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From my own experiences AS A USER, I would give Google a rating of 8/10.
So AS USERS, how do other people rate Google? Forget dance issues, page-rank, etc. can you as a user find the information you want?
Current 'Broken' Google 5/10
The Google that wakes up to smell the rankness of foul play by giving penalities to mulitple domain (false page rank) conglomerates 9/10*
*Sorry 10/10 aint gonna happen for a while - you'd need virtual nueral networking to get the best page returned for your search every time!
No problem - I was a bit confused at first by the 'Dave posters' - I thought it might be like 'Bill Posters' - you know - stop persecuting poor old Bill Posters.... all those threats about prosecuting Bill posters.....
IITian - Ebay was 1, hotmail.com was 2, www.google.com was 3 and sex was 4.
So we've got people using search engines to find things which only exist 'on line' - thats a concern. Sex was number one for ages - its now off the podium and ranking behind 'geek stuff'.
Thats why we are doomed!
: )
Shows how often I use Teoma even tho I'd just used it I still managed to spell it more like Tacoma which is in my region of the country.
If you use the Macromedia SDK you can see what it sees (I think)..!
1. Many indexed pages
2. Good deep crawling
3. No fresh results
4. Very often algo changes, cause adwords must get some money for google ...
Google.com - no results
MSN and AltaVista both had results
Users are bound to notice this lack of freshness...
Bring back Google.
Found lots of mis-leading results.
Don't you care about new business offers or new pleasure events? Google can't give you that!
GoogleGuy stated that the addition of spam filters and backlinks would be a rather quick process after the datacenters stabilized.
We're still waiting.
For my sites (which are doing extermely well in the serps) GoogleBot (of all types) visits have been dropping by 10% a month since February despite increases in pages, content, images, etc. This is before taking into account the total absence of deepbot in May.
Oh Yeah, lest i forget, THE TOTAL ABSENCE OF DEEPBOT IN MAY!
The serps (by most accounts) are less relevant and more spammy than previously.
Whether it is 'under construction' or a 'work in progress' is as irrelevant as the current results. It will cause the downfall of Google if it continues for an extended period.
From the conspiracy theory side: These have all the markings of a company improving the cost picture prior to a sale. IPO by June 4.
I think it has already started....the downfall way!
Webmasters most use google for checking customers sites rank and nothing more...:)
These results coming from well-known website...
As a user I am seeing more dead links than I can recall ever seeing in the past. Will this lead to Google's downfall? No, but it certainly is a step in the wrong direction.
Wonder if the transition to this "new system" has been more difficult than they anticipated?
I agree with that kaled, but Google are probably quite aware.
Most users don't scrutinise the Toolbar to see if it's a few months out of date. Most users don't scrutinise the link: search results to see if they're a few months out of date.
Most users don't care if the datacentres produce slightly different results. Most users don't care if a few sites with accidental hidden text happen to have poor rankings (it just means that some other site is now higher than them).
Even if Google weren't taking fairly recent backlinks into account (and I'm pretty sure they are), the good old 'Fresh' results we've all come to know and love could have done the job just fine for a few months.
Most users just want to find what they're looking for. At that, Google is pretty good.
I just watched: not one curse or even a sigh out of him, and in 30 minutes on highly competitive terms, he had enough data to last a weekend's worth of driving around.
Whoever compared the current situation to a construction zone was right on. They're doing a great job at routing the traffic while a better road is being built.
Whoever compared the current situation to a construction zone was right on. They're doing a great job at routing the traffic while a better road is being built.
Yes, I think that is the experience of most users. There is a saying that, perhaps, applies - "Ignorance is Bliss". In other words, if the results appear to be good, the user is happy. The results don't actually have to be good and they certainly don't have to be the best.
One factor that always impresses me about Google is just how quickly it comes back with results. Speed usually inspires confidence in others, hence users are happy.
Perhaps one or two webmasters would like to try this experiment. Pick a few keywords for established Microsoft products. Go to the MS site and do a few searches. Next, do those same searches with Google. In my experience, Google results are likely to be returned maybe ten times quicker (even if all results on the page are in the MS website).
Whether this suggests Google to be good or MS to be bad, I'll let others decide.
[edited by: WebGuerrilla at 6:57 pm (utc) on June 2, 2003]
Most users just want to find what they're looking for. At that, Google is pretty good.
I agree with everything you said above. A month ago, there would have been no need to say it, however.
Even if Google weren't taking fairly recent backlinks into account (and I'm pretty sure they are),
I would agree if they are 'slightly different'. There are some problems with sites dropping in and out of the index and drastic ranking changes, because many users (myself included) use Google to return to sites that I've previously visited. It's annoying to find a site one day and then it disappear the next.
>>if Google weren't taking fairly recent backlinks into account
There are new backlinks, however IMO the body of link data they are using is also out of date. I have some sites where links were removed (for various reasons) and the links still show in a link: search, even though they don't show in the cache. Links from a good couple of months ago at least.
From a user perspective, I actually started using Google regularly as a switch from using alltheweb. I haven't used another search engine for day to day searches since then, apart from a few obscure queries where Google drew a blank. This won't change with the new index.
I also use other search engines for more specialists searches. Perhaps an effect of possible dissatisfaction with Google might be it losing loyalty rather than visitors?
I have to disagree a bit here. I started another thread about this and find it quite annoying as a user
[webmasterworld.com...]
>>Most users don't care if the datacentres produce slightly different results <<I have to disagree a bit here. I started another thread about this and find it quite annoying as a user
I agree to an extent, as I indicated above. Although it depends what 'slightly different' means. If it's like the existing results on the data centres, then the difference seems to be sites swapping around places a bit. I wouldn't see this as a real problem.
Elite, i'd substract 0.125 of any value since there's still no mac toolbar. Got it!? ;)
Mind you, it's getting like 1/10 every 3 days when my sites disappear then re-appear like magic for another 3 days...then disappear for another 3 days...then reappear....and so on, and so on... ;)
But as a search engine, I'll take Google with some issues almost every time. Nothing to say that isn't a duplication, it's an all around good SE. 8/10 (I will say that ATW is looking a lot better these days though).
My .02 - don't spend it all at once! ;)
The old Google: 9.5/10
Still no deepbot anywhere in sight.(A slightly more aggressive Freshbot is no replacement for Deepbot) So it looks like the current Google will be the "new" Google for a while.
The average web user might not notice anything now but if this keeps up, trust me eventually they will.
At first they'll just accept the inferior results and not know of any alternatives.
However ... more webmasters will start getting angry. Other web savy people will start getting frustrated. They will encourage others to use different engines.
Once Yahoo switches over a large amount of people will automatically use that and see no reason to search out google.
Google will always be popular but I can see the day coming when they will account for less than 40-45% of all SE traffic.
Which is a good thing.
However I do believe that its forums like this and members of forums like these that start internet trends and over a given amount of time would be able to influence colleagues and other office workers, family members, friends, etc to use other engines - and that's where the danger lies, that's why Google and all other engines follow these forums so closely. Not because they care about our sites and how well we've done this month. No chance, it's purely to keep everything smoothed over when that brown substance hits the fan.
I think Google is broken (how else do you explain a PR0 in #1 position) but they'll obviously never admit to it, and when it's fixed which will be next update sometime we'll all be happy again and you won't see the word "ATW" mentioned in the Google News forum for another .... I dunno..... 3 or 4 months.!
My current Google Rank, on a par with ATW at 7/10
