How is possible for a phrase in quotes to turn up way more web site pages than without??

[carlos123]

I was looking at a particular keyword phrase just now and when I entered it into Google with quotes it turned up 5,130,000 pages but when I entered the same phrase without quotes it turned up only 218,000.

How is that possible?

I mean for the exact phrase to be found on 5,130,000 pages but for the words in that phrase to be found on only 218,000 pages? That makes no sense.

It's a 3 word phrase but still...anybody got any ideas as to how this is possible?

I almost missed it. But out of curiosity I checked it further and it turns out to be what looks like a winner.

Carlos

[tguillea]

My guess is that the estimations are wrong. In my experience, Google messes up numbers every now and then.

or maybe with quotes it will return multiple results from the same domain, whereas without it will only return one?

Just guessing... that's bizarre.

[carlos123]

Yes it is bizarre. Just out of curiosity I have tried a number of other three word phrases and as expected the number returned with no quotes is larger, usually much, much larger than that returned by search for the keyword phrase in quotes.

This is completely bizarre. Some engineer could probably use this to derive some reverse engineered tid bit of information about Google's algorithm.

Carlos

[dburk]

Originally Posted by carlos123

Yes it is bizarre. Just out of curiosity I have tried a number of other three word phrases and as expected the number returned with no quotes is larger, usually much, much larger than that returned by search for the keyword phrase in quotes.

This is completely bizarre. Some engineer could probably use this to derive some reverse engineered tid bit of information about Google's algorithm.

Carlos

Those numbers are approximate numbers derived from a probability calculation using a relatively small sample dataset. If the sample dataset has an unusual concentration of certain words it could throw this calculation off by quite a bit.

Just keep in mind that it's not a real number but just an educated guess. when you dig deeper you will find that those numbers are usually way overstated. It's better to think of them as indicators, not real data.

[carlos123]

Out of curiosity Don how did you learn so much about all this? How long have you been doing this stuff?

Carlos

[Korona Studio]

glad that I'm not the only one experiencing this..

[mejohn]

I had the same problem with one of my targeted phrases. Much higher estimates with the quotes.

[dburk]

Originally Posted by carlos123

Out of curiosity Don how did you learn so much about all this? How long have you been doing this stuff?

Carlos

Hi Carlos,

I'm actually a slow learner, I started in IM in 1995, but I think I've already forgotten way more than I currently know. I sometimes find myself saying "I used to know that."

[carlos123]

Originally Posted by dburk

Hi Carlos,

I'm actually a slow learner, I started in IM in 1995, but I think I've already forgotten way more than I currently know. I sometimes find myself saying "I used to know that."

Ahh...there's hope for me yet! I am a somewhat slow learner too Don. Unlike you probably had I have the benefit of this forum and the nuggets of experienced wisdom being shared with me that make my learning curb much easier.

Of course the market has become much more competitive too.

Carlos

[paulgl]

As usual, dburk is right.
The numbers do not mean diddley when put in that "overall" context.
Google is a search engine. In fact, they created that concept and
ran with it. They pride themselves at not just coming up with
a bunch of pages, but a bunch of pages that matter, then a select
group of pages that matter to the searcher, then sifting that even
more to be just "meaningful" pages. Too many people put too much
stock in seeing something like "..found out of about 5,400,500 pages."
When there is no way google would ever even give a second
look at a fraction of those. And putting things in quotes does not
always work as intended. Again, google runs it through its search
engine brain and still tries to narrow it down. Even if you put things
in quotes, and put two words together, some results will have a space
because google thinks these are relevant for what you want. And many times the
overall stats don't match up with the all important ones that google
will emphasize. Remember as well that google will always say "out of about.."
There's a lot that happens behind the scenes when people search on
google. It's that behind the scenes stuff that makes google, well, google.

Paul