Weaning yourself off Google

a BBC News report

[andy_boyd]

Fueling the seemingly growing fire of Google dissatisfaction the BBC has posted a report on how to better search the web using alternative resources.

A Beeb tech commentator, Bill Thompson, has resolved to wean himself off Google as it would seem he finds the results less than satisfactory. Thompson is quoted as saying; "Good online research has to involve more than just typing a couple of words into a search form and clicking a button."

Here's the article in full:

[news.bbc.co.uk...]

This kind of article is becoming more and more common. Only 3 weeks ago my regional newspaper, The Belfast Telegraph, also featured a piece on the recent Florida update and the negative impact on businesses. They advised people to start using AllTheWeb, AV, Teoma or Ask.

Are Google big enough to withstand repeated negative commentaries? Is their mindshare among searchers untouchable?

[jbinbpt]

He makes an interesting reference to using the ODP. I believe that this will come into wider use in a hurry.

I know that there is a group of users that really like the meta searches. Mama, Dogpile and Metacrawler all have loyal followings. A combination I have come across a few times is having the Google Tool Bar installed and Dogpile as the home page.

jb

[Allergic]

Since 98, it is the first time in december I saw a 10% referal drop from Google in many of my sites. MSN and Yahoo got both a ±6% increased!

The new commercial filter is definitively concern. It will be interesting to see if the next update will continue to use it.

[tedster]

This article is from someone doing professional work, and that's a different category of searcher. He's right - no professional should be limited to one search engine.

I know a number of "serious" researchers who swear by Copernic for their professional use, and with it they do turn up documents that seem hard to find otherwise. I use it occasionally when I'm researching a new market because in some cases it gives me a fresh new perspective.

Also regarding serious search, I'm wondering how IBM's WebFountain is doing. After the laucnch, things got pretty darned quiet.

[Robert Charlton]

I don't feel the article is quite as negative about Google as the original post suggests.

It is clear that, despite its faults, Google remains one of the largest, fastest and most usable search tools around.

For me, the article suggests an approach to searching that would be wise for any researcher. I wouldn't read into it that Google will be punished for changing its algo, however dissatisfied some of us may be with some current results.

[jmccormac]

There seems to be some kind of Zeitgeist thing going on with Google. For the first phase of Google's growth, Google's public relations image represented the Google founders as being 'of the net' with the same kind of concerns as most users and webmasters. Though it could be that the run-up to Christmas is a slow news period and editors will run anything.

With the talks of IPO, Google is moving from being 'of us' to being 'of them' in that it is becoming more a massive business answerable to its shareholders rather than to its users. The Florida update was not exactly a tipping point but a firm announcement of the entry of Microsoft into the search engine market could be that trigger for Google.

There is an element of discontent over the Florida update but the majority of search engine users have not even heard of the Florida update. Sure Florida will affect some businesses but for the majority, life goes on as usual. Google's main bread and butter is the random user who is just searching for something - as long as that random user finds something approximating what they are searching for, then Google is safe in the short term.

Regards...jmcc

[Fischerlaender]

There seems to be some kind of Zeitgeist thing going on with Google.

Yes. I think it _was_ cool to use Google since 1999, because they didn't do any tv commercials, unlike some big players then did.
Now, as everyone is using Google, it's cool to look for something else to use. But because there is no other engine which is as good as Google, anyone continues to use Google - but is telling everyone else, how bad Google has become. In fact, this is exactly what I'm doing for several months at least ...

Google's main bread and butter is the random user who is just searching for something

.. and who doesn't even know that there are other search engines out there.