Ade in Business

I don’t understand Google

(I promise, this isn’t going to turn into a Google bashing blog. I have nothing against Google. Google is great. I use it more than anything else on the web.)

I’ve recently been delving into the art and science of SEO in order to get better search engine placement for FormSpring. I thought I’d learned a lot, but that confidence went out the window tonight when, like any self-respecting person with a computer does several times a week, I Googled myself.

As of right now, if you search for the word Olonoh, the 4th result out of 900 is a Geocities site called Introduction to Rugby. Yes, I created that about 10 years ago back when I played rugby. But here’s the thing — that site doesn’t have my name anywhere on it. I even searched for pages that link to the site, and there were only a couple, none of which contained my name in the link to that page.

So the first question — why does that get so high in the rankings on a search for “Olonoh” when that word is nowhere to be found on the site? Is everything written out there about effective use of Meta tags and keyword density a farce?

The scarier question though — how in the world does Google know I created that site? Is Google more powerful than we realize? I’m just baffled.