Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
this will return the answer at the top of the page.
also
"who is the pope"
Soon enough google wont need publishers, they will just answer everything themself.
Another fallacy. G traffic is no more free than a deer which I have to spend hours hunting down
You are confusing "free" with "no cost"
Google, Linux, DMOZ, Microsoft security patches, viruses, etc are all free -- you are not charged money to access them.
But they are not no cost -- there are implications for choosing or using them.
It's a crucial distinction if you wish to flourish in the online world.
Zero discussion of how to work around it (until Rosalind's lucid post, that is), zero discussion about what WE can do. Just a bunch of bellyaching about what Google should or should not be doing.
A made a very reasonable suggestion on what to do but apparently it is against the TOS of this website, but just because it is against the TOS of this website doesn't make it a non-viable solution. You are correct, there is nothing one website or webmaster can really do but remove themselves from google.
<Google took something that existed before it did (the internet) and created a search engine that took creative advantage of it. Now we must do the same: take something that exists (the way Google chooses on any given day to run it's business) and try to take creative advantage of it. This has always been the game and will continue to be the game ....>
I like what I read :)
I have made few attempts to drive discussion in the direction of ceative thinking for solutions and ways to adopt. However it seems that the majority wish to wait..see and do nothing.
Please read few of my posts to see for yourself.
my msg#:30
[webmasterworld.com...]
msg#277
[webmasterworld.com...]
msg#287
[webmasterworld.com...]
etc...
who knows maybe in a few months we will be 'optimizing for google facts'
we go where the traffic is and where the money is, simple as that.
<Hey if some other search engine emerges with 'less gadgets' and takes over a big slice of the search market, we will all be optimizing for that one and google will be secondary.>
Good morning Reid
Just testing SEO for the new Google. In a nutshell; diluting the traditional SEO variables.
Guess what happened?
I can see a boost in traffic from Yahoo and MSN as a "side effect" :)
It's true that we'll take our traffic where we can get it. But I am seeing a high percentage of poorly targeted traffic from G lately which doesn't benefit me or the searcher. Luckily, I get so little traffic from G these days that it's not a bandwidth problem. BTW, it is possible to survive (and then some) with very little G traffic.
We all know that due to its popularity, the way G interprets the web tends to change the web itself. If 1) G introduces a feature that looks cool but doesn't really work right in that it often provides off topic or incorrect results and 2) publishers try to rank well within this malfunctioning feature, then what will those publishers' pages look like and will they have any real value to the human who performed the search?
Think about that. If I optimize a page for an algorithm that I know prefers wrong answers...
Although the quality of regular SERPs have been in decline lately, they still beat the pants off this "feature." I would be happy to optimize for this feature if I had more confidence in it. I don't think they can provide quality results if they pull from multiple, unvetted sources. Providing answers from an inhouse source would ensure quality, but then we couldn't compete for the slot, could we?
By offering a factual snippet from a web site as an answer to a specific question, G risks its reputation on the accurracy of the answer in a way that it doesn't in delivery of the regular SERPs.
With a return of regular SERPs, G presents you with a set of links to documents with some outward signs of overall quality and pertinence to the subject in question. It is up to the searcher to properly use the information G has offered. But when G unequivocally states that Thatcher is the PM, then the burden of the error is entirely on G.
if you saw that presentation at the washington university: "Rolling hash" can be a niche question of a C++ coder or an information request of a drug abuser... why does google take one and leave the other out.
There should be something like a table on top with the statement, that there are at least 4 possible answers to this question and that google took one by their algo...
if you tell people just half of the truth it is as wrong as telling people a complete lie.
Googles policy of minimalistic, and then hopefully fast layout and information presenting has reach the limit of functionality. Yes things must be easy, but not by any means!
My 2 cents,
P!
Its really a excellent thing google has introduced...
Its been done before and Googles attempt seems pretty mediocre to me, some of the fact results are just down right bad.
They have the
"START Natural Language Question Answering System"
(i'd post the url but ...)
It's basically an AI project that answers the correct answers to questions such as
"Who is XXXXX?"
"Which is the largest country?"
etc, etc.
...it will be of great help but the question is whether they will be able to display the correct result or the current result.
Doesn't seem like it so far. As a searcher, I have a topic, and I'm usually looking for more information for that topic. Even if I have a specific question I'm trying to find an answer for, I like it to be surrounded with more information. (umm... much like what you find on a website.)
Even if I think they give me the right answer, they just stuck something else in my way before I can get to the search results. Even that is enough to make me not like the feature as a user.
When google returns a result at the top of *their* page that I know is incorrect, it is google who loses credibility... not the "According to" url.
Google facts SEO complete.
[theregister.co.uk...]
As for hurting webmasters, I don't see it yet. First, the majority of these searches are not going to yeild much in terms of good traffic. I'd also guess to say that none of these are competitive commercial terms.
Lastly, it's just another half done feature by Google. It semi-works, like most of Google's new features, and will probably never evolve into a polished, completed product. Let's be honest, outside of their search, what "new feature" has Google really been succesful at adding to their site.
what "new feature" has Google really been succesful at adding to their site.
Adwords.
MojoMike
[images.google.com...]
Then I typed in my local widget repair store in town. Google return zero results.
So, then guess what, I actually had to locate my phone book in the closet.
Was google any help to me today" No, not at all.
There was nothing in my query to make the serving of that answer seem any less retarted.
The reason they're taking a $1 is because they don't need to and it looks good, as far as press goes. They plan on selling $ billions in stock this year, don't they? Let's not kid ourselves.
