SERPs infested with books.google.com results

Every third result in this SERP is from Google themselves

[1script]

Wow, that happened for the first time since Google's inception back in 98' after I started watching this particular keyword. Not a hot topic but 14 million results nevertheless. One word search. Every page of SERPs has two or three results from books.google.com: #4, #7, #10, #14 and so on. Too bad I can't post a specific keyword. Does anyone else see that?

[tedster]

Some similar discussion over here: [webmasterworld.com...]

...but not as dramatic as what you're reporting. Sounds like something is truly broken right now in this area. I can't image Google intentionally creating a SERP like that.

[1script]

Another thing I forgot to mention is that Amazon's results are on every page of the SERP, too! So, you will have 4 or 5 of the 10 results of every page until at least page 5 (did not check further) being books. Granted, books about the subject, but c'mon! I love books myself but the stuff that turns up is like 10-15 years old. So much for having search results fresh...

[outland88]

That's old news but some areas are being flooded with it. Google though seems to think its fair sliding these sites in and out periodically. I call it manipulating the results for their own benefit when they stand to profit from it. Who knows how many deals they might have with other companies for forced results that appear relevant. I mean realistically they probably chat with Amazon and Wiki on a daily basis. One newspaper sees its competitor with every page ranked and they’re probably on the phone wanting the same thing.

The only thing I'm seeing new is today they're sliding Universal Search into two word phrases in my areas.

[whitenight]

This is a serious bug.
I'm seeing it mostly on 1-word searches but it's hideous.

Between 1-word search results switching every 5 minutes and the books.google entries, the results are simply pathetic.

Anyone one to give this <cough> radical change to algo infrastructure<cough> a name? Reseller? :P

[Arctrust]

Hey Guys:

Does anyone know why this is happening?

This junk started with BOOKS then it reverted back to(sic) normal and now NEWS?

What is Dr. FrankenGoogle trying to accomplish?

ARC

[1script]

The results I've been watching are back to normal. Not a single books.google.com link in sight

[Arctrust]

Mine are still jung from Dr. FrankenGoogle...

I did a DNS flush just in case it was my machine but I got the same junk.

[outland88]

It'll be back. They've been see-sawing books in and of the results since late May. With everything else in one word searches it can vary day to day.

Certainly don't think its a bug since it Google's own books program. If it was some other domain yes.

[tedster]

Does anyone know why this is happening?

Here's an educated guess. In order to integrate any other category or taxonomy into regular search results, Google must normalize the relevance ranking in that category so that it is comparable to regular organic search relevance. Google would, I'm sure, check quite a few test queries before pushing such a change live.

However, other queries may not have urls at the top of the SERP whose relevance scores are as "densely packed" - and then an overabundance of urls from that category would unintentionally be integrated at the top of the SERP.

Just a guess, but it's got to be in the ballpark to some degree, I think.

[vincevincevince]

SERPs infested with books.google.com results

I've seen these, on and off, but I'd not say it's an infestation. I've followed a few of the links and in all cases I've found really good material in the book results which I could read immediately.

Perhaps our concept of SERPs needs to be adjusted... the results should be whatever provides the very best to the searcher; even if it's not a webpage.

[Arctrust]

tedster...

Good theory, but with such garbage being returned and such an outcry from webmaster, why haven't we heard from GoogleGuy or anyone else about what is going on?

For that matter... why havent we heard from well connected WW seniors like Bret about "heard on the street" kind of whispers.

(Rant)
It just seems odd that there is no words of confirmation from anyone and we are all just guessing and spinning our wheels.

First it was the Yo-Yo effect, and now this...

There is real money associated with these ups and downs for webmasters.

(End Rant)sorry for that

Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming....

What's with all these NEWS and BOOKS results...

[edited by: Arctrust at 2:09 am (utc) on Sep. 20, 2007]

[whitenight]

the results should be whatever provides the very best to the searcher

Ugh, please don't enable Google arrogance.
Hi. Meet whitenight.
I am the searcher.
I'm the one doing a normal search and noticing the horrible results (who just so happens to understand more than the average Joe).

Google Books has been a failed project from the get-go.
So now they are placing them in the results?
Bleh.

None of the listings I see have a single backlink to them.
Who's linking to them?
No one.
Why?
Because people are looking for wiki, news, products, or a authortiy niche document.
Not a book.

You be hard-pressed to tell me that no one's heard of Amazon
that's using the internet in 2007.

[whitenight]

ok, per Tedster's request, here's a sample query

'building wealth' (no quotes)

page 1 and 2 are ok, but starting on page 3 and on, books.google.com takes up 2-4 listing on every page of 10 results.
(YMMV depending on what Goog is serving up to you)

Again, note, not a single one of those pages/books/listings has a backlink to them.

[edited by: whitenight at 2:36 am (utc) on Sep. 20, 2007]

[europeforvisitors]

It's probably just a test, or the usual fits, starts, and adjustments when something new is being rolled out.

[Arctrust]

whiteknight:

You are correct... though pay attention to the blue bar up top and when the SERPS become garbage you will notice that G has integrated a link in the blue bar for BOOKS. The pages that have no link for BOOKS are clean.

I noticed and reported this here in WW 2 weeks ago.

BTW.... add an asterisk and all the results are clean. *building wealth

And the saga of garbage results continue...

[edited by: Arctrust at 2:50 am (utc) on Sep. 20, 2007]

[whitenight]

though pay attention to the blue bar up top and when the SERPS become garbage you will notice that G has integrated a link in the blue bar for BOOKS.

You've lost me arctrust.

I have too many other hacks, gadgets, and add-ons to my SERP listings to know if I'm getting "true" results, but could you point me to your original thread on the subject?

BTW.... add an asterisk and all the results are clean. *building wealth

Edited after your edit :)

Ok, yea those results look much better. (granted I haven't run this particular query in months)

[Arctrust]

No hacks... no nothing...

At the very top of the search listings is a pale blue stripe (bar)

Type in your Key Word or Words and the the blue bar will say WEB (on the left hand side)

When the blue bar also has a link in it for BOOKS later on page 3 or 4, your results are mixed.

Now type your KW(s) with an asterisk right before the fisrt word and the results are clean throughout.

[edited by: tedster at 3:21 am (utc) on Sep. 23, 2007]

[whitenight]

Ok, I'm seeing it.
Interesting...

[tedster]

For me, the "Books" blue-bar link shows up first on page 3, but there's only one books.google.com result on that page. Page 4 is where it really kicks in at positions #33, 36, 39, 42, 45, 48...on and on with every third result. But pushed back to page 4 for those regular "insertions".

Glad not to see it on the top pages, anyway.

[whitenight]

Glad not to see it on the top pages, anyway.

Yea, it was rolled back from earlier today when it was really bad.
I'm sure we'll see it again for a few hours tomorrow.

And as Arctrust noted, even the first 2 pages are pretty lame compared to the '*' results.

[decaff]

Since Google is in "test mode" right now for new interfaces and SERPs integration from different sources (their sources) ... you are bound to see some very peculiar listings ...

Once Google analyzes usability data .. things will probably stabalize until the next round..

[Arctrust]

Hey Guys:

I have been seeing these results for NEWS items as well as BOOKS so keep an eye out for the latest integration.

So far I have seen: BOOKS, BLOGS, and now NEWS

If indeed you do find the additional links... please report it here.

I hope G finsihes this fairly soon before we all crash and burn with these results.

ARC

[gehrlekrona]

I wIsh I could find the article I read the other day that explains all of this.
The article was about Google Universal search and what the article said was that even though Google had all these links to books, images, blogs and other stuff up in the left corner, people never used it so what they had to do was to integrate all that into the serps instead. They needed a way to show the results even though people were either not interested in their categories OR people didn't see the links up in the corner.
The Universal Search is all about mixing everything into one mix, books, videos, maps... There will only be a few places on the first page for "ordinary web sites" to fight for. This is probably why they are thinking about having 20 reslts instead of 10 on the first page. Web search is now Universal Search.
A better solution for Google, would have been to have a dropdown box where you could select if you wanted to search the web, books or video. I am 100% sure that people does not like what they see right now, and it's just going to get worse in the near future. The web search as we know it in Google is gone. SEO will forever be changed and your site needs to have news, books and videos to compete on the first page.

[europeforvisitors]

I am 100% sure that people does not like what they see right now

I think it's safe to say that Google will be monitoring user feedback more accurately than any of us can.

SEO will forever be changed and your site needs to have news, books and videos to compete on the first page.

Not necessarily. It will depend on the search and on where you rank within the Web results.

[gehrlekrona]

All searches will have news, books, videos, blogs and other vertical objects in the future.
If you want any clicks to your site, you need to be able to compete not only with web sites but with Googles own sites (books.google.com, YouTube...)
Where would a site fit in without any of these? Google will only be for Google sites with a few authority sites mixed in the results.
I wish there was a way to exclude books or even exclude certain sites from the search, so I could search for Jung + psycology and not get books and videos and news about the guy.
I guess I will have to narrow down my search but how many "ordinary users" will do that? They'll give up on page 2. A lot of people I talk to are already disappointed about the results, and that is highly educated people who knows how to use a computer, but what about everybody else?

[europeforvisitors]

Google will only be for Google sites with a few authority sites mixed in the results.

Unlikely. Web search is Google's core product, and real companies don't simply toss away their core products and risk losing their end users.

As for competing to be on the first page, that depends on where you'd rank without image, book, or other results on the SERP. If you rank #9 or #10 for a Web search on "widgets," then you're likely to end up on page 2; if you rank in the first half-dozen Web results, you'll probably still be on page 1.

[tedster]

My assumption is that Google will continue to measure user satisfaction with the SERPs. They will tune and fine-tune the relevance scales for how to integrate the various universal search channels, measuring how the various types of Universal results affect each type of search. User data will create the future of this experimental shift.

So I'd say the sky is NOT falling, but we will go through an evolution. It will not always be comfortable, because it necessarily starts as a rather rough experiment and only eventually evolves into a comfortable extension of our search experience.

It's hard for us, as marketers, to lose some of the page one territory we thought of as our marketing vehicle. But the average user may have other needs from ours, and after all, it never was really "ours" to begin with. And in the long run, you could say it is the general public's territory, because that is who Google looks to for the final verdict.

At any rate, it looks like the books.google.com results are currently moved off to deeper pages. Every third result may seem a bit over the top, but page four is a decent place to experiment with extreme changes, I think.

[AussieWebmaster]

Great post ted.... we don't own the SERPs though we have become rather attached to them... if Google decides to integrate universal listings etc. then we must just adapt.... obviously they get increased income from ppc used to offset the listings drops.... but they own the store

[europeforvisitors]

obviously they get increased income from ppc used to offset the listings drops

Maybe or maybe not. Some marketers who currently rely on organic traffic may have the skills to compete successfully in the CPC marketplace, but many won't.

I really don't think Google Universal Search is about forcing Web businesses into buying ads. It's about putting more of Google's search tools in front of users' eyeballs and ultimately enhancing the perceived value of Google Search. As Tedster points out, "the average user may have other needs from ours."