Another Google Maneuver To Note

Hi...I noticed an interesting Google change in where it gets the
descriptive text it uses in it's listing. Since the instances of the key
words used in the search are in bold type in that description I assume
where Google selects from has a bearing on serp, yes? Prior to Feb 5 I
always saw my site's listing with 1.The title of the index page at the top
2.The text in the heading at the top of that index page next and 3.The
initial words in the text immediately following that heading.
My latest listing (Feb 5) shows Google now completely ignoring the text
following the header and instead going for the image alt tags that are
after the text. It's the first visible use of alt tag text by a search
engine I've seen. I of course made some minor rearrangement of images to be
sure the best search term laced alt tags showed up early in the page. This
may be a response if the algo smells SEO in the first words of the initial
page text which was one of the pre Florida maxims or maybe it's a new "mix
up the game plan to outfox SEO" move. Thought it might be of interest.
Regards, Nick

In article <Xns94885B1B34309enaiteetoastnet (AT) 130 (DOT) 133.1.17>, enaitee
says...

My latest listing (Feb 5) shows Google now completely ignoring the text
following the header and instead going for the image alt tags that are
after the text.

I've noticed the same thing with one of my new sites.

The text Google is using for the description is only found in the alt-
text of the logo image.

Interesting stuff.

--
Daniel Ruscoe
DualStone Web Design - http://www.DualStone.co.uk

In article <40253b35$0$142$edfadb0f (AT) dread11 (DOT) news.tele.dk>, Martin
Hagstrøm says...

"Daniel Ruscoe" <daniel.ruscoe (AT) dualstone (DOT) co.uk> skrev i en meddelelse
news:MPG.1a8f3663abeb3c489897f7 (AT) news (DOT) btopenworld.com...

I've noticed the same thing with one of my new sites.

The text Google is using for the description is only found in the alt-
text of the logo image.

Are you sure this is new?

No idea, but this is the first time I've noticed it.

--
Daniel Ruscoe
DualStone Web Design - http://www.DualStone.co.uk

"Martin Hagstrøm" <mha (AT) NOSPAM (DOT) altavista.net> wrote in
news:40253b35$0$142$edfadb0f (AT) dread11 (DOT) news.tele.dk:

"Daniel Ruscoe" <daniel.ruscoe (AT) dualstone (DOT) co.uk> skrev i en meddelelse
news:MPG.1a8f3663abeb3c489897f7 (AT) news (DOT) btopenworld.com...

I've noticed the same thing with one of my new sites.

The text Google is using for the description is only found in the
alt- text of the logo image.

Are you sure this is new?

I changed my site half a year ago and used CSS to move my navigation
bar down to the bottom of my source, because I was tired of
Google-descriptions like "English select language"

/Martin Hagstrøm

Hmmm, looking again with a different search phrase I found Google had
gone even beyond the group of alt tag images I mentioned earlier to an h2
header to find the phrase. It happened to be part of single line of text
instructing the viewer to click on thumbnails for a larger view. Hardly
the kind of thing you want showing up in your site's description like
your "English select language". I'm wondering now if what I'm seeing, on
my site at least, is the fallout of post Florida cleansing of keywords
from my first block of text in a failed attempt to regain listing for a
vanished two word search phrase. At the time there was a good deal of
posting about Florida being based on too much SEO. It seems google once
deciding to list a site will list the keywords where it can find them
even if they happen to be sandwiched among non relavent verbage. Perhaps
the post Florida mode is going to be to make sure your key phrases are
among others and not at the tail end of lines of text. Too bad if that's
the case as I was liking my site a lot more without all those coherent
but awkward syntax sentences which result from clever keyword seeding.

For many of my pages, Google pulls the text from a text advertisement near
the bottom of my HTML as the page description.

Maybe they are trying to enforce relevance? ;-)