: How does Google find web pages that don't contain the searched query? How does Google make the association between a query and a site strongly related to that query, but which doesn't contain

@Angela700

Google will associate words with web pages via any means they can but usually via the anchors of inbound links pointing to that page and the words, synonyms used on those pages that link to it or that exist on the page in question.

John Conde is right in his comment on your question, as it will be an authoritative domain, just one backlink with the anchor PHD could be enough for Google to rank it high for that search query.

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@Sarah324

Google is assuming (correctly) that people don't always know exactly what they're searching for but that they'll recognise it as soon as they see it. They keep a sort of list of associated terms for each keyword, that had been gathered historically from all sort of places - not necessarily your current landing page. They're mostly synonyms, but not just that - i.e. f you search for an Android app you may also find it's Windows counterpart or viceversa.

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@Eichhorn148

Google has many methods to differentiate, what things mean: is phd an abbreviation of doctor of philosophy or of pizzahutdelivery. But, in some cases, all these methods fail. Causes, why they fail, are different too: but mostly all these causes are located on the searcher's side. They could be like: setting cookies off, searching search history off, searching from not own computer, searching being on visit in other country, searching for too broad term and so on. In very few cases Google is indeed unable to differentiate things. I. E. there is Essen (german city) and essen (to eat in german) - some search queries related to these both terms could be hardly differentiated, if additional keywords in the search query are missed. The main cause, why the whole Google's intelligence fails, has different faces, but it isalways a kind of insufficient information, given by searching person in the search query.

Don't worry about this - Google is pretty smart in understanding and becomes smarter every day. If you realize, your query isn't understood, try to specify your request with additional keywords

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