Why is Google inserting dashes?

[rvolk75]

Hey guys,
I know this is a "Real Estate and Google" forum, but I was wondering if any of you could provide more information on why is Google acting the way it is.

Here's what I did. In Google, I entered "55 years old" and clicked search. I got about 19 million results back. Looking through the first three pages, I see a lot of dashes in the bolded words. My search did not contain any dashes. Why is Google doing that? How come most of the bolded terms have dashes somewhere in them?

I'm just trying to learn more about Google and see if I can apply this knowledge to the real estate industry.

I look forward to your comments.

Regards

[ericbramlett]

Russell -

Those are the search results, and you are talking about the meta title & description. In many of the search results, the sites have dashes in the titles & descriptions, which is what google displays. Google is bolding the words that you searched for - in this case "55 years old" - they always do this.

[rvolk75]

Eric, I understand what you're saying, but about 80% of websites for that search have dashes. It seems like Google is favoring sites that have that term with dashes more, than a site without dashes. Does that make sense?

[ericbramlett]

Russell -

Google isn't favoring the sites using dashes in the meta's. If that were the case, you would see a TON of dashesin my meta's .

I think it's more indicative that people tend to use dashes when typing out "55-year-old" or "55-years-old".

[RyanRE]

I think it's more indicative that people tend to use dashes when typing out "55-year-old" or "55-years-old".

I agree with Eric. I wouldn't start targeting dashed keyword phrases (i.e. your-city-real-estate) LOL....

[36towns]

what if you search for something like this? http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...=Google+Search no dashed results, are there?

[Halfdeck]

It seems like Google is favoring sites that have that term with dashes more

It's your imagination.

There are too many webmasters out there that wants to believe something, so they collect data to support that belief. That's faulty reasoning - often times, they end up collecting only "evidence" in alignment with their belief and discounting/ignoring everything else that says otherwise. Correlation also does not mean causation.

You collect a whole bunch of data and then draw conclusion from that data. Often, what you find will surprise you. The bottom line is in SEO you need to be very careful about how you use search results to draw conclusions because there are a bunch of factors at play which cannot easily be isolated.

One reliable trick involving the use of search results is to run a competitor through seodigger, find a money term he is ranking for, and then use a tool to mine his backlinks to find sites that are linking to him with that anchor text. Search results are telling you at least some of those links are working. That knowledge can point you in the right direction.