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Yesterday, I was searching for some coding info and found a nice resource. I did not bookmark and could not remember the URL. Today I can't even find the page and it's a huge hassle.
That problem can also occur if you found a page when clicking on a rotating add. Returning to the page where the add was displayed, doesn't always help. In those cases I would use the history functionality of my IE/Netscape browser.
One reason that Google and other dominant search engines may be moving away from rigid results is that their power to bring colossal amounts of traffic to one company for a competitive business search term may open them up to legal action (maybe class action) from other businesses that do not rank so highly yet provide just as valuable a service.
Your point is that many people use a search engine, find the site that was #1 or, say #3, and remember the position. Then, to find the site again they go back to the search engine and repeat the search rather than clutter their favourites with hundreds of sites.
An option may be for the SE to use their tracking cookies to return the same result sets to a particular user each time.
Besides, do you really think that the changes we see daily on Google have anything to do with things really changing on the Internet? Most of what we are seeing is simply Google running some mad experiment :)
The internet is changing constantly and SERPS should reflect this changes.
I think they will, and Google are obviously working towards that with Freshbot etc.
However, we're talking about a much shorter time frame, where results are different every time you search, even though they are based on the same snapshot of the web.
Are they serving the most relevant results or not? If the SERPS vary on a refresh then it would suggest they're not really sure and confidence will be lost.
Dmorison, that was the point I was attempting to make. You did a better job. :)
Anyway, the original intent of the post was simply to acknowledge the fact that SERPS now change, often dramatically, all the time. As a webmaster it has been a bit annoying, AND as a surfer as well.
Are they serving the most relevant results or not? If the SERPS vary on a refresh then it would suggest they're not really sure and confidence will be lost.
The trouble is that the web is getting so big that for many serch terms (particularly competitive, business terms) there are many many sites that could qualify as "most relevant" and it is not fair for Google to send a disproportionate amount of traffic to just one of them.
You make a good point though. Search engines may have to educate users that results, whilst different, are equally relevant.
That's funny, I never read anything about Google saying they were going to be fair and send traffic to everybody.
They have no legal obligation to anybody no matter what people like to say. SK tried that already and got shot down because their search results are a form of free speech and therfore protected by the constituion. (according to the judge who dismissed the case.) There are alot of armchair lawyers who like to say this and that about legal obligations but the fact remains, they have none to anybody. The courts just proved it. If we all were paying to get into the main listings, then that would be a different story.
If Google gets into trying to be fair, it will be the beginning of the end for them. I just hope whatever their doing now will end for the better when it settles down.
I've always found stuff and not bookmarked it and was able to come back and find it again even if the link moved up or down in the serps by 4 or 5 spots. Lately, I'm finding the link is totally gone, or there are alot of 404 links.
Only time will tell exactly what Google is intending to do.
It's tough to buy into their ranking scheme when one day a site is THE most relevant and important on a search and the next #189. :)
I don't personally think this is what they intend for the future, rather some serious experimenting and tweaking. These daily/hourly changes really aren't useful to the user.
alternating search results in some fashion could make things much more complicated for optimizers, with just a little bit of effort on Google's part. in fact a good way to get optimizers to back off a bit, render webmaster efforts less effective. not that what is what we would want, but it might be what google wants? or are we just being paranoid?
we posted this question for GG in his q&A post that is presently being evaluated for responses, about the future of search results on google- dynamic or not?. sure others have as well. we are hopeful this subject will be addressed. since this started, until now, for one reason or another results are changing on www. constantly. we have discontinued all optimization efforts until some answers from observations, or GG, come through.
HOWEVER....this should not be random. As long as Google is trying to show us the most relevant results each and every time, than I have no problem with it.
The problem is, Google is currently not showing the most relevant results. One minute i'm seeing an index that appears to be from feburary, than the next minute it appears to be a more updated index. Than once again, back to Febuary.
