One big trend in SEO lately has been the increasing sophistication and subtlety of search engines, especially Google. No longer just super-fast computers using a few technical signals to rank pages, they are now taking in and weighing up a huge range of factors. Many of these are real human signals such as reviews, user behaviour on the site, and social media activity.
So these days whenever you type a query into Google, you're not just getting a very good idea of what's there online. You can discern patterns and trends about the real world beyond it as well.
One example relates to the booming food scene here in Perth. Much has been written about this in recent years. This city is now so full of top quality restaurants and cafes that it rivals Melbourne as a foodie hub. And many of those foodies write blogs about their gastronomic adventures.
This is reflected in search engine results. Obviously, if you type in a related search query like "Perth cafe reviews" you'll get a lot of posts by local food bloggers appearing. But you'll also see an inordinate amount of food blogs popping up in results that aren't specifically related to that subject.
Try the search term "Perth blog" for example. That's a more general term. And you would expect to see results dominated more by blogs about lifestyle, events, politics, activities, news, destinations, etc. While some of those do appear the majority of results are from local food blogs.
Try the search yourself and scroll through several pages. The trend is really noticeable.
Clearly, there are more food bloggers in this city than any other kind. And they are extremely prolific as well as popular.
User intent is also a big factor now in SEO. With such an enormous amount of data at its disposal, Google can suss out what most searchers are looking for to a significant degree even if the keywords used are not very specific. So presumably many of those who type in "Perth blog" are looking for -- or at least open to -- blogs whose main interest is food even though they haven't included that word. This could be seen as more evidence supporting the notion that this city is now gastronomically obsessed!
So these days whenever you type a query into Google, you're not just getting a very good idea of what's there online. You can discern patterns and trends about the real world beyond it as well.
One example relates to the booming food scene here in Perth. Much has been written about this in recent years. This city is now so full of top quality restaurants and cafes that it rivals Melbourne as a foodie hub. And many of those foodies write blogs about their gastronomic adventures.
This is reflected in search engine results. Obviously, if you type in a related search query like "Perth cafe reviews" you'll get a lot of posts by local food bloggers appearing. But you'll also see an inordinate amount of food blogs popping up in results that aren't specifically related to that subject.
Try the search term "Perth blog" for example. That's a more general term. And you would expect to see results dominated more by blogs about lifestyle, events, politics, activities, news, destinations, etc. While some of those do appear the majority of results are from local food blogs.
Try the search yourself and scroll through several pages. The trend is really noticeable.
Clearly, there are more food bloggers in this city than any other kind. And they are extremely prolific as well as popular.
User intent is also a big factor now in SEO. With such an enormous amount of data at its disposal, Google can suss out what most searchers are looking for to a significant degree even if the keywords used are not very specific. So presumably many of those who type in "Perth blog" are looking for -- or at least open to -- blogs whose main interest is food even though they haven't included that word. This could be seen as more evidence supporting the notion that this city is now gastronomically obsessed!