Repetition matters when it comes to keywords weighting your queries.
Using keywords multiple times can have an impact on the types and number of results you get.
Don’t believe me? Try searching for
internet
. At the time of this writing Microsoft
was the first result. Now try searching for internet internet
. At this writing Yahoo! popped to the top.
Experiment with this using other words, putting additional query
words in if you want to. You’ll see that multiple
query words can have an impact on how the search results are ordered
and in the number of results returned.
Google doesn’t talk about this on their web site, so this hack is the result of some conjecture and much experimentation.
First, enter a word one time.
Let’s
use clothes
as an example (Figure 1-7). This returns 7,050,000 results, the top
being a site called “The Emperor’s
New Clothes.” Let’s add another
clothes
to the query (Figure 1-8). The number of results drops dramatically to
3,490,000, and the first result is for a clothing store. Some
different finds move their way up into the top 10 results.
Why stop now? Try clothes
clothes
clothes
(Figure 1-9). The result order and results themselves
remain the same.
Here’s a theory: Google searches for as many matches
for each word or phrase you specify, stopping when it
can’t find any more. So clothes clothes
returns pages with two occurrences of the word
“clothes.” clothes clothes
clothes
returns the same
results, because Google can’t do any better than two
occurrences of “clothes” in any one
page.
Because Google discards non-matching multiple instances of the same query word, you can use this search as a weighting system for your searches. For example, say you were interested in pipe systems for the gas industry, but you’re more interested in the impact the pipe systems were having on the gas industry (and less so in companies that happen to sell piping systems for the gas industry).
Search for "pipe
systems"
gas
. Now query for "pipe
systems"
gas
gas
. You’ll notice that the focus
of your results changes slightly. Now try "pipe systems"
pipe
pipe
gas
gas
. Note how the focus
slants back the other way.
Based on observations, here are a few guidelines for using multiple iterations of the same query term:
Multiple iterations of product names or nouns seem to favor shopping
sites. This is especially true if the name or noun is plural (e.g.,
scooters
).
Just because you’re not getting different results
for the second or third iteration doesn’t mean you
won’t get different results for the fourth or fifth
iteration (e.g., successive occurrences of
baseball
).
Remember that Google has a limit of 10 words per query, so relegate repetition to only those situations where you can spare the query room.