Posted on 05/16/2006 4:30:51 AM PDT by mkjessup
Google is currently the premier search engine. However, it's results are getting worse by the day. Besides being bombarded with gateway search engine pages no matter what term you type in, you are not getting relevant results. In other words, you are not seeing legitimate pages that other search engines like Yahoo will return.
For proof of this I give you the term "privacy service". This one affects us and our service at www.cotse.net. Cotse.Net is a privacy service. According to our logs it is indexed daily by Google. According to Google, we are not penalized in any way by them. Because we are a privacy service you'll find this term all over our site. So you'd think that if you enter the term "privacy service" without quotes into Google, somewhere in that listing you would find our site. But you won't. It's not listed anywhere in those results except for the ad for which we paid. What is going on here?
If you look at the results under that term you'll find site's privacy policies (including Google's), the general smattering of gateway search engine pages Google is becoming famous for, as well as sites that only seem to have the word privacy in them once. But you won't find us, a privacy service with the term "privacy service" all over it. It's also something recent because this is a key phrase we've monitored for years. For the last three years our site has been number two or number three in these results, suddenly it is completely gone. However it still appears as number two or number three in nearly every other search engine but Google. It appears that Google has seriously broken their algorithm recently.
Our results are not unique. When you use Google you are getting less relevant returns than you do with other search engines. For proof, run your own tests. Start with the example we gave then move to some of your own. Compare the results you get from Google to the results you get from Yahoo and you'll start to see differences. Pages that should be listed in Google are not there.
Google, what happened to you guys? You used to be one of the best, now you are either slipping or working your algorithm to require sites you feel should be purchasing ad space from you to do so (like we had to do to even get listed where we should be listed by default). Which is it?
We have contacted Google about this, they state that we are not being penalized and are unable to offer any reasons for this behavior. An also interesting note is that Google owns blogspot and has blocked users of our privacy service from accessing blogspot. We've received no response to inquiries about this.
/steve
05/16/2006
i wish there was no google
but that does not seem likely
I frequently do a search for a handful of very specific terms. About two weeks ago the normal -- and expected listings -- changed dramatically. I kept getting irrelevant pages and links for sites that had nothing to do with my search terms. I've tried being more specific under advanced search but it just turns up even more bizzare listings.
This kind of nonsense is going to drive away business very quickly.
ping
I entered "privacy service with quotes and coste.net came up # 5. I don't know what the complaint is here.
Them's the breaks
Google's busy writing checks to MoveOn.org.
I've noted too that some things I search for seem to become less relevant. I didn't know that it was Google, but it seems like they are not near as good as they used to be.
Spammers have branched out into spamming search engines. Disk space is cheap, DSL service is cheap, so somebody generates gigabytes of web pages with common search terms featuring his spam ads
Google is self-editing (on the free side). You can apply to be an editor. These so- called "editors" evidently set the priority of sites that show up in a search.
I manage online bidding for a company, and try as we will, we can't figure out how Google figures our bill. It's definitely not straightforward like Yahoo/Overture pricing for ads. Of course, Google has agreed to settle a huge class action lawsuit, acknowledging click fraud has been going on.
But Google won't disclose how they "calculate" your charges or your placment among the "free listings."
Personally, I think people are starting to use other search engines because I'm noticing "impressions" overall, are significantly lower than they were this time last year.
Also, Amazon has just decided to go with MSN powered searches instead of Google powered searches. Google may have peaked...time will tell.
Whatever you do, don't Google GOATSE.
I use Clusty as much as possible. A fellow Freeper recommended it a few months ago.
Same thing with their news searches. Their news search used to produce more articles than any other. Now it produces way fewer than alltheweb.com.
THat is when I dropped them
I am not going to ask why, nor am I going to tempt fate.
Of course you understand that telling someone not to do something is like telling them not to think of a purple elephant.
As hard as I try I cannot think of a purple elephant...'course, I'm colorblind; but I'm now going to google GOTSE.
gateway search engineWhat are these?
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