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DanThies
Gotta admit that I am "real skeptical" about their claims of index size, when so many queries return zero (0) results. OK, beyond skeptical. I think they're just lying.
A tip for all would-be search startups: "Don't suck at search and don't lie about your search engine."
Yet another worthless press release for yet another worthless search engine.
@Halfdeck, the search results I'm seeing on those phrases are consistent with "theories" being the second link, and reputation not passing. Interestingly enough, "theories" was the second link.
MM appears to have removed the links and posted his "result," without leaving it up for others to analyze the outcome.
It's quite possible that the internal workings @ Google are more complex than "first link always wins" but neither MM nor David Eaves has done a valid test.
If it is that simple, it's likely something implemented by the crawling/indexing people to wring a little more efficiency out of indexing link text, not some sinister master plan by the search quality people to confuse SEOs.
As I mentioned on a related Sphinn, with a lot of testing, we've seen some results that look like MM's result, but the vast majority point to the first link as the only reliable behavior.
It's notable that even with MM's "debunking" test, the *phrase* search behaves as "expected" under the first link wins scenario.
This raises questions that aren't answered because MM removed the links. I can't blame him for that, Xenite is a real web site not an SEO testbed.
It's possible that the non-phrase match was due to text on the page, an RSS feed that fed the index, or other causes. I haven't dug through to try to sort out what posts and text would have appeared on the page at the time, but others have said that these words all appeared in many places on the SEO theory blog.
It's also possible that there's something special about the way phrase searches are handled vs. a "normal" search. The supplemental index stuff that was mentioned could be relevant, not because the pages are in the SI, but since anchor text is likely in a separate index, it's possible that the text from the second link is stored in a different place (and/or format) than the text from the first link, and retrieved under different conditions.
It's just a shame that we can't discuss this stuff without personal attacks flying. Disagreeing with certain people almost inevitably results in that sort of nonsense.
Great post, and a very much overlooked area. Probably my most impactful SEO engagement ever (in terms of immediate bottom line outcome) was helping a software company make their knowledge base content crawlable.
Having done extensive testing on this, we do occasionally get results where it appears that a second link is passing anchor text, but in the vast majority of cases it looks exactly like Neyne's result.
You have to do this kind of testing with more than one page, because you don't know effect what screen scrapers, RSS feeds, etc. may have - in other words, you can't see every link, and you can't rule out some sort of pollution, especially in a one-off test.
Based on the evidence I have seen, the only reliable behavior is the first link passing anchor text.
You're the first tester I've seen (at least in public) addressing the need to test with different types of keywords. The reason why we launched a thousand tests on this was because we didn't have confidence that made up words (floblag glifflestop) that don't appear on the page would be handled the same way as real words.
Search engines have to be looking for better ways to handle anchor text - does a link with the word "this" really add anything useful from the search engines' perspective?
Danny,
You can change your default search engine in Firefox. Click on the "old Google logo" in the Search box, select Manage Search Engines, move Yahoo up, and search away. Yahoo is now your new default search. This also worked in the release candidate.
Google had a point - users don't choose to install Internet Explorer - it's installed by default. Just like users don't choose to install Safari on a Mac... which is where the real hypocrisy lies, because Google isn't just the default search in Safari, changing it isn't even an option when you fire up the browser.
If you want to change the default browser on a Mac in Safari, you can have some fun hacking or install a plug-in to do it ( http://www.usingmac.com/2008/6/18/change-safari-default-search-engine ). You can change the setting on the iPhone version of Safari, but that feature isn't present in the MacOS version.
What you're calling for here is to force users to choose a default search engine when they choose to install Firefox. Firefox doesn't control the desktop operating system - Apple and Microsoft do.
That old definition is a bit odd. This is better, although it's still disappointing to see 'doorway' = spam.
Story: Is SEO Spam?
You can watch Matt's presentation at Web2 on his blog, where he says, in as many words, "SEO is not spam."
Emanuel, if you're reading a beginner's guide and trying to pass yourself off as a consultant to clients, I am GLAD that my book isn't helping you perpetrate that fraud.
(BTW, this topic is discussed in the six-part link building course that registered subscribers get to watch for free.)
Again Emanuel, if you're expecting a 100-page beginner's guide to tell you that, best of luck, and again I apologize with all due sincerity for victimizing you.
There are differences in the level of difficulty in creating good SERPs for different search queries. Competition is a factor in how difficult it will be for SEOs but not the only factor. Your client/victim's site also plays a part.
Amazon.com is at #8 on my Google SERP for [books] currently, with an internal page. If they want to grab the #2 position ahead of Barnes & Noble, it's not going to be terribly difficult for them to move up six spots. If Abe Books (currently #6) wants to move up 4 spots to the same position, it will be far more difficult for them.
I created the Fast Start framework so that anyone can use it, including professionals. The beginner's guide is built on that framework and illustrates how the framework can be used. If you will notice, I didn't include *anything* about running an SEO consultancy within the framework.
Feel free to create your own framework for that. Feel free to participate in the community of readers - there are a lot of consultants in that community who would undoubtedly love to participate.
There's no debate here, I made a vacuum cleaner and you call yourself a victim because it didn't mow your lawn... Anyway many thanks, I needed a good laugh today.
Wow... so, because I don't explicitly state throughout the book that people with no qualifications shouldn't pass themselves off as consultants, I am "tacitly encouraging" them to do so. Nowhere have I encouraged anyone to enter into SEO as a profession, much less made any other such claims.
You can have the last word now, because continuing this conversation would surely be tacit encouragement of your trolling.
Thanks, all! The link should be the same, Donna, unless you were linking directly to the file.
I sincerely apologize to all of the "victims" who are suffering horrible consequences as a result of my desire to help. Sheesh. If you want a textbook, go buy the Search Marketing Kit. If you want more theory, read my blog, it is there to go along with the book.
Good to see that Sphinn still hasn't found a solution for the rather simple problem of duplicate submissions.
Story: Cuil Launches -- Can This Search Start-Up Really Best Google?