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All this hoopla about links and their relationship to your PR has got me wondering. Try doing a search for <snip> The results aren't relevant. However the results are all based on a link within a directory to their web site.
The actual page ranks #10, but the first 9 are a combo of directories (incl Google giving itself a couple of occurances) and one mention of their business name as a sponsor on a non-profit site.
So, tell me,please! Does this mean that an overall PR is more important to Google than the relevance of the keywords? I'm still trying to understand the changes in SE tactics, but I can tell you one thing. As a user, I expect relevancy to be number one priority. A link to your page,no matter were it is, should not rank ahead of your own site.
I think there's so much focus on the technical issues, somebody forgot about Johnny's Gramma, who just types in a keyword and expects to find the actual sites.
Yeah, I know I'm cranky.... thats cause it's so **** cold up here...
[edited by: Marcia at 5:46 pm (utc) on Jan. 10, 2003]
[edit reason] no specific companies or search terms, please [/edit]
The search term you posted was not a good one. Using the city name instead of the province put the site you mentioned at #1. If you use vague search terms you'll get poor search results.
A link to your page,no matter were it is, should not rank ahead of your own site.
Doesn't this cause all sorts of problems with all those reciprocal links out there?
It isn't because the site links to your site that it is getting listed, it's because it ranks higher than your site in more parts of the algorithm.
Google IS a technical solution. It will not bring up relevant information on every search. And it never will. You can't pik one search and claim that google is broken. If it were truely broken, people would stop using it.
My site has absolutely NOTHING to do with snow tires or tire chains. I come up #1 & #2 on a search that will only be used by people looking for snow tires. Don't ask me why they don't just type in "snow tires". The thing is, I am getting there on keywords, not just on PR.
I happen to have this keyphrase as part of a larger sentence that changes it's context. None of the other top listed sites have these two words together. Without having a human editor go to my site, to determine it's exact nature, and then look at every possible keyphrase to attach it to, I do not see how it is possible to avoid these problems.
Gramma is just going to have to learn how to search better. Mine did.
It isn't because the site links to your site that it is getting listed, it's because it ranks higher than your site in more parts of the algorithm.
Right, the directories were coming up because they contained lots of information about the province in question while the site you were interested in was less relevant for that key term.
Someone else tried to make the same claim recently about Google being broken because he didn't like the results he got for "english national anthem". Of course *England* has no national anthem, while *Britain* does. And English being the name of a language complicates matters ("England" would have been more straightforward, although still inaccurate). Poor searching.
I've found on Google that if you don't get the results you want you just need to refine your search. Poor searchers will get poor results until they come up with a SE that can read our minds. Google is the closest thing we have to that.
Not that Google is perfect. I mean, obviously my site is the best in its field but it keeps coming up 10th for my main keyword. ;)
It appears you didn't read my post very well.
"Does this mean that an overall PR is more important to Google than the relevance of the keywords?"
Still waiting for an answer....
"A link to your page,no matter were it is, should not rank ahead of your own site." Sounds pretty straight forward to me. Though for clarification I should have said "mere link..."
Mediation man, thank you for your comments, but it appears you missed my point.
"Someone else tried to make the same claim recently about Google being broken..." I re-read my post....please tell were I said that! That's a pretty severe twist of my words.
That particular groups of search words came from a discussion with a group "drop-outs" (people who used to use the net regularily and dropped out). Did you know that most ppl drop out because they feel the internet has nothing to offer, most people I've dealt with have also told me, they used to find it easy to search & surf, but it's gotten so complicated and confusing they don't bother anymore.
I have very good search skills, but it wasn't my own skills I was concerned about.
My apologies if I've offended you. I was merely pointing out a trend. I just assumed that the Internet was for everyone. Not just the "technologically gifted".
Maybe I've had too much decaf today! No offence taken, and I hope I haven't given any.
You said, "As a user, I expect relevancy to be number one priority."
I was trying to make the point that the results you got were in fact relevant for the search term you suggested, and that if you wanted to locate a business in a specific city then it would be best to include the that city in your search term rather than the province in which the city is located (and doing that does in fact bring that business to the top of the search results).
Therefore, the answer to your question, "Does this mean that an overall PR is more important to Google than the relevance of the keywords?" is "not necessarily" (or even "probably not") since you did get relevant results based on your keywords. They just weren't what you were looking for because you (or your friends) used inappropriate keywords. So it seemed to me that your question was resting on a false premise.
When you said "somebody forgot about Johnny's Gramma, who just types in a keyword and expects to find the actual sites," I took this to mean you thought there was something wrong with Google because it wasn't delivering the information you wanted (but hadn't asked for very effectively). Your heading, "Google search deteriorating?" tended to back up that impression in my mind. I'm sorry if you think I was twisting your words. That wasn't my intent.
Did you know that most ppl drop out because they feel the internet has nothing to offer, most people I've dealt with have also told me, they used to find it easy to search & surf, but it's gotten so complicated and confusing they don't bother anymore.
No, I didn't know that. In fact I don't know anyone who's stopped using the web for that reason.
The web has gotten a lot bigger since it started. That necessarily means both that there's a higher chance of there being what you want -- somewhere out there -- and that you're going to have to be smarter in finding it.
If a library gets bigger you can no longer just find what you want by eyeballing the shelves and you have to learn to use a catalog. The web's like that, except there's no catalog so we have to learn to use Google (and other search engines) effectively. Simply not using the web is another valid response, I suppose, but it's a rather limiting one.
It doesn't seem to me that including a city name in a search string when you're looking for a business in that city is very technologically advanced.
Did you know that most ppl drop out because they feel the internet has nothing to offer, most people I've dealt with have also told me, they used to find it easy to search & surf, but it's gotten so complicated and confusing they don't bother anymore.
As more folks from the general population try the Web, it's inevitable that some will find it too complicated. Some people aren't very smart, others have trouble with any new technology (how many people can program their VCR clocks?), and others want information spoon-fed to them. I see this often at the public library, where people will go up to the librarian and ask "Where are the travel books?" instead of looking at the overhead signs or the big labels on the ends of the shelves. Heck, I see it on my own site--I have an editorial site that's very clearly devoted to European travel, and I get e-mails from people who want help with U.S. residence permits. You could wave a sign reading "I'M BOB" in some people's faces, and they'd ask, "Do you know where I can find Bob?"
And let's face it, as much as we all "love" Google - it's nothing more than Altavista without a PageRank.
PageRank is just one factor in Google's algorithm. Google's search results have never been based solely on PageRank (at least, not as far as I can remember), so what's the big deal if it begins tweaking the PageRank level up or down?
IMHO, as Google becomes better at judging on-page factors and detecting spam (and as SEOs manipulate PageRank distribution by artificial means), it only makes sense for Google to make greater use of the other instruments in its relevance-seeking arsenal. In the end, what counts is the quality of the search results--and Google is doing a lot better than AltaVista on that score.
The issue wasn't city vs province, appropriate keywords or even any question of my intelligence (offense taken).
I don't consider "deteriorating" to be bashing Google. Particularily when it was posed as a question.
If I want Google directory results, I'll click the "directory" tab on the search page.
The my words may have been harsh, but your responses (with a few exceptions) were right in line with what I was trying to say.
I'm done being degraded by insults to my intelligence.
I'm a Canadian too. I recently got several of my real estate sites linked on a high pr page. I was amazed that my sites' pr had not improved and the site that linked to mine was suddenly one of the top ranked real estate sites on the web, though its only relevance to real estate was that fact that it had my real estate links.
Google I find has been placed too much importance on pr instead of checking whether the page is relevant or not. My sites have the term used in the title, throughout the text, and in links. This other site has it just in the links pointing to my sites. It seems obvious that Google's algorithm could detect this and rank the sites accordingly. I have noticed that larger less relevant sites have begun to dominate and the quality of the search results has become very poor.
Sounds like you have the same syndrome as me. I posted about it a few weeks ago, and the end result was that it seems the site linking to me could own a high pagerank, but not pass it on. Some sort of google penalty the mods said.
Might as well get those links removed unless they're relevant. They'll just promote the other site to your detriment.
I recently got several of my real estate sites linked on a high pr page.
The question is: how recently? Perhaps Google did not have the time to update its PR rating for your site yet.
Anybody knows how often this happens? I would suspect not more often than once in two months.
