Google www.Domian.com Query Oddities
September 12th, 2006 by Michael Gray in Google, SEOIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Read my top posts or learn more about Michael Gray. Want more frequent updates follow me on Twitter. Thanks for visiting!
As was discovered over at Digital Point google recently changed the way it handles www.domain.com. For most of the domains of the domains I’ve checked in the past few days everything is normal, however I came across two today that are pretty out of whack.
The first domain is not new but not really old (from 2004) the query www.domain.com returns a few hundred results, however the first 200 doesn’t list the domain at all. Directories are listed, some press releases, some people who have linked to the domain are listed, some wikipedia pages with the domain are are listed and even some digg pages pointing to the domain are listed. Now this domain hasn’t been blessed with the seal of trust from the Google Gods so it doesn’t get a lot of organic traffic. Most of the traffic from Google comes from [define:keyword(s)] type of queries. According to the Google sitemaps Google Webmaster Central program the domain is indexed (over 200+ pages). Now to be honest the domain does have something of a checkered past being part of some reciporical linking, and some keyword stuffed typo pages but those pages were yanked almost a year ago as I tried to make the site more legit. Sorry this one makes a bit of cash so not one I can share publicly.
The second is pretty new domain, registered in May, went live in July and pages have slowly been rolling out since then. when you search for that domain you only get one directory listing, and the domain itself doesn’t show up. This domain was built with the intention of being clean and actually containing useful original handwritten content, so there no “bad karma” to overcome. This domain is also part of the Google sitemaps Google Webmaster Central program. Now this is one I’ve debated going public with here. I’ve shared it with a few people and it’s actually a really nice example of how to use wordpress as a CMS and a blog at the same time. It also has some really nice plugin integration.
So what’s the deal Google? Why aren’t the domains showing up for www.domain.com? I mean shouldn’t the actual domain always list first, irreguardless of the “signals of quality” or lack thereof? I get that the subsequent results will have some ranking algorthym behind it but it seems like an exact domain match should always be the top listing.
Lastly, quite unintentionality this blog now ranks for a [merchantname.com] SERP. As I mentioned recently this type of search can actually bring in some traffic.
Update
I think we got to the bottom of the second one. I have the domain set up as http://domain.com and when you type in [domain.com] into Google you get the right results. However when you type in www.domain.com you get only one listing. Hope that’s enough to fix it.
Sphere It
September 12th, 2006 at 3:32 pm
No specifics other than a “checkered past”–not much I can check out..