SEO - Google Search Results

[PetrolTed]

Anyone know how Google determines what text to display in the results. i.e. it will display a page title, but the text under it seems to be a curious selection from that on the page. Is it easy to control what it grabs as the 'summary'?

[philthy]

From what I can gather Ted, as my own site is now getting listed. Google takes keywords from page title and url, along with meta description, or first few line of text it finds on the page.

Examples:
SkiDVD Borovets Pamporovo Bansko DVD's - This webcam shows the view from our cosy chalet in the center of Borovets. The image updates every 1- 2 minutes, to give you the very latest information on ...
www.webcam.skidvd.co.uk/webcam/web - 34k - Cached - Similar pages

SkiDVD Borovets Pamporovo Bansko DVD'sBansko Borovets Pamporovo Bulgarian ski and wintersports holiday information webcams pictures videos DVD information ... Borovets webcam · Borovets webcam ...
www.skidvd.co.uk/ - 33k - Cached - Similar pages

Different urls, but the top one uses the first line of text on the page, the bottom using the meta description. I have not yet seen google display text from lower down the page than this.

Apologies if posting those two examples is spamming, please just delete them.

Edit to add:
I just tested google. I entered a piece of text from the centre of one of my pages. It only had one keyword which I score low on. Google spat us out on top. My supposition is, that if someone searches for a certain string of words, google will display the site that has the same number of identical words next to each other.
Another example. Do a google for this sentence "filming it on our helmet cam as she went" no need to use the quotes in the search.

Edited by philthy on Friday 4th August 14:37