Ohhhh... A Hand Job for "Search Engine Optimization"?

Nice work Nick. :)

Brands are appearing above all else.

So yes, handjob, or some sort of trusted seed.

http://www.threadwatch.org/node/2834

related...or not?

Looks like the larger brands are getting prominence, but I still think it is automated.

>but I still think it is automated.

100% with you on that.

Thanks Barry, im english, that kind of thing comes naturally (ooh er..)

You may well be right, it would only take one set of data, like a dmoz, but internal to G.

It comes down to the publci perception of G imho. If people find the big names when they look for car hire, then joe public is happy.

I would imagine that they think that the spammy sections like casinos can battle it out, as the are animals anyway. (or that the way i like to think it is hehe)

heheh

If we really believe the unofficial "Bourbon update" end date, we'll know in a week or so... There's no telling what ranks well and what doesn't nowadays.......

One search rep, not of the G persuasion, we all know once said "don't bring a sword to a gunfight" - i think the "let them battle it out" thing in certain categories is across the board...

Big money means big competition, does not matter the business. Just try to get a top ranking for any retail computer sales keywords...
*********

I don't think it is all automated.

I believe that google is "hand jobbing" away at an amazing rate
(they are gonna go blind if they keep it up ;-) and that trend is growing as google realizes that it has lost the war it started on SEOs...
(Note: I did say LOST not losing)

Google is hiring like crazy in select 3rd world countries and trying very very hard to keep it very low profile.

Looks like everything you'd need to start/define seo.

submitexpress - to submit to everyone and their mom
highrankings - for articles and tips
searchenginewatch - for articles, tips, forums for networking
seochat - for articles, tips, forums for networking
sempo - organization for research and to help you network
oveture - to get your ppc started
wordtracker - (page 3)

I think it's automated still. But I think search engine optimization is really braud. So G is just peppering the results with everything to do with seo. If you think about it logically it kind of makes sense in a way.

sometimes you go too far with the headlines, but i think you hit the perfect spot with this one :) cheers

i also agree that google is doing massive manual reviews, i don't necessarily think they are hard coding results but more likely they are assigning sites to tiers.

>go too far with the headlines

Yeah!

Im only just getting warmed up :)

Having looked at it further it looks like they are placing more weighting on similar anchor text, ie: "search engine marketing" is now much more relevant to "search engine optimization" than it was recently.

not only did Overture rise up, but my blah old site (search marketing info) popped up at #73 for search engine optimization in their API recently, and I don't think it has too much (probably close to zero) anchor text with "search engine optimization" in it.

A few other things probably have more to do with it though..

Google is just catching up w/..

1. the marketing blitz Yahoo did when they switched from Overture to Y! Search Marketing

2. the internal links the Overture site gained from the Yahoo network

It also looks like Google associates the following terms with the phrase in question. Chief among them "performance". A search on search engine performance returns the Overture url at #4. Mainly due to them marketing themselves as pay for performance marketing, I imagine.

If it was a complete handjob, I'd just expect to see Adwords there instead. But those Google guys are pretty sneaky.

I've had it on pretty good authority that synonyms are the way to go with ranking in google, that and a whole bunch of other things of course...

Im sure im teaching my grandmother to suck eggs here, as always when i put any kind of 'real' seo stuff forward i have to disclaim it with "im not a real seo..." just someone that knows a bit about it through association :)

I'm not seeing any of those three in the top 10. I've got:
submitexpress
highrankings (2 pages)
bruceclay (2 pages)
addme
submit-it
seochat
netmechanic
1-hit
ebrandz
patrickgavin

Has it switched back for everyone, or am I getting a different DC?

Different DC...

Seems much more concerned with exact phrase matches.. SERPs w/ quotes

Good corroboration of that statement could change the SEO world significantly.

>Good corroboration of that statement could change the SEO world significantly.

Ya think so...