When does 97 = 100?
When Google inserts results for a related phrase, apparently. If you check the 2nd page for the original term (I know, who ever does THAT, eh?), the numbering starts from 98. Therefore, Google are definitely actually inserting data from a related term into the SERPs when you see that behaviour, with the implication being that both result sets are being retrieved and amalgamated before being served to the user.
Since this behaviour is only ever really seen on somewhat ambiguous, and in my experience slightly obscure terms, I wonder if it’s a way of indirectly determining what terms Google perform badly for according to their own internal metrics (CTR from SERP, follow-on searches etc), since the positioning of the insertion is variable (ooer, missus!).
I’ve seen that several times before. Simple straight down the line search doesn’t exist anymore. In fact when users get the jist of where the Search Industry is going those SEO companies offering the wham bam get your product listed in the top ten for a certain keyword won’t exist anymore, cetainly the bad ones won’t!
Today’s Google is smarter than that, partly Google knows the same word can have many meanings and vice versa. Historically it knows where users are strugling with cetain keywords and from what we’ve seeen it will fiddle with results to get you from A to D, F or whatever in one quick step.
Comment by WMA — July 18, 2008 @ 5:25 am