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Anyone else noticing any major changes?
Imho it does not look like randomization (in the literal sense). To me it looks more like the previous PR4 threshold reversed, so that they display pages PR4 and below.
Still, they don't display all, it's only a selection. If that selection is a random sample, it does not seem to be changing much for each request, so until (random) change has been seen, i'd prefer the term "selection".
(having a statistics background, the term "random" has kinda, well, special meaning to me ;) )
Well done G! you seem to have beaten most of the SEO's!
You have destroyed your quality of results in the process......but heck, who really cares about that?
Go G! go.......you are now on the right path to success by delivering largely irrelevant results!
Delivering irritant results is good, people will learn they should be clicking on the Adwords results instead, or going to the Adsence based results :)
Don't change a thing to make your results more relevant to users......that will only end up costing you money ;)
That's a good idea! Only people will stop clicking on AdWords and AdSense when they realise the complete irrelevance of most results. Then Google loses a ton of cash and advertisers put their money where it works (such as Overture/FindWhat, whoever else may bring ROI) and it's goodbye Google. You could always sell yourself to Yahoo! (Don't think it won't happen - one word: AltaVista! - or is that two words?!?!)
I've noticed in my trade that most search terms are now bringing up a whole new set of top ten results on nearly any search - companies I have never heard of. Many are shopping comparison sites or information about products. People don't want information on these search terms - they are looking to buy!
As stated earlier, Google seems to be trying to filter out ecommerce sites and concentrating on information sites, which is a bad thing. I, for example, will not spend money to advertise on AltaVista - the traffic it brings me is so low that I won't risk advertising on their site. If Google stops sending free traffic, then the AdWords money will also have to stop. New advertisers will not be so easy to sign up (why should someone sign up for a search engine that only sends them a handful of free results every month when Yahoo/MSN sends them more - why not advertise on Yahoo or MSN? It makes more sense).
I don't know what Google are trying to do but they seem to be breaking their (previously) excellent engine. Every month, the results seem to gradually get worse. I find myself using other engines more and more to find what I want - I didn't have to do this in 2001 and 2002.
I've been trying to find the email address of a famous Cambridge (UK) prof. - and even using the advanced search features been getting some very poor results indeed.
BTW, the other week I was after some basic NASA results, and spent 3 hours on Google trying to find some stuff on the Space Shuttle (just an animation or video of a launch) - I failed miserably and felt something was a bit wrong then.
BTW2, if they are attempting another ecommerce algo (this is only an assumption - but I strongly suspect it) - I think it messes up their results right across the board, and they should stop it pronto.
Imho it does not look like randomization (in the literal sense). To me it looks more like the previous PR4 threshold reversed, so that they display pages PR4 and below.Still, they don't display all, it's only a selection.
Hmm... I noticed that one PR4+ link survived for us; one of our two G directory listings. The rest are <PR4 ODP clones and total about half of our previous listing of PR4+ links. If they were going to show a selection, why knock the number down so far from what was there before.
Good find, Powdork, on GG's post from June, but I still say it has to be a glitch, otherwise it's just plain ridiculous... I mean, what is the point, (other than to play games with WW members)? The vast majority of our backlinks being displayed are from the absolute worst of the links. No one in their right mind would bother visiting any of those sites in search of more info on the topic of our site.
Checking out the links often told me about the quality of a site regardless of its PR. I have seen sites with enjoyed high PR with bought links, and there were sites that had links from quality sites. Now I can't tell.
PR0 60.33%
PR1 00.82%
PR2 08.36%
PR3 12.46%
PR4 14.43%
PR5 03.44%
PR6 00.16%
PR7 00.00%
PR8 00.00%
PR9 00.00%
PR10 00.00%
PR Mean = 1.3082
PR MIN = 0
PR MAX = 6
PR Median = 3
PR Mode = 4
PR Standard Deviation = 1.7264
Before the update, the backlinks PageRank distribution for my homepage was:
PR0 43.04% (PR0 is from dynamic URLs mostly)
PR1 00.00%
PR2 0.39%
PR3 07.60%
PR4 24.48%
PR5 21.91%
PR6 01.80%
PR7 00.77%
PR8 00.00%
PR9 00.00%
PR10 00.00%
PR Mean = 2.4729
PR MIN = 0
PR MAX = 7
PR Median = 3.5
PR Mode = 5
PR Standard Deviation = 2.2376
As stated earlier, Google seems to be trying to filter out ecommerce sites and concentrating on information sites, which is a bad thing.
Even if that were true, why would it be a bad thing for Google or users? It would be in keeping with Google's stated mission of "organizing the Web's information and making it universally accessible."
Also, Google indexes pages, not sites. So, even if Google were trying to filter out e-commerce pages (such as boilerplate catalog pages, affiliate pages, or order pages), affiliate and e-commerce sites could continue to place well by providing "added value" content pages for their prospects and customers.
Finally, who's to say that the results you see today will be the results you see tomorrow or next week or next month? There's nothing new about Google's testing and tweaking its ranking algorithm or spam filters, and there's nothing permanent about any set of search results.
1) bad for ecommerce sites : will have to focus on MSN/Yahoo
2) bad for Google : AdWords will be dropped (revenue)
3) bad for shoppers : they will have to find new search engine(s)
I can't see why content is more important than ecommerce. Surely the search phrases should determine if a person is wanting content or is shopping? They have always been good at getting this correct in the past.
If it is Froogle they want to promote, then that is a bad thing. Froggle is USA only - they would need to roll this out to other Google's very quickly in order to not lose their searchers.
