How Google distinguish and ignore keyword attested with or in a brand?
-
Hi community,
Generally there will be a primary keyword which everybody concentrates and expect their homepage or website to rank for....like "seo" for seo consulting or seo tools. There might be some companies with this keyword in their brand name like "ABC SEO". So this primary keyword will be all over the website being part of the brand name; especially in page titles and header tags. How Google distinguish and ignores this keyword in brand name to avoid giving more ranking boost to such websites? Will this keyword will be completely ignored being the part of the company name or their domain name? How Google distinguish between a generic keyword and keyword in company name?
Thanks
-
I wrote this answer to a slightly similar question in 2016, on Quora - and IMO nothing has changed much in this area:
Google is not very good at distinguishing and ignoring, or thinking about brands specifically. Actually Google sees query-spaces in terms of 'search entities' (especially after the Hummingbird update). Different keywords and keyphrases are related to one another and where that definition is pretty clear cut (thematically) you have a search entity. A search entity can exist in multiple different states (place, business, news topic, trending search, regular query space for general interest - etc.)
When most of the searches (or search queries / keywords) within a given search entity change in terms of the user's intent, the search entity itself may shift state. If a search entity which previously handled generic 'interest' based queries is intercepted by something like a meme (and suddenly there are an explosion of searches, with clicks going to sites with radically different thematic groundings) - then the state of the search entity and its associated keywords (or most of them) can shift from one contextual niche to a completely different one
If you think of it like that, things become much clearer. It's not that Google is saying "hey you're a brand you're cheating I'm kicking you out". Instead Google is saying "well I know that this search entity is not a business or brand, most people are searching for a meme that is trending. As such I'll return sites which more closely match the state of the search entity to which this query-space is bound"
Not all search entities are so clear cut. Some query-spaces are very ambiguous! In which case, Google will try to return a balanced mixture of results. "SEO" is actually a very good example as, many people are searching for information but many people are also searching for companies and businesses. As such Google supplies divided results and tries to give the best of both (or all) thematic pillars. These are what we call noisy query-spaces:
- https://d.pr/i/UX3lON.png (screenshot)
I know it's not a very clear-cut answer, but search is diverse and complex :')
Hope that helps
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Have there been any google algorithm updates in the past 2 weeks?
Hi guys - we have noticed a site we work one has taken a hit on its rankings over the past week. We have been through all the usual reason - hacking, duplicate content, back links, other sites copying text etc - but can not find any reason why its rankings have been affected. Has any one else noticed unexplained changes in rankings with sites about a week ago? Thanks in advance! Phil
Algorithm Updates | | Globalgraphics1 -
Google SERPs changes
Hi I wonder if anyone knew of any changes to the Google SERPs appearance in August 2015? We dropped in over a thousand visits to the homepage on brand so I wanted to find out why. Also, our DA went from 36 to 34 - does Google panda affect domain authority at all? Thank you
Algorithm Updates | | BeckyKey0 -
Canonical URLs being ignored?
Hi Guys, Has anybody noticed canonical URLs being ignored where they were previously obeyed? I have a site that is doing this at the moment and just wondered if this was being seen elsewhere and if anyone knows what the solution is? Thanks, Elias
Algorithm Updates | | A_Q0 -
Keyword Stuffing - Where Do You Draw the Line?
I have a tax software website for which there a multiple pages that compete using different keywords. However, all pages but my home page have recently fallen out of the rankings completely and I really just don't know why. For instance, my page - http://www.1099pro.com/prod1099proEnt.asp - has the title keywords "1099 Efile Software | 1099 Software | 1099 Electronic Filing". When I run a Moz report on the keyword "1099 E-File Software" I get an "A" rating and it finds a total of 8 instances of the keyword. However, when I run a Moz report on the keyword "1099 Software" it finds a total of 26 instances of the keyword - still with an "A" rating. When I search the actual text/html there are only 6 instances of the keyword "1099 software" which leads me to believe that Moz/Google/Search Engines are ignoring the middle term in words like "1099 printing software" or "1099 e-filing software" and only picking up "1099 software". Is this supposed to be happening? Does anyone know why or how many terms can be ignored in that fashion? I used to have multiple landing pages in the top 3 results and now all of my other landing pages have completely fallen from the rankings even though I am not keyword stuffing and am providing unique & relevant content. If anyone has an idea as to why my rankings have dropped so drastically I would really appreciate it (I take no part in black-hat link building so that isn't the reason).
Algorithm Updates | | Stew2220 -
How to choose the right keywords for 1name1day.com
Hi guys I was wondering wich keywords would fit my website 1name1day.com How to compete with this godaddy monster and all those big firms . They will always stay on google page 1 and what are my chances to be seen in page 1 for the keyword " domain name " Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | 1name1day0 -
Keyword density and meta tags
Hi, I've just checked the number of keywords appearing on my website's pages. On some of them the keyword density was way too high (7-10%) if you included the meta tags, but all under 3.5% if I didn't include the keywords and description meta tags. So my question is - when looking at number of keywords used per page, do I have to worry about what's in those meta tags? Do the keywords in there count towards keyword density / number of keywords per page? Thanks, Luke
Algorithm Updates | | McTaggart0 -
Rankings changing every couple of MINUTES in Google?
We've been experiencing some unusual behaviour in the Google.co.uk SERPs recently... Basically, the ranking of some of our websites for certain keywords appears to be changing by the minute. For example, doing a search for "our keyword" might show us at #20. Then a few minutes later, doing the same search shows us at #14, and then the same search a few minutes later shows us at #26, and then sometimes we're not ranked at all, etc etc. I know the algorithm changes a lot, but does it really change every couple of minutes? Has anyone else experienced this kind of behaviour in the SERPs? What could be causing it to happen?
Algorithm Updates | | d4online0 -
CTR for Google Rankings
I run a local business, and I'm working on ranking for keyword + city. I currently rank on the first page for just about every keyword I'm working on, but only the top 3 for a little less than half. Because the search volume is so low for each keyword (for most cities Google doesn't have an estimated monthly search volume) the grand total of a few searches a month for each keyword + city combination is where I get my traffic. Although I seem to be getting consistently higher in the rankings, I am curious as to how much more traffic I can expect. I read somewhere that sites that are ranked number one are clicked 50% of the time, number two 20% of the time, number three 15% and from there on it goes down fast. Rank 7 and on is below 1%. Probably around 30% of my keywords are ranked between 7-10 and probably about 20% are ranked 4-6. Are the CTR numbers fairly accurate? I understand that there are a lot of influences on CTR, such as title/description, but generally is that somewhat accurate? If it is, I am missing out on A LOT of traffic. I am pulling about 800 unique visitors a month from Google. If I get in the top 3 for most of my keywords, can I expect significantly more traffic? I ask the question because there are many other things I could be doing with my time to help the business aside from SEO. I don't want to be working constantly on SEO if traffic is only going to increase very little.
Algorithm Updates | | bjenkins240