It was not the case 10-15 years ago, but now, Google pays attention if you repeat a keyword or a key phrase. Repeating, in theory, should not be necessary; you would expect the same results if Google followed formal Boolean logic and displayed “all” results. However, Google puts some informal “thinking” into the string interpretation, so:
- If you repeat a keyword, and the number of results is under 100-200, Google will change the order of the results. It will prioritize pages with a “stronger” presence of the keyword (whatever that means)
- If you repeat a keyword, and the number of results is over 300-400, Google will also present you with a different set of results (!)
- As a bonus, you also will see the repeated word in the snippets more often.
Examples are easy to come by.
- site:linkedin.com/in “recruiter” “ibm” 303 results
- ibm site:linkedin.com/in “recruiter” “ibm” 304 results>> 212 duplicates
- ibm iibm ibm ibm ibm site:linkedin.com/in “recruiter” “ibm” 168 results >> NO duplicates!
So, alter your strings by repeating keywords, and possibly, the word order, and you are off to collect thousands of profiles from X-Ray.
Do not miss the upcoming Talent Sourcing Bootcamp – July 6-8. We will cover “everything” sourcing. (Only a few spots are left at this time.)