Google Hacks 2Nd Edition [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Hack 15. Repetition Matters

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, the home
page for Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser is
the first result. Now try searching for internet
internet. At the time of this writing, the
Internet Society (ISOC) pops 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.

1.27.1. How Does This Work?

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, which returns 51,800,000
results, the top being a site called The Emperor's
New Clothes. Now, add another clothes to the query
(i.e., clothes clothes). The number of results
drops dramatically to 14,700,000, and the first result is for
Traditional Korean Clothing, The Emperor's New
Clothes is no longer in the top 10, and some new finds move their way
up into the first few results.

Why stop now? Try clothes
clothes clothes. traditional
Korean Clothing stays on top and The Emperor's New
Clothes is still not found in the top 10.

1.27.2. A Theory

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.

1.27.3. So What?

Because Google discards nonmatching 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 that 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 [Hack #29] .