly customized based on one or more of the following factors:
Location: If you're signed in to your Google Account, your search results may be customized for a default location that you've previously specified (for example, in Google Maps). If you're not signed in, then results may be customized for an approximate location based on your IP address.
If you'd like Google to use a different location, you can sign in to or create a Google Account and provide a city or street address. Your specific location will be used not only for customizing search results, but also to improve your experience in Google Maps and other Google products.
Recent searches: We take into account whether a particular query followed on the heels of another query. Because recent search activity provides valuable context for understanding the meaning behind your searches, we use it to customize your results whenever possible, regardless of whether you're signed in or signed out. In order to customize your results and show you the customization details, we keep recent searches in a cookie on your browser for approximately 30 minutes. After approximately 30 minutes, this cookie is removed from your browser. Completely closing your browser will remove this cookie immediately.
On rare occasions, recent searches may be kept on your browser for a different time duration as Google experiments with improving quality. In all cases, recent searches are not kept on your browser for more than 24 hours and the link to the search customization page will not be accessible after approximately 30 minutes from the time of the search.
Web History: If you're signed in and have Web History enabled, we customize your search results based on what you've searched for in the past on Google, and what sites you've visited. If there's a particular search that you'd rather not have personalized based on your Web History, you can also just temporarily sign out of your Google Account. Learn more about Web History.
You can click the More details link in the message to see the specific information used to customize your search results. For privacy reasons, this information becomes unavailable after a brief period of time. Visit the Privacy Center to obtain more information about Google's privacy policy.
Notice the part I highlighted in red. |
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Matt Bennett SEO
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« Reply #17 on: March 02, 2009, 09:34:15 AM » |
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I've watched that video a few times john (this ones good as well: http://www.mattinertia.com/bruce-clay-rankings-arent-quite-dead/). You've got the wrong end of the stick with regards to this thread. Non of us are doubting the existence of personalisation at all but what we are actually discussing is the effectiveness of personalisation and the quality of Google SERPs because of it. For example, how can my SERPs be tailored by my IP when it's shared with 10 other people from different demographics? |
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HHI Golf Guy
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« Reply #18 on: March 02, 2009, 03:46:13 PM » |
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...but what we are actually discussing is the effectiveness of personalisation and the quality of Google SERPs because of it. For example, how can my SERPs be tailored by my IP when it's shared with 10 other people from different demographics?
Who said that it would be effective?  As for your other question, it's another of those algorithm secrets. Actually, I'm guessing that Google is fine with clustered regional data. It gives them more data to work with. |
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Matt Bennett SEO
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« Reply #19 on: March 02, 2009, 04:14:05 PM » |
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Who said that it would be effective? I'm not seeing any benefits so far but Ill be happy if I ever need a company based in Leeds! I wonder if theres an seo in Leeds saying "why am i getting local results for preston?" Overall ive been increasingly more unhappy with Googles SERPs over the last year or so. If it isnt a page thats five years old and out of date its a bloody job advert or some awful directory! I really think they should make freshness/date a bigger factor, separate job listings and directory listings like they do with other universal search categories and stop fiddling - rankings fluctuate massively and far too often! |
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HHI Golf Guy
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« Reply #20 on: March 02, 2009, 04:59:51 PM » |
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Who said that it would be effective? Overall ive been increasingly more unhappy with Googles SERPs over the last year or so. If it isnt a page thats five years old and out of date its a bloody job advert or some awful directory! When I search using G I'm not always happy with the results, but I do see a number of interesting things when I search based upon what I am searching for, and I think that's good. For example, if I search a technical question I see a lot of answers posted in forums. When I search for a city name I get both government sites and local portal sites. You say that you see a lot of results that are job listings or directory listings. Could that be a function of the types of specific keywords your searching for? Or could it be a function of the way that you phrase your query? For example, if your search query is a job type or occupation like "plumbers", to me it makes sense to see results weighted towards job listings and directories and not necessarily a single company web site. Maybe results for those phrases are tailored more towards what people are accustomed to seeing when they search these phrases using more traditional means - like job listings in a newspaper or telephone directories. I never gave it much thought before, but perhaps the Google algorithm includes a weighting of types of sites based upon the search phrase that was queried. |
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Matt Bennett SEO
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« Reply #21 on: March 03, 2009, 09:28:37 AM » |
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Checkout the searches at the start of the thread... Google chucks back loads of job listings/directories for regional searches, but i thought Google was supposed to be able to figure out my intent? Maybe this is just a case of UK company websites being very badly optimised for localised searches and as a result the spam sites win?
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Webnauts
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« Reply #22 on: April 08, 2009, 10:21:43 PM » |
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Matt Bennett SEO
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« Reply #23 on: April 08, 2009, 11:43:29 PM » |
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Hhhm. Interesting. Makes sense really. Maybe we should all be building pages for bristol?!
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SEOibiza
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« Reply #24 on: April 09, 2009, 11:48:23 AM » |
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Hhhm. Interesting. Makes sense really. Maybe we should all be building pages for bristol?!
heh I just registered seobristol.com  |
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July 10, 2009, 01:38:50 PM
