Isulong SEOPH Episode 8: How You Made Your Search

Welcome to this episode of the Isulong SEOPH Podcast on site ranking based on how you made your search online.

Are you surprised when you check your site's ranking one time, and see it suddenly change after only a few minutes? That happens when you change the way you search online.

Certain search engines like Google allow you to specify a certain language such as English (en) or Tagalog (tl). Take a look at the following examples:

http://www.google.com.ph/search?q=isulong+seoph&hl=en
http://www.google.com.ph/search?q=isulong+seoph&hl=tl
http://www.google.com.ph/search?q=isulong+seoph

If you do a search while specifying English, Tagalog, or no language, the search results will vary. Google will try to guess what language your web site is using, and will rank you accordingly based on what the searcher was looking for.

In case no language is specified, it looks like Google will prioritize sites which have a mix of languages (i.e., English, with a few sprinklings of Tagalog). Please note that this theory hasn't been tested that much, though.

For those of you availing of SEO services, it will help to stipulate in your contract what "achieve a high ranking" means. For example, for which keywords, for which search engine, for what specified language.

Perhaps it would be fair to specify as simple a search URL as possible. For example:

http://www.google.com/search?q=isulong+seoph

In the above example, no language is specified, and the main (not regional) Google site is used.

When both parties clarify the terms behind the rankings, you'll be able to eliminate the surprised or gotcha's that occasionally accompany these rank-verification exercises. And when things are clearly and neatly spelled out, that will pave the way for future SEO projects.

In the next episode, we will tackle the issue of whether blogs or traditional static web sites rank higher in search engines.

Until then, "Isulong, mga kapatid!"

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