16 November 2010

Google talking nonsense?

I was just doing some content-related stuff (some SEO things) for a current project. I had to find out strongly associated phrases for 'automotive components'. I know, I thought: I'll use Google's Wonder Wheel to illustrate the associated phrases.

So I entered the search into google.co.uk and requested a wonder wheel. However, one of the associated phrases is "automotive components holdings llc". Problem - llc is a US legal term. The British equivalent is "Ltd" (for limited liability company). This is very official - companies use "Limited" or "Ltd" in their name (Thought Into Design is actually Thought Into Design Ltd).

Ah - my mistake. I didn't filter in only pages from the UK - so I did.

Fantastic - now I get results only from the UK. But the wonder wheel remains the same. I'm not getting phrases associated by searches for British websites - rather worldwide. And anyting llc is of little use to a British company.

In UX terms, my problem is that restricting the search to UK only pages implies that the wonder wheel will product UK only content. In this case it isn't (unless British people are searching for "automotive components holdings llc" which I plausibly doubt).

Screenshot below.

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