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I have been following closely the Update Dominic situation with Google. It is a big deal to us because we get alot of hits from Google, and fluctuations in traffic do happen with Google Updates. But with the current situation many of our newest pages and new products are not in Google, and so we are waiting for these to show up in the results. We submit our site to all the main search engines, but most of them do not guarantee inclusion unless you pay, and if they do get you in it seems it is months later.
With that out of the way --
I use Google pretty much exclusively for personal (not job related) searches. If the first query does not get any results that I am looking for, the second or third tweaked queries usually do. A few weeks ago I read about AllTheWeb and checked it out. I checked it out, thought it had a nice layout, and thought that it was pretty much equivilant to Google, so I might as well stick with Google as my primary search engine.
But then a few days later I was doing a search on Google, and was getting frustrated because no results were coming up that were relevant. So, I tried AllTheWeb. The first time a page that was relevant showed up. It was exactly what I was looking for, was a website from a free website company, and so had a PR of 0 on Google. I tried to find this page on Google but it wasn't anywhere to be found easily.
More and more now I am first trying Google, but then going to AllTheWeb. I still like Googles format and philosophy of business, but I need results that are both old and recent, but all relevant.
This process is exactly what happened back in 2000 when I first tried Google. I was trying Altavista, Hotbot, Lycos, etc and getting frustrated when a co-worker told me about Google. It had the best results right away and I began using it exclusively over a period of time.
So ... I am sure I am not the only person who is beginning to go through this. Our main websites hits from Google have gone down slightly, but we are not hurting from it because our business was not designed around Google, but I hope things get fixed before these hits start going down much more because people start abandoning Google as their primary search engine for something more accurate or relevant.
Just some thoughts.
Cliff
2, You know WHO owns AllTheWeb? yes the biggest PPC network out there, get your free traffic whilst you can, as big surprises are coming your way.
for the moment I am with Big G, both Organic and Paid listings.
Shak
Would love too. Problem is ATW generates no traffic at all.
I have one page #3 on Google and #2 on ATW for a decent money term.
Google- 185 hits on that term per day
ATW- .5 hits per day
So, even though the recent backdate at Google irks me a bit, I would prefer to support the engine that sends me tons of free referrals every day!
[edited by: mfishy at 9:31 pm (utc) on June 11, 2003]
Our results for our company are about the same also, and we have never received a hit that I know of from AllTheWeb. But there seem to also be more relevant results mixed in, and definitely more recent listings.
I don't know if AllTheWeb brand will take off, but if a companies name is important to convey what they do then AllTheWeb seems to be more accurate then a name like Google, yet look how big Google got. Name, as with other factors, are important in your success as a business.
I tend to be loyal to things that work. If Google, or Midas, or whatever company is consistently working then I won't change. Mainly because I am too lazy (or actually would rather direct my energy and time elsewhere) to find an alternative, and won't until I am forced too because of bad service, or rising prices, or a few bad experiences with individuals.
Thanks for your post and thoughts.
Cliff
I am not the only person who is beginning to go through this
You're right. I made the switch, only to Teoma. I find the SERPs much more relevant to my needs than G.
Think the next six months is going to be very interesting in web search. Marcia started a good thread on Is Yahoo holding a trump card? [webmasterworld.com] this morning. Take a look at it and bump it up, she always has thought provoking things to say.
ATW- .5 hits per day
How do you do it?! I get .5 hits per month.
Probably competetion looking for links that Google does not show :)
As for traffic, I got nearly 4,000 referrals from Google yesterday, compared with 6 from AllTheWeb and 1 from Teoma.
That's a bit of a stretch. The 2 sponsored links at the top of the page really aren't in a seperate area.
The bright orange text on a white background is not very easy on the eyes. The blue link color is heading more towards white than black, not providing maximum ease of readability for the text. There is no cache mechanism, which comes in vital for obtaining infomation from a page which has gone MIA. The mouse over effects look cool but it's not something you want to see on a page you use everyday.
On the other hand, the link: function actually works. It contains document clustering and pointers to similar searches.
Even though it's possible to use a custom stylesheet to change the ATW color, I think that color scheme will stop me from using ATW for anything other than finding the true backlinks for a site.
I can't figure out why DMOZ & Yahoo backlinks aren't listed (for sites I've checked at least) in an ATW link search.
