Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
But as a average user, I have been searching for various queries in (my) fav search engine GOOGLE, but the results which it has been throwing up were very vague due to which I had to go through 5 to 6 pages of the serach to get the content which I really needed.
Then I switched to Yahoo, using the same keywords and the search results was pretty relevant to what I needed on the first page itself.
My question do u feel that the serach in the google is deteriorating day by day.
The above example which i gave is not for just one search, I have been noticing this since 30 to 45 days.
what do u guy think about it?
good point!
And I am just the opposite. I just don't like to NOT get what I am looking for. I find better results on msn. When shoes get too old they hurt my feet and I chuck them and get new ones.
Eventually...so does everyone.
It's like an old pair of shoes. They may not be better than new ones but they are comfortable. I don't think I am alone in this and this is where G holds the BIG advantage.
You could call this the "USA TODAY factor." Why is USA TODAY the newspaper of choice in airports? Because when Bob the Business Traveler is waiting for a plane in Minneapolis, he'd rather stick with the familiar than familiarize himself with the STAR TRIBUNE--even if the latter is a better paper.
Don't you remember those days when the site that you were looking for was at the 10th page of the serps? Google surprised me returning the right pages at the 1st page, so the change was not painful at all.
If someday Google doesn't give me what I want, and I find another search engine that does, then I'll change my habits again.
But today there is no such a difference from Google to MSN or Yahoo as it was at those 'ancient' times between Altavista and Google, so I don't think Bob the Searcher will change his habits easily.
Having said this, I must reckon that I like Google and I like Adsense, so I won't join a crusade against Google.
Having said this, I must reckon that I like Google and I like Adsense, so I won't join a crusade against Google.
I like G and Adsense too but it's the developing monopoly that concerns me ;o)
Added: Just remember that if G wasn't there another engine (or even better, engines) would take its place. G is not there because it's G. G is there because people need a good search engine.
with Google its the same..they don't even think of trying another engine because they just accept the Google ISSSS THEEE search engine because that's what they keep hearing everyone talk about...its the buzz word....its not like the alta vista days....google is just part of life for most users...
Googles results (in my sector) have deteriorated almost unbelievably and quite shocking.
For my sector I would rank Googles search results behind Ask, Msn, Yahoo, Clusty and even Overture.
Try the keywords "Shark food". You'll find a National lampoon site with "Shark food" as the title and only the KW "food" in the text. It's #2 in the results. How is that possible? No mention of 50% of the requested term somehow justifies a #2 slot? At the vey least the page text should mention both words somewhere beyond the title. A few results down you'll find a few restuarants and a travel site. Oh yeah those are real relevent...
Now try Altavista (or yahoo). It's blows away googles results with real sites about Shark Food and how to avoid becoming shark food.
You can repeat this on dozens of 2 word keywords. Googles quality is incredibly poor. I always love doing a search for my own site to discover I have 9,000 pages when in reality I have 200 pages with 8800 framed exit links. Which BTW, I get 0 hits a month from Google on that website.
At the vey least the page text should mention both words somewhere beyond the title.
This is not unusual. If you do a search for "computers" you will find Dell and Apple near the top of the pile. They hardly mention the word computers on their home pages and their sites are not optimised. They get there presumably because of all the links that point to them with using the word computers.
I think Matt and GoogleGuy's silence on the current state of the index speaks volumes about its quality.
How so? It could just as easily mean that they don't feel like arguing, or they don't like the increasingly shrill tone of these threads, or they know that a lot of SEOs aren't going to be happy with the index that evolves from the the new Big Daddy infrastructure.
FWIW, if I were Googleguy, I'd have given up on participating in this forum a long time ago. Why? Because any post in an update thread quickly gets lost in the flurry of complaints, rants, minute-by-minute DC reports, etc. Threads simply grow too quickly to be useful in many cases.
Yahoo - not relevant results but at least I dont get a trojan with almost every other result for searches in the 4-20 million range.
Msn - not relevant but still better, a lot of redirects but still not as many trojan installing, spam ridden sites as in Google.
Yahoo and Msn are way off in terms of relevancy but still show better serps.
I can search for terms in Google and all of the 1-100 results are BlackHat, expired domains or 404's.
On March 8th (with a flip of a switch) I saw all of the problem sites go away for a few hours then the problem sites came back.
[edited by: ulysee at 3:55 pm (utc) on April 20, 2006]
They get there presumably because of all the links that point to them with using the word computers
an expansion of associated 'computer'related terms i would suspect. i.e Appla and Del are very much wrapped with computers in either in search terms, i.e dell Computers, and also computer related articles.
They've been going this way for a long time but i dont think it really fits with the way people search for the most part.
That is showing us linking site relevacy
I will bet that it was either 72.14.207.99 or 72.14.207.104 with quite a lot of certainty.
I certainly do not think what we are looking at this point is anything even close to what they want. I take their silence as an indication of just that. They know there are issues and what those issues are, so there is no reason to solicit feedback or get involved in discussions with webmasters at this point.
From September 2005:
[Marissa] Mayer [Google's director of consumer products], said that since apples-to-apples comparison are no longer possible, Google decided to stop listing the size of its index and instead invite Web surfers to conduct the equivalent of a "taste test" to see which engine consistently delivers the most results, Mayer said.
(The quote comes from an article referenced in this thread: Google takes down front-page boast about index size [webmasterworld.com].)
Half a year later, and I'm still of the opinion that I want the best results, not the most results. Good on Google that they can pull up "x" times more results than the others. But you know what?, Yahoo & MSN return just-as-relevant results - but with less filler. I personally suspect that Google is quite aware that their SERPs are full of "a-bigger-index-is-a-better-index" crap, and that's why we'll see a new SERP layout soon - now with Orion technology! Uh, woo... woo...
And how closely are folk looking at these apparently fine Google SERPs? Have you noticed the duplication in the results? Here's but one example: On 216.239.57.99 (or your fave DC), search for "webmasterworld" - I owe you a beer if result #10 & #11 aren't the same (but you have to prove you looked!).
Are the results deteriorating? Are your eyes open? How often does Google speak of quality?
"Google’s revenues up by 100% on European gains
Google on Thursday shook off the last of the concerns that had hung over it since its rare earnings disappointment in January, reporting a re-acceleration in its core revenue growth and an unexpected fattening of its profit margins in the first three months of this year.
With international markets, particularly in Europe, showing headlong expansion, the company’s net revenues jumped by 100 per cent, ahead of the 85 per cent growth expected by Wall Street.
Pointing to the growing power of Google’s brand around the world, Eric Schmidt, chief financial officer, said: “I don’t think it’s appreciated how big our reach is. Europe did exceptionally well for us this quarter.” The proportion of revenues that came from outside the US rose to 42 per cent, from 38 per cent only three months before, the company said."
Google decided to stop listing the size of its index and instead invite Web surfers to conduct the equivalent of a "taste test" to see which engine consistently delivers the most results, Mayer said.
We have already covered the fact that there is no effective means of comparing results from the search engines, mainly because the results are subjective. Having said that, Google has the know how and resources to build their own "taste test" tool but they don't do it.
I wonder why?
I will add a snip from the Fiancial Times and simply say that Google knows what it is doing regardess of what webmasters think.
No one can dispute that they know what they are doing in a business sense but unfortunately SERPs quality and earnings are not related. ;)
The shareholders of Google are interested in profit and not search engine quality. Profit is the goal and not search engine quality.
Improving search engine quality is only one of the things that they do to generate a profit They will improve search engine quality to allow them to properly market their products. But they are not in business to satisfy demands of what Web Masters consider good search engine quality.
We have already covered the fact that there is no effective means of comparing results
you mean the EFV comment? :)
I diagree totally that you cant have a formula to compare results. The only thing you cant score for is subjectivity, but thats only a small part of the serps.
Google results come everywhere from 1 to 134 with wild variations on the basis of word order. Ordering seldom appears relevant on Yahoo and the largest variation is only one position. Yahoo results are all on the first page.
The results of monitoring Google have encouraged me to use it far less these days but it will be a long time before the majority of punters realise that the others are as good, if not better, than Google for their searches.
We can chew the fat in here for the next ten years but until someone comes up with a reasonable metric this is just (worthless) opinion
well, one who finds the metric would simply set up their own search engine. if one can decide which SE is the best, they know how all of them work.
problem with google is that it shows large sites with old domain names these days. niche sites in travel sector I watch are far in the SERPs. the winners are tripadvisor, travel.yahoo.com, priceline, etc.
What I do not like about that is the fact that for multiple smaller destinations these sites offer virtually no information. Texts are auto-generated from database (just destination name changed) and owners are waiting for users to add their comments. Of course, these sites are full of words such as 'review' and 'compare'.
I personally hate that. Most of such sites are of no use to users.
On the other hand, small content rich niche sites in travel sector are hidden on page 5 or 7. I do not like it.
tripadvisor, travel.yahoo.com, priceline
you forgot any wiki page that mentions a hotel, even though the page is not actaully about the hotel and no external links point at the page with the hotel as text. Shows the way the algo has evolved away from linking text as the heart of the algo.
I will add a snip from the Fiancial Times and simply say that Google knows what it is doing regardess of what webmasters think."Google’s revenues up by 100% on European gains
Measuring earnings shows that Google's strategy is working in the short term. That doesn't mean that they know what they are doing in the long term. Their long term success depends on people being happier with the results they get on Google than elsewhere.
