People are always complaining that there’s something wrong with Google’s search results but what’s going on with search results for queries with the acronym “SEO” is in a class by itself and has to be seen to be believed.
Anomalies In Search Results
An anomaly is something that deviates from the norm or what’s expected. A lot of time when there’s something wrong with the search engine results pages (SERPs) the anomaly is explainable. For example, queries that combine a geographical element with a relatively longtail phrase tend to generate weird results. Another driver of strange search results is when there simply isn’t enough data about a specific combination of words, which sometimes leads to offensive search results.
What’s happening with a particular group of keyword phrases that are related to the word “SEO ” is not any of those kinds of anomalies. It’s a true anomaly.
Here are the keywords that Google is (arguably) getting wrong:
- SEO program
- What is an SEO program?
- SEO New York (City)
- SEO NYC
- SEO Conference
- SEO Events
- SEO Education
- SEO Awards
- SEO-USA.Org
The site that’s ranking for all those SEO search queries (and probably more) is a site called SEO-USA.org. The acronym SEO in that website stands for Sponsors for Educational Opportunity. It’s not a spam site, it’s a legit non-profit website that’s been around since 1963. The purpose of the non-profit is to provide mentorship to young people who are underserved to help them get into colleges and universities. That program evolved in the SEO Scholars, an eight year academic program for talented young people to help them through high school and college.
“SEO Scholars creates a more equitable society by closing the academic opportunity gap for motivated young people, setting the standard for academics, mentorship, community, peer-to-peer support, and a powerful, lifelong network.”
SEO-USA.org Is Not Relevant For SEO
The acronym SEO is heavily relevant for the context of online marketing. A search for “SEO” in Google spawns suggestions that are all relevant for SEO in the sense of search marketing.
Google Trends shows that the phrase SEO Scholars and SEO Scholars Application are not widely searched in the United States, most of the searches occur in New York. But SEO-USA.org is top ranked for the group of keywords listed above in other areas outside of New York.
