It’s Not Only Unethical Search Engine Optimisation Practices – Some Misleading Search Results Arise From Google

June 17, 2010 by toto

It is widely accepted that some search engine optimisation agencies still persist in using strategies that are considered to be bad practices to develop the natural search engine positioning of a company’s website. One favourite process is to load a page with misleading keywords and thus gain a high placement for something that is unrelated to the actual search request being entered. However, misleading results may not always be the fault of bad search optimization practices – it may be that Google is trying too hard to be helpful.

The search platforms like to associate synonyms with keywords used in a search request. This has led to a change in the way that website content needs to be written, so that when optimising the content of a page the keywords to be emphasised appear often enough to be relevant without resorting to keyword stuffing. Using synonyms helps to highlight the significance of the keywords being promoted and adds to the quality of the page content. The area that Google appears to be falling down is when a search term has a logical abbreviation or acronym.

A typical search request may be for the shop chain, British Home Stores. This company is often referred to as BHS, so Google considers that to be a synonym. However, many other organizations could be referred to with the same abbreviation – such as the British Horse Society. It would be understandable to return many apparently unrelated organizations if the search request was just for the abbreviation “BHS”, but a surprise when the request is so specifically for a company name. This is a weakness of the search platform algorithm, not unethical search optimization.

While there is this minor problem with the search platforms, it is obviously useful to ensure that all the basic technical enhancements that would normally be performed as part of the initial search optimization examination are done. Anything that can be done to make your website more noticeable on the natural results page. Good titles can also help the search platforms in cases where the request keywords are effectively a description, e.g. for a named celebrity’s official site. By including the words “official site” in the page title, the page will naturally attract a better search engine positioning. search engine optimisation is not just about the most relevant keywords, but the choice and distribution of the most relevant keywords and choice of pages with which they are associated can make a difference.

The snippets that the search platforms create from the web page’s content also give clarity to the results page. It should be immediately obvious when the search platform has returned an inappropriate result, but well written content on your website should make it more noticeable when it is accompanied by rival sites.

There is still scope for the use of bad practices in search engine optimisation, even though the search platforms keep trying to discourage them. However, it is not safe to assume that misleading results are always the fault of bad practices. The high search engine positioning for an irrelevant site could result from a misinterpretation by a search platform.