Search Queries
A search query is the word or string of words a user types into a search engine and will be used to determine the most relevant and useful results for what they are looking for. Our Hangout Notes cover insights from Google around how they use and understand search queries, along with recommendations for optimising your site for searcher intent.
Use Language Variations in Content Based on What People Search For
Consider how a site’s target audience search when deciding what dialect or language to serve content in. If people search using different language variations of a word then it may make sense to include both in your content. However, be careful to avoid keyword stuffing.
Google Understands Language Variations of Words as Synonyms
Google tends not to show results in a different language from the one the query is written in. For languages with different dialects, like Spanish, Google will try to understand differences as synonyms.
Search Teams Creating New Algorithms to Provide More Relevant Results
John says that Google’s search algorithms are still too keyword focused and their teams are creating new algorithms to better understand queries and return pages that make sense. 15% of search queries entered each day have never been seen by Google before.
Videos Blocking Googlebot May Still be Crawled and Indexed
Blocking Googlebot from crawling a video may still result in a video snippet appearing in search if the video file is embedded from a different location, if some Google datacentres haven’t yet seen the updated version or if the video URL has parameters attached.
Symbols in Queries Can be Treated as Special Characters or Separators
In some cases Google does take symbols in queries as having a separate meaning and in others they see them as separators between words. There are some instances where Google isn’t sure whether a symbols a special character or a separator.
Desktop Search Results Will be Generated from Mobile Pages with Mobile-first
Desktop users will see relevant desktop pages, but the search results will be generated from content crawled from mobile pages after mobile-first indexing. Desktop ranking will be impacted if you have reduced content on your mobile pages as that is where Google will be sourcing content from.
Not Set’ Queries in GSC & GA Are Queries Filtered Out For Privacy Reasons
Not set’ queries in Search Console and Analytics are queries that have been filtered out for privacy reasons.
Paid Ads Don’t Impact Organic Results But Could Have Indirect Benefit
Paid ads don’t affect rankings of organic results but it may have an indirect benefit of building brand awareness.
Fresher Content Can Rank Higher Dependent on User Intent
Fresher content can rank higher than older content but it depends on the user intent. For example, searching for information around earthquakes is likely to bring up news content shortly after an earthquake but may otherwise return reference material created years ago.
Voice Queries Are Included in Search Console As Normal Queries
Voice queries appear in Search Console but they aren’t split out separately from other queries. Voice queries may be split out from typed queries at some point if this provides extra value for webmasters.