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The same programme also commented on the irrelevance of results returned by just typing in keywords. Pointing out most sites returned for their search of "shelving" were comparison shopping sites, plus an educational site.
They also encouraged viewers to use the advanced search facility or to put search terms in quotes, which I have noticed also obviates the new filter.
The item was accompanied by sob stories from small co's and an expert from a UK Internet magazine stating the purpose was to reduce the amount of spam in searches.
IMHO, I think that, while Google's efforts are valiant, the results are a miserable failure - at least in the areas I monitor. In trying to kick out the spam, which wasn't such a problem anyway, they just got rid of all the most relevant matches! And the pages from certain top price comparison sites are still there - even when they only say "your search for widgets didn't return any matches.... are you interested in oozamewotsits instead?"!
Regards,
Suggy
The GOOD news for everyone is that the chance of this actually negatively affecting the overall economy is zero. I successfully bought every thing I looked for last week. I may not have bought merchandise from the same store I would have two months ago, but I certainly bought it all from someone.I think perhaps you are making a blanket statement about ecommerce on the whole based on what you bought last week. How do you know you didn't pay more than you would have a week ago. And do you immediately head for the dmoz listing? Don't be fooled, when businesses go belly up, even if it's lining someone else's pockets, it drives up the cost of doing business.
Here is a thought:
Suppose Google has been tracking our surfing habits more closely than we thought, or is using it more than we thought. The more pages Google visitors surf and the time they spend there could be very important. Think about it. Well optomized sites land people on the right page. Good user navigation moves them around quickly. I know that my user retention is lowest from Google, because MSN ALWAYS drop them off on the homepage and Yahoo! does this a little more too since there are no indented listings.
There are clearly holes in the above theory but it could play a part.
The GOOD news for everyone is that the chance of this actually negatively affecting the overall economy is zero.
I would agree with Powdork when he says :-
I think perhaps you are making a blanket statement about ecommerce on the whole based on what you bought last week.
Zero? Have you seen SERPS where you have Google directory, Dmoz, Yahoo , Amazon all listed in top 10? Whats the point of having all those directories in SERPS?
Dunno if you are aware of the Spamazon problem. There are past threads about it. At that time most of the searches resulted in Amazon results coupled with Pdfs(the threads had documented examples) . There was a big hue and cry over this and it got restored. Now again there is a resurface in the Spamazon listings. And to top it you now have an added dosage of Google directory and Dmoz listing one below other. Whats the purpose of having both the directory in top 10?
And no I am not talking of terms which I monitor. These were passed on to me by a Colleague.
How many people advocating better SERPs talked to Experienced webmasters or Mods around here. Many of them are raking in the money from this update. But you know what? They are not satisfied with the results . They see a degrade in overall quality.
The point I am trying to make is that Google used to return good results for these queries a month back and not now.
I would also *really* like to know whay most do not have their URL in their profile?
There are lots of valid reasons for not having URL in profile. That does not imply they are using any shady tactics or are SPAMMERS. Just MHO.
None, and Google should either not index their own directory or not index Dmoz. It is essentially/theoretically duplicate content in slightly different clothes.
>Many of them are raking in the money from this update. But you know what? They are not satisfied with the results .
I know some that are very satisfied, mainly because of the amount of money they are raking in. I know of two sites (affiliate based directories) that by my estimate must have increased revenue from $30K per month to several hundred thousand per month. You could argue that one entry in the SERPs for these guys is justified, but not 15 out of the first 30 or 40 positions for numerous non relevant cities all based upon cross linked sub-domains full of practically identical content.
Google needs to do something about the massively cross-linked sub-domain problems.
They'll buy from someone else. Pete's Widgets may lose money, but Maria's Widgets will gain money. If they can't find it on Google they'll look on another search engine. If the entire travel industry is mom and pop stores and I am looking for a travel store then ANY one I pick will be supporting a mom or pop store. Who cares if it's the same one who dominated the serps in February (other than the store owners)?
There's no way the Google update could have this kind of impact on the OVERALL economy, guys; think about it. Are people going to decide not to spend money because of a shake-up in the Google search returns? Come _on_.
