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I do not post much but I have been visiting this forum for quite some time and I learnt alot from all the posts I read.
The last month we all witnessed strange behavior of google that lead me to thinking that google is on its way to losing its place as the no1 search engine:
Last month we witnessed:
- No update, instead old pages being reranked in a very bad way
- New sites not being added, index getting stale
- Backlinks removed
- Old spam techniques flourishing
I still can't get clear explanation of why this is happening. Even Googleguy is not making sense.. All i have been hearing was "patience... patience... google is emproving algo".
I find it very hard to understand why google would display very bad results in its www and distribute it to all
Its partners (yahoo, aol etc..) then say that they are testing and improving their algo.
why couldn't they test their algo on other datacenters (www1, www2...) and when it is done moving it to www.
Wouldn’t that be better for webmasters, users and google's reputation?
why shoot yourself in the foot? Remember Altavista? They started losing their status as no1 when their search results got worse and worse.
Google is victim of its own success:
- Google's monopoly of the search engine maket is hurting it: over the years and especially since google became the no1 for search services, the guys at google have been at war with thousands of webmasters that would lose arm and a leg to gain top positions. Every time they improve their algo, webmasters have found a loophole to beat the algo. (redirects, guestbook backlinks, hidden text etc...)
The current fiasco in search results only shows how worried they are at google. They have to realize that their algo will never be perfect and there will always be webmasters finding ways to beat the system.
- Big competitors (yahoo, MSN) are preparing as we speak to improve their search facilities at to compete directly with google. These big whales watched google grow to its current success and only recently they realized how lucrative search services could be. Yahoo and MSN are now determined to take big shares of this market. Google is big but not as big as these companies right?
I believe google has peaked as the no1 search provider and can only go downward from here... I have a feeling the second part of this year will be full of surprises and will witness many changes to the google and other search engines and which would reflect directly on us the webmasters.
Any thoughts?
Max
No, not true. Only by means of freshbot. It would be impossible since GG has admitted using old crawl data.
New sites are added everyday. Sometimes you can even rank well on decent search phrases a couple days in. It is much better to have the benefits of a full listing, however.
Here is the problem. I love Y! because of myYahoo! It is has been my default home page for 6 years. It is just an awesome home page. That is what Y has been doing all of these years. Creating a product line, reltionships, and a destination property that extends WAY beyond search. In regards to MSFT, they will never be at a significant disadvantage from a destination location standpoint. They wrote the book.
So if search becomes equal, what comparitive advantages does G have over the others? While it has been concentrating on search for four years, its competition has been concetrating on content and community. Y and AOL even made the decision, heck lets use G as our default search. "As this will take away G's advantage". This was smart, because now Y is going to turn the tables on G with INK, having used the reputable G search as it vehicle to win back trust from searches.
I now have a Y and G toolbar. I search G from Y. Why? 20 default G listings on Y with no interior pages (G is 10 w/ interiors), all within the confines of a supperior community resource. If INK can take from G's understanding search, G will lose its comparitive advantages within the marketplace.
I believe G recognizes this and it is the reason behind its repositions as the largest ad network in the world. Through all of their success G has not given users a good reason to continue to use G when search disparancies amongst competitors level out.
[edited by: Chicago at 2:54 pm (utc) on June 5, 2003]
when search disparancies amongst competitors level out.
Hmm, I'd flag that as an 'if', not a 'when'. However, for me, the compelling reason that I'd use is precisely the one you've outlined, if I've understood you correctly. If I want a community portal (never), I'll use Y! - if I want search, I want search, and therefore I'll use G.
More and more im hearing rumours that this will be the case. Although I presonally think it would be a disaster (and fast might begin to sneak in) , does anyone think google would sell out and become like msn?
Google Guy - this is your chance to shine! Enlighten us!
Is it just me, or has jojojo jumped out of a window for the second or third time now?
I think jojojo needs to get moved from the ground floor before jumping out the window will have much affect. ;)
Just to add a little something else for you all to speculate about when it comes to "Yahoo will dump google". It is commonly accepted that Y! owns a minority stake in G. They have also learned their lesson about having less tan the best search results.
They might just dump Google for Ink. Then again they may take an intermediate step and combine them to try and come up with even better results.
I would certainly pay attention to Ink at this point, but I'm not betting my future on it either.
Fresh Bot is killing the relevancy...
To put it simply - If you are seriously looking for good solid information to be used in the business world - Go to Yahoo...
If you are out for fun and don't need to rely on the data you receive - Go with Google - With Google, you know you will get something unique but the data might not be what you are looking for when you type in the specific search term.
I've got 2700+ people in the building where I work and unfortunately for Google, I've had to recommend Yahoo for searching the internet.
How often do you not remember the name of the item/document/web-page but you remember the term you used to search for?
I remember that I was searching for blue widgets but I don't remember the name of the web-page... With Google, you will get something different quite often.
There is something to be said for consistency and Google doesn't have it.
Why can't people just take their speculations as a fact and move on instead of trying to infect others with their virus? Why can't people just use another search engine instead of repeatedly stating they will and joe surfer will and everybody should do the same? Why can't people just read and learn instead of posting complaints? Why?
I definetely don't read back here at forum 3 until this didi dada posts stoped. I'll gonna put a banner on my site and start a campaign to boycott forum 3 until people return to constructive discussions again.
</rant>
Sigh.
So you would prefer a forum where people dont speak their mind and mention ideas?
Sounds pretty dull to me.
I like the way people can express their views here, even if some others find it boring.
Nope. How do you come to this conclusion. Erm, didn't you read my post? I'd prefer a forum where's less repetition, less whining, less complaining, less conspiracy talks, less monopoly speculations, less rise and fall talk, less noisy lala talk ...
However, let's not turn this wonderful discussion too much ot - it's been the wrong place to post what i posted, sorry. Just take my frustration as a fact.
:)
How much money are you spending to get that 65% MSN?
If you take some time and think about it google is having some glitches, nothing in my mind that is too bad. However, everyone who is asking these questions about a search engine being obsolete are webmasters, not joe blow down the street. So just about any webmaster that asks a question like this is lacking sence. The reason behind that statement is people, nonwebmasters, are still using AV, typing in a search box www.yahoo.com, using the default MSN browser/engine, using aol, and are just now starting to learn about google. The adverage joe blow has no clue what so ever as to what the index, PR, serps, adwords, pay per click, or anything else. So a webmaster asking if a search engine is obsolete is dumb, but if joe blow says an engine is outdated and provides poor results then it hold weight with me.
By the time Google is outdated joe blow will be using it for 2 years after and webmasters will be working on the next uber engine. Its that simple. Most people are creatures of habit and really have no clue how or what the internet is. So they will continue to type in www.yahoo.com into a search engine instead of the address bar. This thread has some weight but it wont hold water.
It's definitely clear that Google is evolving. Instead of "the rise and fall" perhaps "the evolution."
[edited by: cjtripnewton at 6:05 pm (utc) on June 5, 2003]
I just installed my 4th window and if I don't see an update soon - it's toast also.
btw - the only people who AREN'T bitching are those people who have been in the index for a while and aren't seeing much change.
personally I have 10-15 sites that are going to go from nowhereville to the top 10 in huge keywords - my fortune is sitting in the april/may deepbot data.
I'd say that is a good indication of how bad the data is in G. Say what you like about the average surfer but you can't serve up crap for long and have nobody notice. We all act as if the average surfer doesn't know anything and won't change to a new SE because he just doesn't know any better. If that's the case, how did these people begin using Google in the first place? The masses are not always right or quick but over time they generally do come to the right conclusion.
Agree. I do hope the current 'update' is about restructuring their data and data-cleanup with some faster PR computation algorithms implemented from now on.
How many true updates this year? Two. Instead of once a month. This is June. Something is seriously wrong. I want Google back!
Still a Google fan, but losing patience.
I can only hope that this update which is going to happen tomorrow will have everything up to date.
(j/k about the tomorrow thing - I wish! - but when?)
TELL US WHEN THE NEXT UDPATE WILL BE GG!
the only people who AREN'T bitching are those people who have been in the index for a while and aren't seeing much change.
A sweeping statement.
I take a bunch of notice that the more experienced members of the board aren't "bitching". In fact, I hear a quiet calm from most of them. You all need to relax until this whole thing pans out.
Eventually we have all accepted this Dominic fellow and accepted he will be getting the boot real soon.
Did you really expect things to NOT pick up now that the update is drawing near?
Jumps *thud* *hits boarded up window* - I ran out of money for new windows :(
I get almost as many referals from msn as Google, but in my opinion msn is far worse. For one of my typical search terms on MSN it brings up about 7 pages from the same website :¦
May 2003 top 10 for me:
Google - 2212
MSN - 2204
Yahoo - 365
AOL - 214
Ask Jeeves - 114
AltaVista - 23
Lycos - 20
DogPile - 5
Direct Hit - 2
All the web - 2
Also, according to my most recent count, it has been almost 1,348,947,655 times that other members of this forum including myself, have posted posts that remind people of what GoogleGuy has already said, and again, asking everyone to just stay calm. Why stay calm? Because GoogleGuy said so. Why did he say so? Because GoogleGuy works for Google and knows what is going on. What is going on? GoogleGuy told us all 27,580,188 posts ago and then repeated himself 975,163 times, which for your viewing pleasure has ALSO been repeated by other members of this forum 1,348,947,655.
I'm a little tired today so my math may be off give or take 1 or 2, but I think we are nearing an infinite amount of times now that exactly what is happening, has happened, and will happen has been said on this forum. And we are also closing in on infinity +1 on the number of times that everyone has been told to just relax and stay calm due to the information that was given to us by GoogleGuy.
I'm confident that when this work in progress upgrade is completed, all of these "Google is broke" and "Beginning of the End for Google" threads are going to look pretty silly.
Going to look silly? I think we passed silly a long time ago. The #1 search engine is making changes that will make it an even better search engine. Uh oh, I smell the end of Google.
Perfection:
googleguy did NOT explain why this mess is happening... all we heard is "patience".... he never explained why last month's update degraded the index so much. if they did that for the sake of testing the algo then why show these horrible results on www? why didn't they test it at other datacenters first?
I'm predicting the end of google for 2 clear reasons:
1- I have never seen worse index. (stale index, 404 pages not found, spam pages on top, new websites not added).
2- major competitors, much bigger than google are coming into the market to take big bites off of google's market share. with time google will stop being the no1 search provider.
"Understanding Dominic" [webmasterworld.com] explains Google's work in progress pretty well.
All we can do is wait and see what Google looks like after the upgrade is complete.
Good reminder that it's still an upgrade in progress. Things might change amazingly when they bring in fresh data, dump the old stuff, and get a grip on whatever algo change they're playing with. I wouldn't write Google off just yet; they've got a pretty good track record and even with things in a mess, it's still a very good SE.
