Comments on: Does Google let third parties edit search results? http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/does-google-let-third-parties-edit-search-results/ Internet marketing and search engine optimisation Fri, 27 Jan 2012 13:42:03 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 By: Graham Langdon http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/does-google-let-third-parties-edit-search-results/#comment-5425 Graham Langdon Fri, 01 Feb 2008 17:23:26 +0000 http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/does-google-let-third-parties-edit-search-results/#comment-5425 Nice Exposé Nice Exposé

]]> By: TechWeb Media | Does Google let third parties edit search results? (Response to BlogStorm) http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/does-google-let-third-parties-edit-search-results/#comment-5417 TechWeb Media | Does Google let third parties edit search results? (Response to BlogStorm) Fri, 01 Feb 2008 15:25:13 +0000 http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/does-google-let-third-parties-edit-search-results/#comment-5417 [...]  Interesting post appeared on BlogStorm: [...] [...]  Interesting post appeared on BlogStorm: [...]

]]> By: Rob http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/does-google-let-third-parties-edit-search-results/#comment-5408 Rob Fri, 01 Feb 2008 14:04:24 +0000 http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/does-google-let-third-parties-edit-search-results/#comment-5408 Hack the google.co.uk URL to change "&meta=cr%3DcountryUK%7CcountryGB" to just "&meta=cr%3DcountryUK" and the results change significantly, and at least the top two hits will now match those from AOL. But you will notice a really small number of hits ("about 1,050" on google.co.uk, "about 203" on aol.co.uk) whereas the original unhacked google URL had "about 3,780,000" hits. If you now hack the URL from both engines to refer to "countryGB" instead of "countryUK" then the SERPs will appear to match up, although the aol.co.uk still show massively fewer results. So the real take-home from this is that: 1. Google appears to support both "UK" and "GB" country codes, but prefers "GB" over "UK" against local convention; 2. aol.co.uk followed local convention, picked the wrong one, and is searching a smaller set of pages than they could be. I repeated the tests with "plumber" instead of "site:.net" and got similar, expected results. One other weird thing I noticed: google claims for results for searching just "countryGB" than "countryGB|countryUK" Hack the google.co.uk URL to change “&meta=cr%3DcountryUK%7CcountryGB” to just “&meta=cr%3DcountryUK” and the results change significantly, and at least the top two hits will now match those from AOL.

But you will notice a really small number of hits (“about 1,050″ on google.co.uk, “about 203″ on aol.co.uk) whereas the original unhacked google URL had “about 3,780,000″ hits.

If you now hack the URL from both engines to refer to “countryGB” instead of “countryUK” then the SERPs will appear to match up, although the aol.co.uk still show massively fewer results.

So the real take-home from this is that: 1. Google appears to support both “UK” and “GB” country codes, but prefers “GB” over “UK” against local convention; 2. aol.co.uk followed local convention, picked the wrong one, and is searching a smaller set of pages than they could be.

I repeated the tests with “plumber” instead of “site:.net” and got similar, expected results.

One other weird thing I noticed: google claims for results for searching just “countryGB” than “countryGB|countryUK”

]]> By: Luke Daly http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/does-google-let-third-parties-edit-search-results/#comment-5392 Luke Daly Fri, 01 Feb 2008 10:28:55 +0000 http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/does-google-let-third-parties-edit-search-results/#comment-5392 Good point and obviously they don't really know what's going on. Good point and obviously they don’t really know what’s going on.

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