There is a question about Google that has been botering me for a while now, and I don't seem to find the answear by searching for it! How does Google categorize webpages? I mean, it's not a secret that if I run a travelsite, and I get linked by another travelsite, this link is more worth than link from a site about cars. And let's say I run a website about Spain. Lots of information about activities and attractions in spain. This would be a travel site, but would Google see it as a travelsite, or just a "general information about Spain" site? And another thing I've been wondering. Do they categorize the entire website, or just the inviduale sites? And one last thing. Does Google speak all the worlds languages? Let's say the biggest travelsite in Norwegian links you (Travel in Norwegian means "reise"). Would Google understand that it's a travelsite, or would it be categorized as a "reise" site?
Everything google see with words, not the meaning of the words, so if you want see the site as travel site to Google eye it needs to have travel related keywords. I think google read main languages.
If you think about it, Google doesn't necessarily have to know what a keyword means to use it. They need to know how one word relates to another, but they don't need to know the meaning of the word (necessarily). Say I start a site about Xonflb and I quickly become #1 for Xonflb because I'm guessing there's not a lot of competition. While my site is mostly about Xonflb it also has secondary interests in Cxplm and Pggytr. Some other sites spring up about the latest sensation, Xonflb. Some others specialize in Cxplm and Pggytr. Theoretically the algorithm can "understand" the link between Xonflb, Cxplm, and Pggytr without having to know what they actually mean. The search may make links between Xonflb and Cxplm simply because these sites are linking to each other but it doesn't necessarily need to know what they mean to make that link. At some point it may become necessary to create broad categories but the impression I get is those are more for judging "neighbourhood" and co-citation and the like, so I'm guessing they're relatively broad. Google doesn't really care about contextual meaning, and if they did they would spend a lot more manpower I'm guessing classifying. Actually the whole Xonflb scenario sounds like it could be a neat SEO experiment to see if you can create your own authoritative category. What sites would it end up influencing?
Google have a labs project called sets. http://labs.google.com/sets I can only assume they use this service for related keyword data.
google understands sites content with keywords . the most importans think is anchor text while your are getting links
good link saneinsight, I never came across that before you might just have the right answer, I think!
Google Sets cleared a few things up, great link! And now, the next big question! When google has categorized a site, do they categorize the entire sites, or do they categorize the sites individually?