Hoping to pick the brains of some old pros!

Yes, WordPress. In fact, here is a google result still showing the competitor's listings:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Wurldbitzer+Debibulator&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-Address&ie=&oe=#q=flaunt+91101&hl=en&tbo=d&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-Address&ei=KyTpUNuiLoXB2wXSj4DwDw&start=0&sa=N&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&fp=e233eb1ee8f7df5&bpcl=40096503&biw=1680&bih=945

If you're seeing it - search term "flaunt 91101" - her two wordpress exact domain name matches are now listed 7 & 8, but sites look deleted. My sister has a site - promstobeaches - no. 3. Designer is no. 1.

Me? Bottom page 2, but have only myself to blame for that. And getting back on page 2 is an improvement. Dress is being carried over by designer, so still a current dress. Maybe someone will want it this time.

Feznizzle:

I believe the hit/penalty suffered in using the strategy is far outweighed by other factors.

And as I stated at the time, what you or I believe is irrelevant! We need data, evidence, proof.

I set up the scenario that would allow this evidence/proof to be demonstrated, and you bailed out before the main tests even began. There were still sites waiting for their initial indexing.

Feznizzle:

A gentleman's bet requires gentleman's honor, something you refuted yourself, probably for good reason. So perhaps the bet was unwinable from the word go.

The bet was that you were going to show me how 2+2=5. This is impossible. You didn't have a chance of winning.

Feznizzle:

This experiment (unrelated to the bet) is a result of your insistence that my urls would be clearly penalized if we put it to a test..

And AGAIN you are saying I I said thing that I never said. As is now become common practice.. SHOW ME THE EVIDENCE!

Feznizzle:

You made that assertion based upon bad information (your lack of understanding of how URL rewrite mods work today... not 10 years ago). If the penalty (which we all except, has been recorded, played over and over for better than a decade… absolutely not new) was severe, the listings would not have indexed chronologically. The penalty was proven inconsequential, end of story.

I'm starting to see why you don't wish to your customers to come across this thread, they will see you for what you are.

Feznizzle:

Yet another convenient memory loss. Only one of my two sites has Foogle Analytics.

It only takes one, when the one has a direct link to the other. You still think I'm an idiot don't you.

Feznizzle:

Man you are thick.
Because the experiment proved that penalties suffered by re-write/re-directs/yo-momma aren't severe enough to cause rankings of duplicate content to jump out of chronological order

I can always tell when someone is losing an argument, they start name calling and resorting to pedantry. 30+ years on the internet, I've seen it all before..
One day you will grow up and wise up.

Feznizzle:

you now additionally demand that I prove the value of SEO modules in general?

No, not at all, I was hoping/expecting that you would see the tests through for the full 30 days as planned so that we can all see if it is the native URL's that 'bubble to the top', or the 'human friendly' ones.

I wasn't expecting you to back out before all sites even had their first entry into google. It wasn't a challenge, it wasn't a bet, I wasn't trying to prove anything (with the time based tests). I wanted to see the results, nothing more, nothing less. Which way the results fell was going to be the answer to stop all of these pontifications, claims and counter claims. It was (hopefully) going to provide some kind of evidence one way or other.

Apparently you don't wish to see the results, you would rather to the pontification bit. I really can't think of any other way to take you childish behaviour.

Feznizzle:

Grr. Can't believe I'm up reading and responding to this tripe so late! Wondering what the point of bailing out was if I keep doing this to myself. :)

Your fault, YOU backed out of the test before it had a chance to start. If only you had just let things be <sigh>

You knew there were no repercussions resulting from the test data, but because of ignorance you made an issue out of it, and the less informed followed you like lemmings off a cliff. We could have all just sat back and watched the rankings as they changed on a day to day basis, we could have had civil discussions over the results we were observing, but no, it wasn't to be, you have seen me as nothing but 'the enemy' from the very start of this thread. The tests had been designed to show the benefits of the SEO rewriting (if indeed there were any benefits), but this wasn't good enough for you, oh no, all you have been interested in is to prove me wrong. You have failed miserably. We all miss out on what could have be quite an eye opener.. Perhaps for me, perhaps for you, and perhaps even a lurker. And why do we all miss out? because you have you head so far up your anus that you just didn't bother to take a step back and look beyond the 'must prove RodG wrong at all costs'.

Sad, but undeniably true.

onyourbike is up and a direct link to the product ( ok i clicked the bloody thing its just natural when you are on google ), no product sideboxes on this site

so heres a question for the experts on sitemaps, my sitemap had last been indexed on 30th dec and set on weekly, on 2nd jan i hit resubmit in zcadmin, on 4th i hit resubmit in google webmaster but strangely the product turns up 1 week exactly after last index,

so does google read the sitemap i have resubmitted, it still states weekly so it says ok we were there on 30th so dont need to go again until 6th january ?

so nothing changes until 6th jan if i had changed sitemap to daily would i have seen quicker results ?

bn

...... Since I'm on a roll, to save embarrassment by not identifying the participants, I shall provide the quote's only

------------ someone once said -------------------------------
this test is completely unscientific, so there can be no definitive conclusion.
this thing is so outside the scientific realm that it's laughable.
Not like we are following an even remotely scientific approach here anyway. ;-)
figured it would not hurt to add, since we are not adhering to scientific standards.
if all else is not equal then the experiment is invalid. Basic scientific theory. So, everything needs to be the same.

I was just wondering, do any of you have a scientific/academic backround?

Although not a resource I'd usualy recommend for students, it may be worth spending five minutes reading the first paragraph in the wikipedia for 'scientific method'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

I'll make it easy for you.

The chief characteristic which distinguishes the scientific method from other methods of acquiring knowledge is that** scientists seek to let reality speak for itself**, supporting a theory when a theory's predictions are confirmed and challenging a theory when its predictions prove false. Although procedures vary from one field of inquiry to another, identifiable features distinguish scientific inquiry from other methods of obtaining knowledge. Scientific researchers propose hypotheses as explanations of phenomena, and design experimental studies to test these hypotheses via predictions which can be derived from them. These steps must be repeatable, to guard against mistake or confusion in any particular experimenter. Theories that encompass wider domains of inquiry may bind many independently derived hypotheses together in a coherent, supportive structure. Theories, in turn, may help form new hypotheses or place groups of hypotheses into context.

Scientific inquiry is generally intended to be as objective as possible in order to reduce biased interpretations of results. Another basic expectation is to document, archive and share all data and methodology so they are available for careful scrutiny by other scientists, giving them the opportunity to verify results by attempting to reproduce them. This practice, called full disclosure, also allows statistical measures of the reliability of these data to be established (when data is sampled or compared to chance).

The bolding was mine, but look at the the rest of the criteria. Nothing about "everything must be equal", or any of the other stuff people stated.

The experiment had very much evolved into a legitimate 'scientific method' study. We had the predictions and hypotheses. We had designed the experiments to test the hypotheses via out predictions. It was objective in that the study was designed/developed by both parties with opposing views. We had started to document the data and methology which was to be shared so that the study could be reproduced.... In short, all the elements of a 'scientific study' were in place.

I didn't make an issue of it at the times, but I was certainly cringing every time I saw the proclamation "all has to be equal to be valid". <shudder> What crape!

Cheers
Rod

That was then:

RodG:

So how about we try something like this.....

I assume you have access to a live ZenCart store? How about we invent a new product... for example a "Wurlitzer debobulator". We each place this item in our relevant stores, both using the same description text & metatags. I'll leave my store with no URL keyword packing, and you can create your keyword packed URL.
After a short period, say 2 days, 7 days and 14 days, we each do a google search for "Wurlitzer debobulator" and compare where our sites rank.

I suggest the three sample periods just to help eliminate time factor influences.

At the end of the day, Google should only show about three results... one for each of our stores, and another for this forum.

Your very next post (this excerpt is why I participated):

RodG:

HOWEVER: If the website software doesn't generate URL's with keywords (for example, ZenCart's native behaviour) the only way to get a keyword packed URL is via a redirect or a rewrite. Both of these have a gross negative effect on google (and the server itself). Firstly for the simple fact the page is being redirected (an automatic loss in rankings). The target site will be the one with the higher ranking, rather than the keyword packed URL which really is nothing more than a pointer to the real page), and the second reason (one that I'm NOT convinced of, but most SEO experts seem to agree is factual) is that both pages will suffer a loss in rankings because it amounts to duplicate content.

Either way, assuming both of the negative affects are true, then clearly in this case keyword loading **is **bad.

This is now:

RodG:

The tests had been designed to show the benefits of the SEO rewriting

You have kind of evolved as the conversation moved along, to put it mildly. Way more than enough evidence is in at this point (native/rewrite) to answer the original question (the reason I participated). There is even a native product link up there. In fact, the only person unable to get on the board with a good link is our founding father. And very very clearly, all links have been ranked chronologically.

With no uncertain terms, this has been resoundingly proven inconsequential (at least as far our super scientific, wikipedia authorized study is concerned):

RodG:

Both of these have a gross negative effect on google (and the server itself). Firstly for the simple fact the page is being redirected (an automatic loss in rankings).

Nevertheless, I would have stuck around to play with different things… or, at a minimum, become a lurker (to save my sanity) and left my products up so we could get to the second thing I was curious about (whether or not real traffic influenced ranks, which is the second main reason I put keywords into URLs). However, I must have harmed you in a passed life because you have pretty much been hostile to me since the start of this (look at your first post… the one that started this whole ball rolling).

When you posted my domain names without obscuring despite my polite request not to, I realized any further participation was simple self flagellation. Intellectual gains (if ANY were possible in this) are not worth putting up with mean people. :wacko:

Update:

BN, yes, I saw your direct entry last night and posted it higher in this thread.

GOOGLE: RodG's test product is now on google.

YAHOO: Looks like Feznizzle hit with his dynamic url, test product itself

BING: Still Feznizzle's two CEON entries, test product itself.

So, we're still waiting for my http://www.fashion-mart.biz (simple SEO) and BN's CEON entries?

Wow. Entirely speechless about how much energy is going into this entertaining thread.

I mean it has too be for entertainment, right? You can't really believe that anything at all is going to be demonstrated, can you? You are just going to produce a statistically irrelevant number of purely subjective results. The people who believe one thing are going to continue to believe that and the other are going to continue to believe the other thing. You do all know that, don't you?

I am going to unsubscribe now as you can only take so much entertainment at once, but things that I think have been demonstrated by much more thorough investigation than this bunch of apples bobbing around in a barrel are:

1. the scientific method is quite a powerful tool. If you ignore it's methodology then you may have difficulty persuading anyone of the validity of your conclusions however heartfelt your beliefs are.

2. most likely dynamic URLs do not damage search rankings.

3. most likely static urls do not damage rankings

4. changing from one to the other after site launch can cause some issues for sure.

5. there are genuine reasons why one might prefer 'human friendly' urls. the first is because humans like them. the second is based on the conceptual idea of an URI rather than a URL. Simply, the problem with dynamic URLs in this line of thought is that they tend to be platform dependent. The logic says that the information is best if it is platform independent. So a URI refers directly to the information that is contained in that position rather than being reliant on the software that is used to present that information. That is kind of a intellectual distinction and you can care about it however much you want. Note, though, what Conor called his module.

Thanks for all the fun.

niccol:

5. there are genuine reasons why one might prefer 'human friendly' urls. the first is because humans like them. the second is based on the conceptual idea of an URI rather than a URL. Simply, the problem with dynamic URLs in this line of thought is that they tend to be platform dependent. The logic says that the information is best if it is platform independent. So a URI refers directly to the information that is contained in that position rather than being reliant on the software that is used to present that information. That is kind of a intellectual distinction and you can care about it however much you want. Note, though, what Conor called his module.

Yes! What I've known as "taking your url with you" when you move from platform to platform. What I read, the idea is that platforms may change and evolve, but urls will likely remain forever.

But there is more to this test: my eyes have really been opened to things like how "gibberish" descriptions do not negatively affect sites. Still hard to believe that, though.

I think this potentially the greatest thread ever, not (just) because of the test but it's title Picking the Brains can allow for alot of discussion.

EDIT: Yea, there is alot of "half-time" banter while awaiting indexing of the test sites.

RodG's google entry (test product) is above BN's, although BN's hit first. So is RodG being pulled up because of his earlier ancillary links? Otherwise, the test product itself isn't being listed in order of first come, first served.

RodG:

Please tell me that you didn't make this change on one of the testsites. If so, it needs to be disqualified.

NO TEST SITES ARE TO BE MODIFIED UNTIL ALL SITES CAN BE FOUND IN GOOGLE!

sorry didnt see this post,

site went live as listed

Date/Time Begin: 5th jan 06:37 uk time

Your name/handle: bn17311

Test product URL: http://lessthan.co.uk/bikes/balance-...er-debibulator
SEO redirection tool/method: ceon

Sitemap in use? no

Age of store (if known): domain age 10yrs + hasnt been used last 2 years fresh install 1.51 fantastico ceon mapping 4.41 and manager 1.41

i have turned off all sideboxes featured etc i can see

no changes made after site was switched on, all products categories manufacturers etc all switched to ceon

bn

Amen to everything niccol just said. Everything. :kiss:

Because of point 2&3, I apply CEON URI to achieve the goals of point 5 (human happiness with a side benefit of platform nuetrality), plus, of course, adding key words. I went into this despite point 1 (lack of serious controls necessary for repeatable results) out of curiosity... thinking the 'experiment' might somehow blow my mind, making me believe I should retest the foundation of the strategy. Everything else is just entertainment. :)

Not to say there is no value in testing/discussing different SEO strategy, especially re-examining/verifying understandings periodically. Just that the testing of those other issues need to be approached more methodically and with honest neutrality instead of advocacy.

Update:

GOOGLE: see drumfactorydirect.com, looks like anciallary link. Lankeeyankee? Also recognize Cherry Zen template, used it and also liked it.

Indexed pretty fast.

SPH:

Update:

GOOGLE: see drumfactorydirect.com, looks like anciallary link. Lankeeyankee? Also recognize Cherry Zen template, used it and also liked it.

Indexed pretty fast.

Yes, and it's not chronological since I just added it yesterday.

You even have twice as many products as I do. Impressive result.

Yes, I saw that RodG's entry bumped BN down, and you bumped RodG down. Wonder if there is a geographic factor involved, especially since it does not appear to be the test product itself, but an ancillary link. Or perhaps when your test product hits, it may bump all of us down.

Feznizzle:

That was then
This is now:

Welcome to the wonderful world of the scientifc methology.

You have kind of evolved as the conversation moved along,

Aye, I have indeed. This is the scientific method... Propose a theory, set up test case(s) to prove/disprove the theory, update or propose another theory to explain the test results, set another test case to prove/disprove the the amended/new theory, rinse and repeat......

This is the very basis of learning

Anyway, once again you have proven a point. It really doesn't matter what I say, you will find cause to dispute.

I'll wager that if/when you ever had to do tests at school, etc, you were one of those that would 'cram' for days beforehand trying to remember the various 'facts and details' that you were taught.

I was one of those that you would call 'lucky'.. I've never needed to do this... Never saw the point... For some strange reason I found that if I understood the things I was being taught I didn't need to remember as much... it was more a matter of joining the dots to get the answers.

I'm not revealing any kind of hidden truths here, it is readily observable among almost any group of people that use computers (and others of course). It is easy to demonstrate with computers though.
Hands up those of us here that use MSWord/Office? Hands up those that use OpenOffice?

Hands up those that have (or had) a hard time when they changed from one to the other?
Hands up those that found the programs so similar that the transition was made with ease?

Fexnizzle, you don't need to answer. You are in the the 1st group, along with probably 80-90% of the population. The new system has to be 'learned' afresh because it is different than what you were using.
I'm one of those in the second group... give me virtually any computer program, even one I've never seen before, and I don't need to 'learn afresh', I find it easy to adapt what I already know and apply it to the changed circumstances. This isn't meant to say/imply/suggest that I and the other 20% are in any way better than 1st group, just different.

Incidently I am hopeless when it comes to things like History and Geography, these are realms where the memorising of facts/details is important. For example, Battle of Hastings was in 1066 (I only remember that because I was born in Hastings), but there is no way I can use this to extrapolate when the next King (who ever that was) was crowned.. in fact I can't 'relate' that do any other specific date. It is just a leaned fact, in isolation of other learned facts.

I digress.....

Feznizzle:

When you posted my domain names without obscuring despite my polite request not to,

Err, If I did this, it was only in this closed forum (wasn't it?), and it was purely by accident.

Feznizzle:

I realized any further participation was simple self flagellation. Intellectual gains (if ANY were possible in this) are not worth putting up with mean people. :wacko:

And again, straight to the negative. Yes, there were/are Intellectual gains to be made, but you've been to short sighted and to intent to 'prove RodG wrong' that it went a zillion miles over your head.

At the end of the day the tests haven't been a complete waste of time. We have established the following (without any doubt).

1. Initial indexing of any given page doesn't appear to be affected by the native vs non-native (rewritten URLs).
2. Current listings of the text products show no benefits or advantages are to be gained from using the SEO rewriters.

**From these two observations we can conclude at this stage there are no benefits to be gained by using a SEO rewriting tool. **

Risk Management 101.
All changes carry risk.
If there are no gains to be made, there is no point in taking the risk.

Rod

SPH:

Wonder if there is a geographic factor involved, especially since it does not appear to be the test product itself, but an ancillary link. .

If there is a geographic factor involved, it would be at the site (domain) level, not at the page/product level.

Also, when considering geographic, exactly what do we mean by that? Are we talking about where the host servers are located, where the person doing the searching is located, or is it the locations of the google servers?

My observations as a result of these (and other) tests, it appears to go like this:

My US based server made its first appearance in google.com
My AU based server makes its first appearance in google.com.au (unrelated to these test BTW)

For the 1st 24-48 hours, servers were only found in the same domain as google... IOW, site.com->google.com only. site.com.au->google.com.au only
After this period the Google servers appear to be synchronized and both sites in both domains are visible.

Conclusion, at the end of the day, all Google servers all contain (or have access too) the same data as all other google servers, so site/domain location doesn't appear to be significant.

Person doing the seeking? This is a little tricky because there are at least two significant factors that need to be addressed separately.
1st, if we take the google server domain as an indicator of the seeker location (eg: An Aussie would use google.com.au, and Englishman would use google.co.uk), after the initial indexing, I'm seeing the same results being returned, but in a slightly different order. Not enough in it to come to any conclusions though.
This needs further monitoring.

The 2nd aspect is the IP address of the person doing the seeking. My Observation here is that this isn't taken into consideration (?????). I make this observation based on the screen captures that have been submitted during this thread, and the fact that I've been seeing identical results when I use google.com as everyone else using google.com. If seekers IP address was a consideration I would be expecting to see some variance, as I am with factor#1. I'm not seeing this variance.

Conclusion, the com, com.au, co.uk and similar extensions appear to more significant factors in the results than the IP address of the seeker.

I don't think we can determine too much more about it at this stage. The important thing to note though (IMO) is that sooner or later all the google servers have the capability to return the same data as any other google server. Any variances being a function of the 'localised' servers (and nothing else?)
By extension of this, we can probably make a fair assumption that any filtering (and the rankings) are a function of the local servers and not globally based.

IOW, all users of google.com would probably be seeing identical results to any other user using google.com, users of google.com.au should be seeing identical results to any other user using google.com.au, etc, etc. The users actual location (IP) address not being considered (this is contrary to what I'd expected)

Does this meet with others' observations? Anything more to add?

Cheers
Rod

SPH:

I think this potentially the greatest thread ever, not (just) because of the test but it's title Picking the Brains can allow for alot of discussion.

EDIT: Yea, there is alot of "half-time" banter while awaiting indexing of the test sites.

As frustrated as I've been with feznizzle, it is this banter (especially with you) that still has me here and actively interested to see how things develop.

This isn't meant to say BN's, Lankyanks, and others inputs and contributions are unappreciated (quite the opposite, we couldn't have gotten to where we are now without their contributions. Thanks Guys). It's just that you either:
A) Ask good questions.
B) Have made a comment or statement that would suggest you hadn't connected the dots, or something is/was a little unclear and perhaps needed clarification.

In either case, both are worthy of considered response. Whether you would call any/all my responses 'considered' (or even 100% accurate/factual) is another matter <g>

I think we've both stated at times, it really isn't a matter of who is 'right' or 'wrong', it is a matter questioning and considering our own beliefs to expand our knowledge and understanding.

The difficult part, was, and always will be trying to keep the emotional aspect out of things.

Cheers
Rod

bn17311:

sorry didnt see this post,
site went live as listed

Guess it got lost in all the noise eh?

Anyway no big deal. The product name & description were to be the control factors that would have allowed us to make a lot (more) comparisons for which we could have drawn more conclusions, etc, etc.

We can still make many comparisons and draw viable conclusions even without this particular control in place, but not as many, and not with as much confidence in the results.

I've (currently) no plans on updating the table(s) I produced earlier...... I've not been able to keep up with who's in, who's out, and who's made changes to the controls and who hasn't. It is essential that these be documented for the test results to have any useful meaning beyond our own individual/personal interests. This is an essential part of "The scientific method". It is the stuff that would allow others to repeat the experiments and verify/refute any findings & conclusions that we have come to.

For those that are still interested in the longer term outcomes of this experiment (which includes me), or for those that simply wish to experiment with various SEO tweaks to see the effects on rankings, if any), please realise that although there are a ton of variables not taken into consideration, by changing one thing at a time, it is quite easy to draw valid conclusions by comparing the before and after results of the change being made. Things don''t have to 100% identical as some have claimed.

Furthermore, I've no plans or intentions to remove the Wurldbitzer from our store (ever), or to change the description that we used.
Also, until proven beneficial, I've no plans to add any 'SEO rewriters" to our store either.

What this means is that shop.vcsweb.com, and the Wurlbitzer product in this shop can be used at any time (probably for years to come) as a "control" from which other comparisons can be made. Not that there is anything special about our server(s) other than it can be considered a 'constant' (as long as I don't mess with it, which as stated, I see no reason to do, and have no plans to do).

It is always going to be a waste of time doing comparisons between any two stores that are making constant changes (which I assume is where the 'everything must be identical' ideas come from), but doing comparisons between one store in known state (and especially one with a known constant product) and another store with variances, will give a stable base whereby the effects of further changes to the variances store can be compared to the control and valid conclusions can be drawn in regards to the latest changes made. (does everyone follow that?).

Cheers
Rod

SPH:

looks like anciallary link.

Mind if I stress once again that it doesn't matter what you wish to call it, a link is a link, is a link.

One is no more important than another. About the only exception to this are dead links, ie: links that point to pages that no longer exist.

Simply put, you still have no idea why any given person is performing the search. To assume they wish to go directly to the product in an eCommerce site is wrong.

More than that though... I think we all agreed that links are more important than content, didn't we... more links the better. Ignore the fact that feznizzle had a hissy fit about this. Like most of what he has spouted, he only seems to see a small part of the picture at any given time. The gist of the hissy fit being that he only wants people to go to the pages that he thinks are relevant.

Here's the bigger picture... and although I state all links are equal (the value being determined by the person do the searching) I will use your terminology for clarity.

Lets assume a 1000 sites with the same product. Most, if not all of these sites will have "anciallary links" as well as links to the product itself, so, lets assume 10,000 links in total. With me so far? Good.

Now, lets assume that 999 of these sites belong to feznizzle (in one way or other). He thinks these "anciallary links" are distracting to the customers and basically not real good for the site... As such, he goes ahead and disables things like the 'new products' and 'featured products'.
The 1st thing to note is that it is these "anciallary links" that Google pick up first (for what should be obvious reasons). Without these "anciallary links" it is possible that Google may not even be able to find our product at all. (I know some will debate this, but it isn't really where I'm heading). Just assume that it was found and indexed.

OK, so lets look at this new situation... Google still finds these same 1000 stores, but instead of each having an average of (say) 10 "anciallary links" (10,000 links total) it will now only find (worst case scenario) 1009 links... consisting of 999 links to the actual product in feznizzles 999 stores, plus the 10 links to the one store that has left these "anciallary links" in place.

Now, person does a google search for our test product. Google finds the 1000 stores with the product, and needs to sort the top 10 that the seeker is most likely to find the most interesting/relevent/useful. feznizzles stores all only have one link each. The other store has 10 links. It should be a no brainer to see which of these stores will rank#1. It has the most links.

Will Google show all 10 links... thus giving this one store the top 10 spots? Probably (after all, they are still just links to pages where the search terms were found), but let us assume that this isn't the case, and google can somehow suppress the output of the "anciallary links" (easy to replicate by adding more data to the search query so that only the product pages are shown in the results.

The situation now then is person does a search for a term or phrase that is only found in the product pages. Google will again find all 1000 sites with this product, and again, it needs to show the top 10 or so most relevant. Here's the cruncher. Even though google won't find/display the "anciallary links" (because they don't match all the search terms), it still 'knows' these links exist, and well, you can guess the rest... the site with the 10 links will be shown at the top of the list simply because the links exist... The person doing the seeking won't see them of course, at least not at the top of google, but, if the person then wades through the pages, past the 1000 sites with exact match, they'll eventally come across the partial matches, namely, the "anciallary links".

Bottom line, the more links the better, even the so called "anciallary links" go a long way to helping a site reach top spots even if the search query of a given user isn't an exact match.

Does this make sense, or is there some kind of flaw in my logic that I'm not seeing?

Cheers
Rod

At the end of the day the tests haven't been a complete waste of time. We have established the following (without any doubt).

1. Initial indexing of any given page doesn't appear to be affected by the native vs non-native (rewritten URLs).
2. Current listings of the text products show no benefits or advantages are to be gained from using the SEO rewriters.

From these two observations we can conclude at this stage there are no benefits to be gained by using a SEO rewriting tool.
I'd agree they have not been a complete waste of time, however your conclusion can (and probably will) be argued. While the test was in good faith, the conclusion is omitting some pertinent information (These are just examples and should not be considered a complete or exhaustive list).

1. The test did not take into account some potential variables (I think we all agree only one should be tested at a time).
2. The test was based upon limited data.
3. The test was only looking at search engine listing / ranking.
   Perhaps we should qualify this conclusion to fit the test and test data?

Just a suggestion, but maybe something like: "At this point in time with the limited data we have gathered, the test does not show any measurable search engine ranking benefit gained by using human readable URLs". I'd also say the results showed "At this point with the limited data we have gathered, the test shows no harm in terms of search engine ranking was caused by using human readable (or non-human readable) URLs".

Thread 203958 has prompted some interesting conversation. I'd say most of the contributors (and many o the readers) have found at least one takeaway.