SEO Question: Google has me SO confused. Would somene mind sheading some light on this?

[xxmarkxx]

Ok so my main keyword is a two word keyword. Global monthy searches = 2800. Competition = 7,690 (exact phrase) and 8,510,000 (broad) Without quotes the first page of results looks like pretty easy competition. No authority sites, Wikipedia, nothing. Number 1 ranking literally looks like a 9 year old put it together. No joke. Here is the issue I'm having with Google that I need someone to explain to me. First off, I'm a newb but I've been studying all I can the past few months. This is my first site and let me tell you I labored over every aspect of onsite SEO. So, when I was all done, it took about six hours to get indexed by google. Kind off odd that the sites sub-directories got indexed in one hour and it took another five for the main page to get indexed. I don't get that one. But the real problem is this... I have been indexed. BUT if I search for my main keyword in quotes I am nowhere to be found on Google. So what I did was copied some text from my site that contained my main keyword and BAM there I am. One of three results. I delete one of the extra words, still there.
Ok, to make this clearer I'll give an example. Suppose my main keyword is "inflatable tree".
1) I search "inflatable tree" = not listed... at all... no where.
2) I search "this inflatable tree is the best" = Listed 1 of 3 results
3) I search "inflatable tree is the best" = Listed as 1 of 3 results
4) I search "inflatable tree is the" = Listed as 1 of 5 results
5) I search "inflatable tree is" = Listed as 1 of 11,800 results
6) I search "inflatable tree" Again not listed anywhere!
How can this be? It makes no sense to me How i can show up for "inflatable tree is" but not "inflatable tree". Any ideas? And yes, I'm sure im not showing up for my main keyword because there are only 8 pages of results to go through and I used page search in firefox to search each of those 8 pages for my domain name. And one more thing that makes no sense to me. "inflatable tree" (my keyword) = 7,690 results yet you ADD a word to it like "inflatable tree is" and it jumps up to 11,800 results?!? Where the heck did the bigwigs at Google learn Math??? For every variable you add the odds go down not up. I'm seriously lost.

Oh, and one more thing. I THINK I know what's going on but not sure. I find it odd that I'm ranked so incredibly low considering the. Is it possible that I got the Dreaded Google Sandbox for my exact keyword thus not ranking for it at all?

[UMS]

One thing to keep in mind with SEO and Google is that it is an inexact science at best.

Certainly there are well known SEO practices that you generally need to follow, but Google often throws up inexplicable results.

When you say you you main keywords aren't listed, how far are you checking?

Remember that a new site will take a little while to rank (depending on competition and backlinks).

[xxmarkxx]

Wow, such a quick reply, thank you. How far back am I checking? I'm checking all 8 pages of results. I am not listed in any of the pages for the two word keyword. It's my blog title, in the domain name, in first sentence of every post plus two or three times somewhere else in each post, and sprinkled with a ton of lsi. Just to name a few. These are about 200 to 500 word posts btw.

Oh I almost forgot, the funny part is that the youtube video I put up and linked to on the site is ranked at 118 of the 8,510,000 broad results for the same keyword. And my site is no where to be found. LOL Just makes me laugh.

[Brian Alaway]

Make sure that you are not getting any "personalized" search results. Turn off Google personalization search history or you will get wacked out results.

[blueorca17]

Originally Posted by xxmarkxx

Ok so my main keyword is a two word keyword. Global monthy searches = 2800. Competition = 7,690 (exact phrase) and 8,510,000 (broad) Without quotes the first page of results looks like pretty easy competition. No authority sites, Wikipedia, nothing. Number 1 ranking literally looks like a 9 year old put it together. No joke. Here is the issue I'm having with Google that I need someone to explain to me. First off, I'm a newb but I've been studying all I can the past few months. This is my first site and let me tell you I labored over every aspect of onsite SEO. So, when I was all done, it took about six hours to get indexed by google. Kind off odd that the sites sub-directories got indexed in one hour and it took another five for the main page to get indexed. I don't get that one. But the real problem is this... I have been indexed. BUT if I search for my main keyword in quotes I am nowhere to be found on Google. So what I did was copied some text from my site that contained my main keyword and BAM there I am. One of three results. I delete one of the extra words, still there.
Ok, to make this clearer I'll give an example. Suppose my main keyword is "inflatable tree".
1) I search "inflatable tree" = not listed... at all... no where.
2) I search "this inflatable tree is the best" = Listed 1 of 3 results
3) I search "inflatable tree is the best" = Listed as 1 of 3 results
4) I search "inflatable tree is the" = Listed as 1 of 5 results
5) I search "inflatable tree is" = Listed as 1 of 11,800 results
6) I search "inflatable tree" Again not listed anywhere!
How can this be? It makes no sense to me How i can show up for "inflatable tree is" but not "inflatable tree". Any ideas? And yes, I'm sure im not showing up for my main keyword because there are only 8 pages of results to go through and I used page search in firefox to search each of those 8 pages for my domain name. And one more thing that makes no sense to me. "inflatable tree" (my keyword) = 7,690 results yet you ADD a word to it like "inflatable tree is" and it jumps up to 11,800 results?!? Where the heck did the bigwigs at Google learn Math??? For every variable you add the odds go down not up. I'm seriously lost.

Oh, and one more thing. I THINK I know what's going on but not sure. I find it odd that I'm ranked so incredibly low considering the. Is it possible that I got the Dreaded Google Sandbox for my exact keyword thus not ranking for it at all?

Google is looking for various factors...not just what's in the title. They're looking for instances of text contained WITHIN the website (what's on the page) as well as what's in the description, the h1 tag, anchor text TO the site, AND the title. There is a list of what are called a "stop words" when you're searching in Google- words that google completely ignores when you're searching for something that may explain the results that you're getting if it's not from personalized search results. Make sure you're clearing your cookies before you perform the search.

[xxmarkxx]

-blueorca17 Other than "personalized search results" I've have that all covered and then some. I'll try the personalized result thing though. Could be the answer.

[xxmarkxx]

Nope, just cleared my cookies, deleted all history, etc. Same result. I do not show in all 7000 search results for the actual keyword. but I still do if the keyword is searched for within a phrase... Weird