Acronyms on google.com

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Acronyms on google.com

Google and acronyms

vinove

8:37 am on Mar 23, 2007 (gmt 0)

Hi All
Is there any reliable tool using which one could determine what acronyms are mapped to what definition?

I ask because:
a.) Try searching for 'web development company' - probably the first result that you see would have "WDC" in bold - does that mean google is inferring WDC as Web Development Company. Also, when you search for 'WDC', you would find that words like "Washington DC" etc. are highlighted!
b.) When searching for 'SEO company', "Search Engine Optimization" on various results get highlighted whilst when searching for 'SEO India', 'Search Engine Optimization' is displayed as normal text.

I have been trying to find a definite answer to my questions. Could not figure out - thus seek your opinion?

Kindly advise..

Regards
- P

jomaxx

2:54 pm on Mar 23, 2007 (gmt 0)

My first thought is that the page-display algorithm looks for consecutive words that match the acronym typed in, and bolds those phrases to make the page easier to scan for relevant text.

That doesn't necessarily mean that the search algo itself is doing any such thing. AFAIK if you search on "SEO" then Google ranks pages based on that character string alone, without trying to guess whether you meant "Search Engine Optimization" or "SouthEast Oklahoma".

vinove

7:16 am on Mar 24, 2007 (gmt 0)

Well - that is something that I am trying to figure out!

piatkow

2:26 pm on Mar 25, 2007 (gmt 0)

Most initialisations prove to be homonyms. It would be inappropriate for any search engine to make one of the meanings definitive to the detriment of the others.

Quadrille

4:13 pm on Mar 25, 2007 (gmt 0)

Google searches for the terms you select; with so many identical acronymic terms with widely separated meanings, there's no sense in them trying to guess what niche you are searching for.

It's not especially surprising that a site that scores well on Web Development Company also does well when you search for WDC - it's them dang SEOs at it again ;)