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In general I think they are good but ther is one section of google search that I think tends to let the side down. "how to" queries.
When doing a search for "how to fit [part] to [type of car]" the first 3 pages where crammed with sites selling either the part or the car. You might think that google wasn't showing better results because they dont exist, they do I used another SE to find then.
Only a one of the sites seamed to be using any form of spamm, Most where perfectly ordinary sites.
Makes me wonder just how well Google handles long queries. What are your opinions on this?
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Areas within [] where made general to avoid specifics :)
SN
I don't think people give up on the first try. Or if they are, they're learning.
I have noticed that Google will sometimes try and group words.
For example, a search for
"red widgets large sprockets"
and a search for
"large widgets red sprockets"
might give different results based on the exact search terms used.
Again it didn't do to well for page 1, but got there eventuay.
No problem at all, the trouble is website owners usually want to sell the part rather than how to fit it, hence the page is optimized for a sale rather than info.
"How to...." ( except the ridiculous, how to make a million etc ) is the easiest search query to optimize, and google will find it no problem whatsoever, but the page needs to be in place and well suited to the search query.
There are thousands of DIY how to sites produced by enthusiasts and many have some great tips, unfortunately most are not put together correctly and will not be found.
They are not marketing, hence they have no need to go into fine details regards seo.
Specifically for complex phrases ATW often was ahead.
Also unusual combos, consisting of words rarely used together, were better treated by Fast's algo.
Frankly I blame Google trodding behind on their reliance on PR.
Not to give a wrong impression though: Google was often better in easy searches (one words). Also Google's db is larger.
When doing a search for "how to fit [part] to [type of car]" the first 3 pages where crammed with sites selling either the part or the car.
Often I wish Google had the possiblity of varying the "exactness", "proximity" and inclusion of stopwords. Lets say an advanced search where I say give me 80% exactness instead of the full Pagerank algo. Could be some nice Google-lab test-playing.
Added: often its not Google's or any other search engines fault, its just a lack of pages with that content. We optimising webmasters generally have all the possible questions and answers as content and expect the same in other fields.
Google searching is an art. Liken it to the difference between a cheap electric piano and a grand piano. With the first [eg ask jeeves] it is easy to get mediocore results, but impossible to get something really beautiful. With the grand piano [google], it's hard to get make your beginners efforts sound good, every tiny aspect of touch has implications on sound. But... with the grand you can attain great heights of skill and beauty.
That is to say that Google is harder to use, but more powerful. The first lesson of google is using " a lot. Without ", it's hard to find gems.
I too wish that you could have some kind of regex search in google.
ATW is coming on in leaps and bounds.
