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
-
Google Algo Update
Hi I'm trying to look into how the update in Oct - Nov affected our site. It's positive with us ranking for more keywords, but I wondered if anyone knew what had changed. For example, one of our pages ranked for 291 keywords in October, now it ranks for 406 keywords. We've done nothing to this page in that time. I just want to try and understand what's happening with the algorithm a little more (although I'm sure everyone does :). Does anyone have any insights? Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | BeckyKey0 -
We recently transitioned a site to our server, but Google is still showing the old server's urls. Is there a way to stop Google from showing urls?
We recently transitioned a site to our server, but Google is still showing the old server's urls. Is there a way to stop Google from showing urls?
Algorithm Updates | | Stamats0 -
Are internal search meta keywords necessary?
One of my duties is to improve internal search results. From my reading, good site architecture and content is the way to achieve that. However, for example, are internal meta keywords necessary? I know they haven't mattered externally for a long time, but somebody in my department mentioned wanting this functionality in our CMS. I just want to make sure I'm not missing anything.
Algorithm Updates | | SSFCU0 -
Why Am I Ranking in Bing but Not Google
My website is ranking is ranking in Bing, but it's nowhere to be found on Google? What can be some causes for this?
Algorithm Updates | | locallyrank0 -
Meta keywords tag?
Because Google is cracking on spammy keywords should I remove my meta keywords tag altogether? I hear they dont factor it in anyway?
Algorithm Updates | | dfwgolfer0 -
Why would Google read different pages to rank for a keyword?
I have noticed a large drop in a number of keywords in the latest rankings report. I have checked the results on the 'Ranking History Graph' and it appears that Google is reading different pages for the specific keyword and therefore, giving large fluctuations in ranking dependant on the page from week to week. Why would this be happening?
Algorithm Updates | | Benjamin3790 -
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 -
Is there a way to know what rank my site is listed on google ?
My current client web page was listed at the 4th page 1 month ago. Im trying real hard to make him understand that the traffic from beiing on the first page is important and that he need to give me additionnal ressource to make it happen ( i don't prog at all). So i had the idea of checking every page to see whats is current rank. but instead of looking from page 1 to page X, i was wondering if there was something somewhere that could give me my rank right away. It woud help saving time. Thx.
Algorithm Updates | | Promoteam0