A question about certain search results

[sgw]

Hi everyone. I have a layman's question about the search results from google (or other search engines, for that matter):

Sometimes when you search someone's name, let's say "John Doe", it brings out a result which turns out to be the search result of a certain database, such as address and phone numbers etc. (e.g. "John Doe age xx address xxx x". The google research links you to that database site, with search boxes, which, if filled, you can get results for the name entered. However this does not happen all the time--if you search for another person's name, say "Jane Doe", even though that person can also be found by filling that database entry, the google result does not bring that out.

So my question is: for the former (John Doe), does it mean someone had used that particular database to search for "John Doe" before, so that his search result was recorded by google, thus giving you the search result when you search "John Doe" in google?

In other words: does the name "John Doe" have to be searched for by someone in that particular database in order for the google result to contain links to that database and its record "John Doe age xx address xxx"?

Or is that any name included in that database should appear when you google that name? (But this would contradict the fact that some names (Jane Doe) do not bring out this record by google, even though the record is in that database.)

I hope I've made myself understood ;)

[Dani]

I think it just comes down to partnerships that Google has with individual directories (the yellow pages, for example) and only happens when a number of conditions are met such as a very high query volume for that name in the directory and a high frequency of people Googling for the name end up searching for the name in the directory as a result.

[sgw]

Thanks (am glad first of all you understood what my question was ;)). So it seems it does have to do with whether and how much a name had been searched for. More comments welcome. :)

[Dani]

I mean, no one really knows for sure. But that would be my educated guess. What we do know, however, is that we have no control over it and there's nothing we can do to influence whether it comes up or not and under what situations it does so.