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
Clusty has the cache function! Thanks! I've been looking forever, (although it HAS been a long time since I last looked). I've never seen that search engine before.
ROFL! Funny. Yeah, maybe I shouldn't use that one in polite company.
Dogpile!
Why not just just the grammatically correct terms "Hey, why don't you SEARCH for it?"
Well, so it does. Now don't I feel silly. It's obviously been a while since I last looked for alternatives. It looks like other companies are finally catching up with the Big Dog, which is quite pleasing. Thanks!
I did a simple search for the words privacy service (no quote marks). Cotse.net came up 2nd. Google is playing around here, for sure.
Forget Dogpile. Its main component is google.
I googled blonde and got you.
"I hardly ever use google, i mostly use Yahoo"
I mostly use msn
Good question. I haven't looked into it for a few years. But used to be there was a link off their website. I just went looking for it and couldn't find it.
They still use editors though for ranking. I found this article while I was searching for a link to apply to be an editor.
http://ezinearticles.com/?How-Googles-Editors-Tag-and-Destroy-Offensive-Affiliate-Sites&id=81607
Some day in the not too distant future, we'll all be opining about how "I'm old enough to remember when Google was a search engine" the same way some of us can say "I'm old enough to remember when MTV played music videos."
doc30 wrote:
> it is a useless waste of bandwidth. <
So do you prefer that they become a useful waste of bandwidth?
I have been using www.goodsearch.com for the past month or so. This is a search engine using yahoo technology that donates 1 cent for every search made to a charity of your choosing. The estimate that the site gives is that is a group of 10K people could generate over $70k in donations. Pretty sweet.
". . .is like telling them not to think of a purple elephant."
I've never thought of a purple elephant in my life.
I checked them out, sounds like a good idea. Since "Free Republic" did not come up as a listed charity (and may not be eligible) does anyone know any conservative oriented charities that Goodsearch supports?
Naturally. IMHO, most of the interent is a useful waste of bandwidth ;)
ping to read later
One could also put down Salvation Army as a conservative charity
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