Google Searches Now Case Sensitive
My buddy Russel Rockefeller pointed out some interesting news today about a change in Google search results. Many, including myself, have confirmed that Google search results are now case sensitive. I don’t know how long this has been in effect, but many developers and marketers are surprised and concerned about the impact this may have on their business.
Update Apr. 23: A day later, search results are no longer case sensitive. My suspicions may have proved true that this was simply a test by Google to improve the accuracy of results. We may see this change return if Google labs decides that their test was a success.
Check out the results yourself. Searches for “Domain Industry” and “domain industry” return similar websites, but rankings are changed up significantly. Other keywords and phrases have even more dramatic changes. Oddly enough, this documentation on Google clearly states that search results are not case-sensitive.
There is speculation that this may be an attempt to serve more accurate results. For example if someone was to search for “widget” it would be assumed they are looking for a thing. But, when someone searches for “Widget” they may be looking for a company or specific product.
How will this affect search engine optimization and marketing? Will marketers now need to write copy with varying capitalization of keywords and phrases? I guess we will have to wait and hear what Google has to say if anything.
Popularity: 32% [?]
April 23rd, 2008 at 6:16 am
This is interesting…..
I can see a bunch of SEO’s/Web Developers running around changing the sitewide links they have in the footers of their clients sites
April 23rd, 2008 at 7:31 am
I couldn’t duplicate. Could you post the URLs of your two searches with different rankings?
Thanks!
April 23rd, 2008 at 8:26 am
Yea, I couldn’t replicate it either.
April 23rd, 2008 at 11:03 am
I have also tried it.
I couldn’t duplicate it.
April 23rd, 2008 at 12:50 pm
I tried to replicate it but didn’t see any changes in SERP. But even if they did change the algorithm I still don’t live and die with Google.
I build quality sites from the start. I don’t have the resources to repeatedly change all of my sites every time Google has a change of mind.
April 24th, 2008 at 4:20 am
One thing that I’d also like to point out is that for internal links the big three have been favoring using dashes as a word separator. For example Russell-Rockefeller-Notices-That-Google-Search-Results-Are-Case-Sensitive.html
This has been going on for about a month, but is also subject to change whenever Google feels like it. I sense that we’re going to be having another big shakeup soon with all this tweaking that has been going on.
April 26th, 2008 at 7:15 am
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