Some search results seem broken

Have you noticed that some search results seem more broken than others? That things which really shouldn’t rank are holding top positions, while things that absolutely should be there are missing entirely? We’re not talking about individual sites that might be filtered or hit by manual actions—but entire search results pages that seem downright strange.

Below is a snippet from a search result that, in my opinion, is broken in several ways. We usually rank around 3rd or 4th place with a site I threw together quickly a few years ago, seo.n.nu. To be honest, the site is nothing special—it doesn’t have much content, and it doesn’t have particularly strong backlinks.

With this site (brath.se), we sometimes show up around position 7, either with our page about SEO in Stockholm or with the SEO blog. This is all based on searches from Stockholm (things look completely different in northern Sweden).

With that background, it’s interesting to consider what our competitors are doing. The truth is, many of our competitors are skilled professionals—people working on sites with solid authority. And yet, we’ve managed to plant ourselves above them with a site that, in my view, doesn’t really deserve it.

If you also compare it to the search results for Sökmotoroptimering, you’ll notice a completely different picture, even though Google claims to understand synonyms. Not too long ago, this search result was plagued by tons of English-language pages—and oddly enough, they’ve now completely vanished. These weren’t spammy pages either, but major international sites with high authority—previously considered top ten results for SEO in Sweden—that are now nowhere to be found.

Let’s take a look at two other sites from the screenshot: Jim Westergren’s SEO Guide and SEO-Forum. The guide ranks first, and the forum comes in at fourth. No disrespect to SEO-guide.se—it’s a solid overview of SEO—but the forum has provided massive value to a huge number of people for many years. It’s a platform that, at times, has brought nearly the entire industry together. I myself was an active moderator there for many years.

Speculation

I usually avoid speculation, but I’ll share some thoughts we’re currently exploring—just to give you a glimpse into what our specialists are digging into right now. I suspect it may come down to Google placing increased weight on user data. And not just any user data, but a very limited set of metrics. The things we’re looking at include CTR, bounce backs (I couldn’t find a good link to explain it, but it refers to returning to the search results—not just a traditional “bounce”), and pogo-sticking. We haven’t even concluded whether we truly believe this theory yet, so take it for what it is.

If you have thoughts on this, we’d love to hear them—feel free to discuss it with us.