Comments on: Is Google Connecting The Wrong Keywords?

By: Everfluxx

Everfluxx — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 11:31:05 +0000

Hey there! Today I re-checked the SERPs I mentioned in my post, and it appears that Google has finally fixed them. The "NES data" query in your post also produces correct results now; I still see mismatched results in the other queries you mentioned, but I believe that co-occurences of terms and links in this post might be playing a role there (my two pence).

By: Google’s new acronym clustering algo = EPIC FAIL — Everfluxx

Google’s new acronym clustering algo = EPIC FAIL — Everfluxx — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 20:41:35 +0000

[...] of results that Google’s highly-semantical, artificially-intelligent clustering algorithm (expanding queries through acronyms and co-occurrences) is producing right now: check out this, and this, and that. .bbpBox22786294180 [...]

By: Web Design Norwich

Web Design Norwich — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 15:45:10 +0000

This is really interesting, thank you for sharing this.

By: Using broad match terms for keyword research | Adventures In PPC

Using broad match terms for keyword research | Adventures In PPC — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 13:14:25 +0000

[...] though may not tie in with your expectations. Shark SEO recently wrote an article explaining how Google determines these similar terms, the breadth of which is concerning where these erroneous impressions are affecting your bottom [...]

By: Kristine Schachinger`

Kristine Schachinger` — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 15:21:33 +0000

This might explain why, lately, I have seen such a dizzying array of mismatched results on longer tail searches and why they have very irrelevant overall. Thanks for this insight. Very interesting!

By: Bahu

Bahu — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 02:56:30 +0000

There is no alternate of Google in near future as all big search companies share from the same dinner table. I wish if somebody can do some research about the VC’s or investing companies behing top search companies and uncover the mystry why there is no alternate to Google? If MS can create sophisticated and AI enabled application, then what rocket science involved in making a search engine? Why 1 company with so many blunders keep going up while others (Y, MSN) free falling? Virtually there is no keyword tool anymore, Yahoo stopped its keywords search tool, msn efforts are not appreciatable. What is really going? Why they want everyone on internet to see it Google way?

Google is doing nothing but hit and trial. Trying to shape internet search the way they want, rather what it should be.

By: Uttoran Sen

Uttoran Sen — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 18:52:12 +0000

interesting analysis, this is hard even for google to put this thing right, the only option to make it absolutely correct is to search by tags and categories. that way, google will be able to relate the terms better.

say for example, someone searches for – “Girls Basketball Association” under sports category will surely get more targeted results. Just a thought.

By: Giacomo Pelagatti

Giacomo Pelagatti — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 13:37:34 +0000

Hi, Dave! A colleague of mine recently pointed me to this post, after I reported the same issue a couple of weeks ago: when searching for “Trusted Platform Module”, Google.it returned the Trasporti Pubblici Monzesi (“Monza Public Transport”) website. At that time, I had posted a SERP screen-shot here: http://twitpic.com/1pr8zl

I believe what’s going on here is query expansion through acronyms, as you correctly pointed out: in fact, the Trasporti Pubblici Monzesi website is ranked #1 on Google.it for “tpm”. At first I thought the mismatched and irrelevant result was primarily due to language-based personalization (having performed an English language query on Google.it), but it’s interesting to note now that you encountered the same phenomenon with several queries in the same language on Google.com.

I also agree that this glitch sheds some light on the mechanics of correlation within Google. In fact, I think that a large role in inducing Google to relate the semantically unrelated (e.g., the two definitions of the “NES” acronym) is played by co-occurrences of such definitions on authority sources, mostly online dictionaries and encyclopedias: see http://goo.gl/E2wq

Giacomo

PS: Congratulations on your blog: great stuff, I’ll be gladly following you.