Search engine results land on some odd spots

Wednesday, August 27, 2008, 1:03 AM
Website Design by John (Article #226)

Sometimes I wonder why SERPs drop you into some weird territory. A good example of what I'm talking about is this page on MakeABase.com. This page is the last of 11 pages of an uploaded complete NFL 2008 season schedule.

It is also the page you end up at if you search for various things in Google, such as '2008 nfl schedule XLS' or such.

What fascinates me is that Google favors the last page over the first page in SERPs. On balance, neither set of pages has any preference level in terms of inbound links. And the main link in points to an 'index.htm' as opposed to one of the pages with the numbering structure in the URL.

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Now, of course, in the world of all things human readable, the balance of which page the SERPs favor should fall squarely down on either the index page or the first page. Certainly not the last page. People tend to like to start from the beginning, ya know.

But, somewhere in Google's algorithm, the balance of things leaves you with the last page as the first one you end up at if you follow the search engine results.

It's interesting, and it is a flaw.

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On a slightly side note, still discussing the NFL XLS page, I should note that the guys in the US military sure love their NFL spreadsheets! Incoming requests tracing back to centcom.mil (CentCom is the US Central Command, the folks responsible for fighting in East Africa, the Middle East and central Asia) and af.mil have spiked in recent weeks.

I'm always intrigued to see how the military folks end up using the internet. They are, on some levels, the ideal internet users. One, they are far from much of what interests them. Two, they need the distraction. Three, they have access.

And there just is no end -- even in the middle of a war zone -- to the interest of fans of the National Football League.

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Wonder where to start with your web design business?

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Thank you,
John Crawford
Pro Content and Design