Have I gone mad?

[eddster]

Can someone explain the following to a novice:

www.capitaledge.co.uk
I ran a keyword density report on the above website using 1, 2 and 3 word combinations (I used the tool on seochat.com).
"it services" appears 4th on the list when running a 2 word analysis with 4 occurences and 2.25%.

Bear with me here, I know you're all going "that's not much though especially considering the top two keywords have 15%", but please read on.

I then ran a search on google for "it services" restricted to pages from the UK.

At the top of the list was www.fsa.gov.uk. The financial services authority.
"Hmmm, odd" I thought. I looked at the meta tags and the rest of the source code and still didn't get it.

I ran a keyword analysis on the page out of interest. Again, I ran this on 1, 2 and 3 word combinations. NOWHERE, and I mean NOWHERE, did "it services" appear in the list found. "it" didn't appear even in the 1,2 or 3 word combinations at all.
"Services" by itself only has a 0.68% density.

How does that work?????

[dburdon]

Eddster,

your findings are consistent with the Google algorithm largely being driven by offpage factors.

I imagine the work you have done will see you perform quite well on Yahoo and reasonably well on MSN. However, Google attaches very little weight to meta tag (perhaps apart from the title) information, and attaches only a small amount of direct influence to the page content.

The key influence right now - i.e. post Jagger 1 - seems to be the anchor text of inbound links plus a small amount of weight apportioned to the destination of outbound links.

If you need any specific advice PM me.

David B

[greeneagle]

Renewed Prominence for Governmental and Educational organizations (and URLs) appear to have been granted in the Jagger update.

Ken

[aaron2005]

Originally Posted by greeneagle

Renewed Prominence for Governmental and Educational organizations (and URLs) appear to have been granted in the Jagger update.

Ken

Yes and in the subject I write about that puts my on page 3, they even thru a few lame old geocities pages above me.

[rorimandi]

Originally Posted by greeneagle

Renewed Prominence for Governmental and Educational organizations (and URLs) appear to have been granted in the Jagger update.

Ken

What you are saying falls right in line with my theory about Jagger.

My theory (so far not disproved by the evidence I have seen) is that Jagger appears to be primarily about link validity and the weight Google places on them, if not entirely about that.

Government and Educational sites, as authorities, have longer lasting and more natural links from places with steady page rank of their own.

The only completely uniform fact I have found so far that I can attribute to Jagger is that the number of IBLs that Google says it knows about has dropped at least 20% per client across the board since the update (counting them the same way I did before the update). Especially for any clients who were part of any organized linking systems (AKA paid programs).

I think Google must have started discounting about 20% or more of the links out there, anything it now considers dubious. Just a guess. I suspect that we won't really know for sure until Jagger is fully finished unveiling.

But the cogs in this head are spinning and have developed my theory on why Jagger is doing what it's doing. Still too early to tell, though.

[aaron2005]

I am eager to hear your conclusions Ken, nice work and thanks, I am learning a lot this week. :-)

[eddster]

By why would that put the Financial Services Authority top of the listing for "it services"? I'm confused.

Thanks.

[DMC_34]

Originally Posted by greeneagle

Renewed Prominence for Governmental and Educational organizations (and URLs) appear to have been granted in the Jagger update.

Ken

Yes and it has made mockery of the SERP's.

Christmas cards #6 is Prince Edwards Island Greeting card service. Very few links, not an instance of the word Christmas. Now I am sure a good ole boy from Texas wanted Canadian Island Greeting card! But what the hell its an official website right? LOL Google you suck and you can Google that!


DMC