Google Operators Quiz! Only The Smart Apply.

[Rich Jackson]

ok so i was doing some keyword research and i completely threw myself off with this.


lets say when i type keyword 1 into google with quotations (exact)

"swag bag "
it recieves 40,000 results

but when i type in keyword 1 with no quotes (broad)

swag bag
it receives 1,000,000 results

heres the tricky part..this is where it gets fun,

being that the first example is the exact match meaning the only search results that will show up are sites that rank for that keyword term exactly in the exact order it was typed in.

so which serp will my prospect see. the 40k results or the 1 mil.

or is the only way he will see the 40k result is by him actually putting quotes around the keyword when he is on google.

because it seems if he typed in swag bag (without the quotes) then thats still an exact match right?
or does it only work with the quotes?

and if it does only work with the quotes then wouldnt you say its worthless to do competition research using quotes being that most people outside of internet marketing and tech nerds probably never use search operators when they search?


like how can i rank for the EXACT word if when i type the word into google without qotes it brings up broad terms...

bag good swag
i love your bag it has swag
you have a big bag with swag
can you crack this code for me??

so im trying to figure out how do i pinpoint that specific keyword, because even if i seo the hell out my site for a specific keyword it seems that the only way a person would find my site is if they put quotes around the term???????

hmmm im bugging over here,

[johnlagoudakis]

Good question Rich.

Most people search without the quotes and will see all 1 million results.

The reason IMers use "" quotes around keywords when doing research is to find out how many websites out there are optimized specifically for that keyword phrase (because without the quotes you'll get results of any pages/sites that have your keywords anywhere in the content).

Hope this makes sense.


John

[Rich Jackson]

yeah i totally understand you but here's my question..

whats the point of seeing whose optimized for that keyword if those aren't the sites that are going to show up when the prospect does his search?

or is this just there way of saying.
"ok, if there are alot of sites optimized for this keyword in quotes, then it might be hard to rank for the word unquoted."?

or

"ok, if there are only a few sites ranked for this keyword in quotes then it will be easy to rank for the word unquoted"?

but if thats the case then what metric do you go buy to be able to accurately guage how well you will rank for the unquoted keyword?

Originally Posted by johnlagoudakis

Good question Rich.

Most people search without the quotes and will see all 1 million results.

The reason IMers use "" quotes around keywords when doing research is to find out how many websites out there are optimized specifically for that keyword phrase (because without the quotes you'll get results of any pages/sites that have your keywords anywhere in the content).

Hope this makes sense.


John

[Rich Jackson]

this question still stumps me i wish somebody could give a proper explanation....

[Dave Rodman]

John answer the question the way I would have, but I'll rephrase with another example.

The operator searches are useful for people who a) Are trying to guage competition b) Know what they are doing in regards to search.

So when you search swag bags, without quotes, you're getting all the sites that are optimized for swag bags. So there's more competition because you could have someone that's optimized like crazy for "Bags" so they have huge incoming links...and maybe they only mention "swag" on the page...thus they show up when they rank.

Using the operators, like the quotes, just tells you who you are actually competing against for the term you are targeting..."Swag Bags". So it's useful to guage competition. Same with the allintitle: tag...it shows you who is truly optimizing for that phrase.

If you're ranking WITH QUOTES, but not even in the ballpark without quotes. Then you just need to send more links to your page that say "swag bags"/

[carrot]

As mentioned, customers dont search with quotes.
Its just a (poor) way of gauging competition.
If you are truly interested in competition, search without quotes (like a customer would) then analyze the top 10 - 30 results.

Look for:
domain age
domain pr
domain backlinks
Url pr (if its not the main domain thats ranking)
url backlinks
onpage optimization.

seoquake toolbar (free) can help with this alot.

As an example of why search operators are a pretty poor way to check competition, some niche legal terms will have relatively little total results (with or without quotes / intitle / inurl etc) but the money spots will be ridiculously hard to achieve, because 1 conversion could be worth $xxxx so the top sites have a huge budget and are constantly trying to out do one another.

[Dave Rodman]

I don't think it's a poor way to guage competition at all. It takes away the noise of the search results. But personally, I like the allintitle: operator better. Realistically, if your competition doesn't have the keyword in the title tag, they SHOULD be relatively easy to pick off.

But unless you're searching for a more obscure keyword, most of my higher value keywords have the same results with or without quotes.

[carrot]

All it tells you is the total NUMBER of pages matching that criteria (exact match, in title or url). The total number can give you an estimate of how popular the term is, but not how competitive.

Who cares if there are 5000 or 500,000 results - the strength of the sites occupying the top spots (ie the sites you will need to beat to get any traffic for said term) are what matters.

[getsmartt]

Here let me make it even more fun for you...

Go to google,
turn off instant search, (for some reason it screws with the next setting)
go into your search preferences and set it to return 100 results per page.

Now search for "swag bag"

it should say something like "About 170,000 results"

now scroll all the way down, and click to go to the 10th page

guess what

"In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 822 already displayed."

you are really only competing against 822 pages,

even if you click "repeat the search with the omitted results included."

James

[Dave Rodman]

Nothing is hard and fast. It's not like the one piece of data is going to tell you anything, but it gives you an idea of the amount of noise that you might be seeing from a search result. It's a 1 second search so it's not going to be some comprehensive competition checker.

But besides, the results don't change that much when you do actual searches vs. allintitle for the first 30.

[Rich Jackson]

**just for the record....swag bag isn't the keyword im going after..lol actually ive never even typed that word into google it was just my example text.

but i can see how that method would help to give me a better look at the amount of competition of going against.

Originally Posted by getsmartt

Here let me make it even more fun for you...

Go to google,
turn off instant search, (for some reason it screws with the next setting)
go into your search preferences and set it to return 100 results per page.

Now search for "swag bag"

it should say something like "About 170,000 results"

now scroll all the way down, and click to go to the 10th page

guess what

"In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 822 already displayed."

you are really only competing against 822 pages,

even if you click "repeat the search with the omitted results included."

James

[Wealthyclark]

I have no idea who started doing research in quotes but over the years I have found that many people involved in IM take everything they read as law. I have also learned that you must test for yourself. If a new comer hears something that they deiced to believe, they will spreed that crap like a wild fire.

My advice is to pick the spot that you would be happy with seeing your site sitting in and analyze the site that currently holds that spot.

Age
Pr
Backlinks
Pr of those backlinks
and so on

If searching in quotes is so great, why is the site thats #1 without quotes sometimes not found on the first page when searched in quotes. It seems to be common sense to me, but we sometimes trust others too much and months or years down the road figure out that we've been feed a bunch of bull. Charge it to the game, been there and done that!

EDIT: And on top of that if you fail using that method some will accuse you of not trying, lol

[Rich Jackson]

agreed...

that was pretty much my point as well, i dont see the purpose of searching with quotes when a regular person searching doesnt use quotes..

i dont see how using quotes can help gauge competition either..because again, nobody use quotes so the information that is found with quotes wont produce my actual competition...

but the results produced without quotes will give me a much more accurate account of my comp.

think about if i searched for "swag bag" and it only bought up 1,400 results

then i searched for swag bag (unquoted) and it actually bought up 30,000,000 results.

if you based your research off of the quoted results ..you might think this is a good/easy nich to get into and succeed when in all actuality its probably and extremely hard niche ...

thats my final verdict, Thanks

Originally Posted by Wealthyclark

I have no idea who started doing research in quotes but over the years I have found that many people involved in IM take everything they read as law. I have also learned that you must test for yourself. If a new comer hears something that they deiced to believe, they will spreed that crap like a wild fire.

Originally Posted by Wealthyclark

My advice is to pick the spot that you would be happy with seeing your site sitting in and analyze the site that currently holds that spot.

Age
Pr
Backlinks
Pr of those backlinks
and so on

If searching in quotes is so great, why is the site thats #1 without quotes sometimes not found on the first page when searched in quotes. It seems to be common sense to me, but we sometimes trust others too much and months or years down the road figure out that we've been feed a bunch of bull. Charge it to the game, been there and done that!

EDIT: And on top of that if you fail using that method some will accuse you of not trying, lol