Google learns synonyms

Has anyone else seen this Google behavior? I have no doubt that Google has learned synonyms - which in my opinion is a blessing and a curse. But it likely answers some of the mysterious SERP changes people have been mentioning of late. For instance, if "blue widgets" were also commonly known "blidgets", Google now appears to consider "blidgets" in any search for "blue widgets" - that means backlinks, titles, alt tags, etc.

It will certainly help in putting the most relevant pages in front of Google searchers - and will no doubt add more confusion to SEO efforts and results.

Leave it to Google, they certainly got game

TimS

 

Im glad all of my markets are pretty much free of synonyms if this is the case. Do you have a search that you can show us as proof this may exist?

 

Yes I have noticed that. I monitor "ringtones" etc. and it seems as "Nokia" is of relevance in that case. I have tried a new approach and I am linking OUT from my site to the big sites by the handset manufacturers.

 

It's been like that for almost a year where have you been?

The initial efforts appeared shortly after Google purchased Applied Semantics for their semantic text processing skills.

Place a tilde sign ~ immediately in front of your keyword(s) to see the synonyms highlighted.

 

are you sure it actually uses them?

if you're optmizing your site for "roses" your site may show up for flowers- but this doesn't mean google has "learned" that roses are flowers.

how else could it be happening?

well, quite simply: anchor text. if people link to you with a related keyword, you'll start to show up for it.

 

Here is a post from the forum which may be of interest:

 

Nokia and ringtones are no doubt anchor text. I don't see any real proof Google has implemented this as of yet.

 

Unless I'm misunderstanding search results, Google has definitely learned synonyms. When you search for "blue widgets" and the results show "blue widgets" highlighted in the search results doesn't that mean Google is highlighting those words to show you they are relevant to that search? If that's the case, fairly recently, in the same search for "blue widgets" Google started also highlighting "blidgets" - not because of a different search parameter like the ~ or anything - just a plain two word search.

If it's been happening for over a year, then it just started showing up in the searches that I do I just saw it for the first time just prior to the last Google update, but that doesn't mean it hasn't been going on prior to that for other synonyms.

I wanted to see if anyone else had noticed this behavior before I bored you good folks with an example

 

Tim,

It wouldn't be boring to see an example- I'd really like to see it in action. I've never come across it myself, and currently believe it is only linking text.

I ran a searches for a couple dozen synonyms and never saw a match..

 

Here's a couple examples - on the first search I typed, without quotes "striped bass fishing" - I'm only showing the result for my website in this example, but I believe it shows clearly what I'm trying to point out



Note how "striped bass fishing" is highlighted - it's what I was searching for - now also note that Google has highlighted "striper fishing" - which is certainly a common synonym for "striped bass fishing". I couldn't think of any other synonyms like this to try other than "striped bass".

In this example I entered "striped bass" without the quotes in Google:



Again, note the highlighting of the search term "striped bass" and a very common synonym "striper" - there are many, many other anchor text terms that show up in the results - but none of them are highlighted in the same regard as this search term and it's synonym.

Is that proof that Google's considering synonyms? It's entirely possible that there's another answer and I'm open to suggestions Seems like synonym consideration to me, but I've not done any other testing then just these few searches.

 

Shawn, if it were only cosmetic, wouldn't a search for "striper fishing" also highlight "striped bass fishing"? Cause it currently doesn't - which makes me think Google is being careful in it's use of synonyms understands that someone searching for "striped bass" means also "stripers" while someone searching for "stripers" may not be also searching for "striped bass".

Searching for "striped bass" is very clear to mean searching for that particular fish - which is commonly called a "striper". Now searching for "stripers" doesn't tell Google you are looking only for "striped bass" - there are "candystripers", "paint stripers", "road stripers", etc.

I continue to contend that Google is simply astounding at what it does in taking so many things like these into consideration.

 

Here's a few










They weren't in the first few pages, but that's likely because they didn't contain the exact search phrase, but Google no less appears to consider them relevant to "striped bass fishing" searches based only on their containing "striper fishing" in their highlighted text. At least, it appears that way to me...and I always like to add that no extensive testing has been done, it's just something I noticed that I can't explain away without the synonym theory

 

I think this is not synonyms. Google has been doing this for a while. For example, a search for wrestling shoes would also look for wrestler shoes , wrestlers shoes, etc.

They have yet to perfect this, however.

I forget the term they use for it right now- mind freeze. Its like stringing or something.. err..

 

Searching for "wrestling shoes" and showing highlighted results of "wrestlers shoes" certainly seems like the same synonym thing I was pointing out

I'm not sure how long they've been doing this, but I'm certain for the keywords I keep an eye on, it's only fairly recent. For higher exposure keywords it may have been going on for a long, long time - that's why I was asking more than I was telling

If Google was matching text only with no consideration for synonyms, how could a search for "striped bass" show results with "striper" highlighted? I'm open for suggestions

 

Yea, they've been working on this for quite a while, I just can't remember what its called (AND ITS DRIVING ME NUTS.). I thought you meant synonyms like: wrestling is to grapple or turn on is to arouse.

 

S-T-E-M-M-I-N-G

 

Awesome, thanks, LOL.