Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Google auto-correct affecting one of my keywords
-
Hi there,
I have a keyword "finao montreal" that used to rank 8 or 9 in Google serp.
All of a sudden it dropped under the top 50 results, I was wondering why and I found out that Google now auto-corrects "finao montreal" to "final montreal".
Finao is a well know brand of custom high-end photo albums and I find it strange that Google corrects it.
Anyone has an idea on what to do with this situation? Is there a way to provide Google some feedback about the autocorrect?
-
I used the feedback link on the bottom of the page to report the issue to google, we'll see if it helps...
-
I just tried to logout and do a search but with the search settings in french and the keyword also gets corrected to final instead of finao. So it looks like it is more of an auto-correct issue than personalized search results but the auto-correction only happens in french...
-
Well, the results displayed while you are logged in and while you are logged out are different because when you are logged in Google prefers to show you personalized search results. May be the email you are logged with is in someway connected to your domain/ webpage or something that identifies you with your webpage/ domain. If that is the case then Google does not feel it is necessary to show you the results for your page. Also, since you are logged in and since your search becomes personalized, Google will show the results that you've shown interest in...For example, it will show results related to friends or pages (Actors, Music etc.) you have circled on Google Plus etc. (Basically, where Google can identify from the logged in details, who the person is) and so on and so forth...you get the drift.
So, anyway since this could happen to other people who are logged into Google and is searching for your content or keywords, it is necessary to also utilize that area in SEO as well. I mean...if your page or articles (or a link to it) are liked by someone or if Google knows that you are the author of that article and if a friend of yours who has circled you on Google Plus is doing a search while logged in, then Google might show your result first to that person because Google feels that, that person might like to see more articles from you related to that keyword.
Basically, now a days you need to keep an eye on how to optimize the personalized search aspect (along with normal stuff) so that you or your article will appear for a personalized search by someone who is connected to you. So yeah. get your social circles growing especially on Google Plus.
And, the fact that you are still doing all right when you are not logged in, is a good thing to know.
-
Humm, strange, it seam the results vary if I am connected or not in google account. My site (danielvaladas.com) is now listed first for this search and the term is no longer auto-corrected if I am not connected. And the search was without the quotes.
If I connect to my google account and try it again, then I get all sort of corrected results such as:
Fiona Apple @ Olympia de Montréal – le 3 juillet | Montreal.TV
Dépôt final - Bibliothèques - Université de Montréal
Sprint final à Montréal et Sherbrooke - Le Journal de Québec
News Final on Global Montreal | Global Montreal
Critique concert: Fiona Apple à L'Olympia de Montréal | Sors-tu.ca
Well you get the point, anything similar to Finao but nothing including Finao in the first pages.
I also get this:
Résultats, y compris pour final montreal
Rechercher uniquement finao montreal.which indicates that finao was corrected to final.
If I change my google account search settings to english, then it gives me about the same results as when I am not connected, this post is also there!
-
May be I haven't understood what you mean when you say that Google Auto corrects the search for the keyword you are talking about. When I typed those words into Google it did not do any auto correction and showed me a list of pages with Finao and Montreal in it. But, yeah, when I typed those keywords in " " it said that: No results found for "finao montreal" and just showed me the pages which has finao and montreal in it, as it did not find any pages with the exact two words knitted closely together to form that exact phrase.
Can you tell us what is the name of your website and also how did you come to the conclusion that Google auto corrects your keywords?
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
-
Negative Keywords for SEO
Hi Mozzers, I have a client that has a totally legit retail business and they are getting lots of traffic organically that is adult in nature and totally off subject. The reason for this is their domain name contains keywords which while work well for their brand, when reordered and couple with a another keyword (such as picture or image) they get traffic for searches that have nothing to do with them and are pretty awful in nature. If this was Adwords I'd add a negative in of course but how can I stop bad traffic coming to the site organically? Any ideas? Cheers B 🙂
Branding | | Bush_JSM0 -
How Google decide reading time of a page?
Dear friends, I have a question. How google decide bounce rate? For an example- I open a website through organic keyword from Google. Now I have tab of landing page in browser I do not close this tab for 10 minutes and continue doing my other things after some time I come back on that tab and close. Can Google know? This page has been read till 10 minutes. Can Google decide the bounce rate for this session? If I do some click boost for my negative reviews can I do same thing in my website? Is it useful? If I open one tab and come back after one day than what happen? Silly question but confusing me so please help me. I will be very grateful to you! Thanks all
Branding | | docbeans0 -
Should your homepage target your most important keyword?
I was looking at the title tags/keywords of the top ranking sites for my most important keyword phrase, and I noticed all the pages that were beating us were homepages. Our homepage is not optimized at all. It's very generic, because 1, my boss wanted it that way, (but she's not married to it) and 2, I built out landing pages for all our keywords. For the really, really competitive keywords, I can't get my landing pages high enough. My homepage however, according to OSE, is on par with the other sites, especially the page. I included the screenshots of it, just in case, my analysis was way off. But, those are the top 4 sites and I'm on page 3. Here's my questions: Should I optimize my homepage for the keyword phrase, if it's our most important one? If I do that, what should I do with the landing pages? Lastly, if you look at the screenshots, is my analysis correct that we aren't woefully behind all four of these people (we're kempruge.com)? I know I'm asking on a lot on this one, but it's a pretty big decision for us. I could really use the help making sure it's the right one. Your time is much appreciated, Ruben voVxURN fwoVUBE aKWJQ4E
Branding | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Changing My Home Page Focus Keyword
Hello, We recently launched a new home page design on our company website, but we still have the same focus keyword in the title, H1, and in parts of the page copy. However, this focus keyword no longer represents our entire brand. We want to change the focus keyword and have done some research on the keyword difficulty and local searches in Google, but are still uncertain on the potential effects. Let me explain our situation more in depth. Instabill provides business owners with merchant accounts and other services. Our current focus keyword is offshore merchant accounts. However, over the past three months, we have been helping businesses establish US merchant accounts (retail, mobile, and online--but retail and mobile to US only while online to merchants everywhere) and intend to continue to increase our US merchant base. We are also still able to provide offshore merchant accounts. Our fear is that when a US merchant comes to our website (http://www.instabill.com), they will see Offshore Merchant Accounts in big H1 letters and leave our site since they want a local US merchant account. However, we still want to make sure our international merchants know we can still work with them. Thus said, we would like to change our focus keyword to something more broad, but still descriptive of our brand: merchant services. To elaborate, we want our H1 heading to read Merchant Services for Retail and Online Businesses. Merchant services is more descriptive since we provide more than just merchant accounts. We also provide the payment gateway, free shopping cart modules, help registering businesses, help obtaining an SSL certificate, and a discounted PCI Certification Service through McAfee. We have more than one page on our website that ranks for the term online merchant accounts, but none that rank for merchant services. However, we are willing to put in the work to ensure we optimize our website properly and put in the effort to make the change successful. Merchant services is also a keyword we would like to optimize on our website, so making the change on the home page will only help the steps in the process. Statistics:
Branding | | Instabill
Offshore Merchant Accounts has a 35% difficulty level and we consistently rank for SERPs #1 and #2. This term, according to the Google Keyword Tool, only receives 70 monthly searches in the US, 50 in the UK, 10 in Canada, and 10 in Australia. These are the four countries of most importance to our website. Merchant Services has a 57% difficulty level and we do not rank for it in Google at all since we have never tried to optimize for this term in the past. Also according to the Google Keyword Tool, this term receives 14,800 monthly searches in the US, 1,600 in the UK, 590 in Canada, and 260 in Australia. Clearly, merchant services could potentially get us much more traffic than offshore merchant accounts if transitioned correctly. I suppose my bottom line question is this: Would it be a bad idea to change my primary focus keyword on my home page? What type of results should I expect to see if searching Google for my company name? Thank you for all of your help. Meghan
Senior Copywriter of Instabill0 -
Organic Traffic from irrelevant keywords in GA?
Hi, I am doing SEO for a website that deals in 4-wheeler tyres. While reviewing the organic traffic in Google Analytics, i noticed some keywords that are completely irrelevant to the theme of the website. Some are porn related terms while some are like google, yahoo, laptops, youtube etc. It seems someone is doing negative SEO for my website, as a result of which a decent number of searches are coming from these irrelevant terms. What should i do to block traffic from such terms as this may harm my website's performance in search engines. Please suggest a solution as soon as possible.
Branding | | PFX1110 -
Different zoom levels of spots in Google Maps
Most roadmap imagery is available from zoom levels 0 to 18, for example. With zoom level 0 the whole world can be visible. As we all know, the more we zoom in on Google Maps, the more spots (e.g. name of restaurants, hotels etc.) are visible. Some spots are visible "sooner" - with a lower zoom level, which is of course better for the company. Some companies are only visible with a very high zoom level. If I have a highly branded company is the zoom level lower? Is this the answer for the different display?
Branding | | petrakraft1 -
How to get Google to link external review sites in Google Places
Hi, I have several company profiles in Google Places and Google Sites, I also have the same profiles for those companies in review sites like Yelp! and so on. I have seen that other sites have links on the bottom where Google points to those external review sites, but that doesn't happen for me yet, is there a way to tell Google that I have profiles on other review sites so they can link them or is it Google whenever they find them that will link them? Here's an example: http://maps.google.com/maps/place?cid=14126341780178539960&hl=en At the bottom you'll see that it says: Reviews from around the web Now this is one of mine: http://maps.google.com/maps/place?cid=12168877126282825032&hl=en Now how do I get that line at the bottom provided that I know there are reviews out there in other sites? Is there something I can do? Or is it all about Google doing it whenever they see fit? Thank you!
Branding | | tass0 -
Changing a "city" or "town" location in google maps
Hello Mozinators! I have a client I currently work with doing SEO that has a rare problem that I have not come across before nor have I been able to find any information on how to make changes for it. The problem being that the city/township is more of a community that has yet to officially be labeled as a city, yet is still marked as a town on google maps. This is a great step in the right direction however the google maps location is over the wrong place. I have attached screenshots of the google maps for this location. In the top is a place called "Lakewood Ranch" and it is not in the correct spot. Lakewood Ranch should instead be in the bottom corner of the overview screenshot, where the town center is and the medical center off of the "University PKWY" exit. I have absolutely no idea on where to start to get these changes put in place, nor if they can even be put in place. Please let me know! Thank you so much in advance! a86TM.png u1ipV.png
Branding | | jbster130