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
Them's the breaks
If you have to enter quotes then they are probably blocking it, so it's not just "the breaks" like the site is simply getting buried in the results. There was a similar thread regarding http://thepeoplescube.com/ several months ago.
If you are going to say something to the effect that if it is blocked, why does it turn up with the quotes added, it is a fair question and the answer is, I don't know for sure. I believe that basically that is a glitch in their blocking mechanism that is not worth bothering with. WIth the other site, with the more unsual combination of words peoples + cube is was very clear it did not get returned in any search unless quotes were added.
LOL...Since I misspelled it, Google suggested I really meant GOATSE, and I see your point but went no further than the lead ins...Bulgarian Porn?
Got to run folks, sorry to abandon my own thread but I'll be back later on. And do NOT, whatever you do, do NOT Google "GOATSE" (blame Martin Fierro if you do, LOL)
All in fun Martin! ;)
How does one apply to be an editor?
To REPEAT :
GOOGLE gave 1 MILLION to Moveon.Org
Don't use GOOGLE !!
I have to disagree with you there. By putting words together within quotation marks you are telling the search engine that you want pages where those particular words appear together in that particular order. Searching for "red car" might return a page with the following text:
...I just bought a new red car, I love it!
While the same search without quotes would turn up pages that have text similar to:
...I mashed the gas pedal in my car and pushed the tach into the red
Doesn't it seem likely to you that for any two given words there will be more pages on the web that contain those words, but not adjacent to one another than there will be pages where the words are adjacent?
If someone searches for privacy service, without quotes, what do you think they are looking for? Google's current SERPs seem to contain mainly privacy policy pages. Is that what the searcher is likely to be looking for?
If I was looking for privacy policies, I would search for privacy policy, not privacy service. Google's results since the Big Daddy upgrade are not as relevant as they were before Big Daddy.
Any competent searcher will use quotes to find it. That's how you search for anything specific. I find everything I ever need on Google. Literally, I've always found just what I need. I'd say it was pretty good that it was 5th or 6th. Just because Cotse did a overly simple search doesn't mean Google is bad.
Whoever controls the search engines, has way too much power to filter the "truth".
We all need to spread the wealth by using other search engines.
Google appear very close to jumping the shark - they now have a stock price to protect and grow and the principles that got them to their position of prominence (namely, non-preferential treatment and mostly honest counts) are being abandoned.
Like many tech giants they are now dealing with death-by-a-thousand-cuts as hordes of parasites try to sue them over the most trivial and/or fictional transgressions (click-thru rates, etc.).
However, it doesn't change the fact that bucks have replaced accuracy in the Googling game. All it will take is another URL/search engine startup to get some traction and Google may regret the choices they are making.
People flocked to Google because it gave them what they were looking for, without requiring them to learn some complex query language. It just worked.
If someone searches for privacy service, what do you think they are looking for? Various privacy policies? Or a privacy service?
Google provided an illusion of the 'semantic web', rather than performing a simple word search. They appear to have broken that illusion.
Thanks for the info. I just tried that search engine for a chemcial & technical search related to work and it came up with some very good hits. Tried Google and didn't get anything technical at all. But at Google, I did find the websites of the left wing moonbat environmentalists protesting the chemicals I was investigating amongst the top ten. Looks like it's time to drop Google as a relevant internet tool.
I've noticed the same thing. I use Google less and less now. Besides, Google is run by a bunch of left wing trash.
Oh come on. Googgle should be ranking higher results where 'privacy' and 'service' are closely related to each other rather than far apart. If people need to do what you suggest, then Google, althogh technically correct, is not only irrelevant, it is a useless waste of bandwidth.
Does anyone know of another search engine that has the cache function that Google has? That's basically the only reason I use them.
Also, I HATE how the word "Google it" has become a phrase in our culture. If anyone has an alternative phrase, please let me know. The legitimate alternative just doesn't flow well for me: "Hey, why don't you 'general search engine' it?"
Yahoo.
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