Hey! That's Not My Search Term!?!?

[macchick]

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I'm a newbie here and I would like to pick your brains, if I may.

For the last 6 months I have noticed that a particular search term in Google, AOL and Dogpile have returned a result with my website on it. Now, you would think "what's the matter with that?" But what if that search term is the URL of another website completely UNRELATED to you? Or perhaps, could be seen as a competitor?

My website coding does not contain this search term, nor do I use it in the website's content. It is funny because it is one of my top 10 search terms according to my stat counter.

So, without broadcasting my website (unless pushed, of course) the search term looks something like this "www.website.com". "website" replaces the real name. Can you tell me how this, rather odd, search term lead the visitor to my site?

[Kandevil]

Most likely somebody somewhere is linking to your site with that term as the keyphrase, so you are ranking for the term on the strength of the inbound link

[macchick]

So.. I should be grateful then? It sounds a bit weird on two counts:

1) it means that somebody has put the wrong hyperlink to that keyword. And if what you're saying is correct, that person's website is pretty well-ranked themselves.

2) what kind of search term is "www.website.com" (or whatever web name)? If you're trying to find a particular website, surely you would just put that address in the URL bar??

I dunno... I'm probably not from this planet!

Thanks for responding.

[sturat_c]

Hi

It happens sometimes. You should need to study more about web and SEO.
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[DioBach]

1) it means that somebody has put the wrong hyperlink to that keyword. And if what you're saying is correct, that person's website is pretty well-ranked themselves.

How would you're average web user, blogger, myspacer, etc know what the right keyword for the link is? In general they couldn't care less! They have no interest in or knowledge about things like anchor text and SEO. Be thankful for the link, and if you're getting a lot of traffic for an unrelated term to your site, find some way of profiting from it - be it a prominent affiliate link to a site on that subject or adding a bit of supporting content to influence your adsense of whatever.

2) what kind of search term is "www.website.com" (or whatever web name)? If you're trying to find a particular website, surely you would just put that address in the URL bar??

Once again, don't knock it - many less clued in people don't realise the address bar exists - they navigate completely via their built in search or their default homepage. This means typing www .site.com into the search bar. Some more advanced users will realise they don't have to add the .com and the www which is why many of us with two word URLs will see traffic coming in on terms like bluewidgets instead of blue widgets...

I dunno... I'm probably not from this planet!

Nope, you're from planet webmaster. Habitants of this planet often forget that the majority of people visiting their sites are from planet average web user. This can be costly to people from the planet webmaster if they don't try to think like people from planet average user...

[macchick]

Heh heh heh...!

Yes, Planet Webmaster - it's a bit lonely out here! But you've got a good point, DioBach.
I shall continue to study these search patterns with great interest.

Cheers!