Google fast becoming the worst search engine on the web

[blink]

Google fast becoming the worst search engine on the web?

I say this with reason, some recent searches i have made have turn up some of the worst results i have ever seen on a search engine, only about 1/2 of the results were related to my search.

When searching alltheweb the results on the whole have been much better.

Whats going on?
You thoughts please.

Blink

[sfowler]

There are other search engines for English language searches, but they are one of the few with good support for other languages. That is one of the major reasons for their world wide success. Until another SE with a good German interface and half way reasonable results turns up they will remain number one here.

[bettyt456]

I disagree. I think Google is more consistent
in results. It comes down to what you type in your search.

As far as getting qualified buyers on your site
who pull out their credit cards creating you a commission.....a Google presence is where the
money is.

Webmasters better be up on the new "stemming technology" Google is using or we will soon
see our pages down on page 30.

Brent

[minstrel]

I also find that Google is consistent in producing the best results for most of the kinds of searches I do. These are primarily for information rather than products or searches, mind you.

Would you care to provide an example of a Google search that demonstrates why you think Google is terrble, blink?

[zoreli]

While I am seeing Yahoo! to improve, I still get most relevant results on Google. However, I notice that other people on other forums are complaining about relevancy of Google results, but I have no such experience.

I agree with minstrel that posting an example would be good idea.

Regards,Zoreli

[blink]

I think the worst results are when you search for a topic and you get a list of SE's or directories to search for your topic rather than giving you direct result.

example :
if i search for "italian property" on www.google.co.uk
the results are :-

either big directories or smaller SE's
eg:
www.jojaffa.com/shop/assistant.php?pid=23
http://www.dogpile.co.uk/uk.dogpl/se...alian+property
www.joeant.com/DIR/ search.php?keywords=Italian%20Property%20Portal

i just dont think this is the right way to index searches. I never seem to have propblemswith all the other major SE's

your thoughts?

thanks
blink

[minstrel]

Two things off the top of my head:

1. if you try thinking as a buyer instead of a seller or webmaster, what is wrong with getting directory listings as search results? I think I might well find that helpful...

2. how are the search results better on other search engines and why? which search engines specifically?

[sfowler]

For general searches I still use Google. As I said, it has the best German interface, and the results are reasonable. For technical searches I use globalspec, which is also where I am likely to be spending money.

[blink]

if you try thinking as a buyer instead of a seller or webmaster, what is wrong with getting directory listings as search results? I think I might well find that helpful...

To think like a buyer you must act like a buyer, think of a product thats not mainstream and click on google. You find lots of directories that offer 10's of thousands of other products and HEY your back where you started, the only difference is your now on a page of a small SE/DIR, whats the point of that? The whole reason you went on the main engine to start with was to get cystal clear results.

The DIR's are acting as the middleman, but wasnt the whole idea/point of these search engines in the first place to provide direct information for the user/buyer, not a merrygoround.

how are the search results better on other search engines and why? which search engines specifically?

The searches on most other major SE's seem to point you the client in the right direction in the first place without the horror of the "merrygoround"

which engines?
im still not sure, but one thing i know is on most others the middleman doesnt pop his ugle head up on every page.

Or perhaps ive got it all wrong,

thanks for the replys and your time

blink

[I am Nick]

I must say that I am finding Google providing me with less relevant results than before. I am also annoyed about the directories popping up, as well as larger companies mearly dealing with the products.

I think this is especially an issue in case looking for a smaller supplier/maker, not an agent or middle man. Many smaller suppliers only have a small web page with no focus on SEO, which make them difficult to find. Their main business still come trough traditional sources, word of mouth, paper ads, yellow paper, etc.

With the reuirements of many inbound links, as well as PR, these companies are difficult to find. Inbound links to be counted for as votes has to be improved, before counted for, or not get as much weight, I suggest.

However, I want to stay updated with Google, so I keep using it even though I should search for alternatives.

Nick

[blink]

So is google ignoring the small business aspect?
and only targeting the big directories?

Their main business still come trough traditional sources, word of mouth, paper ads, yellow paper, etc.

The pay per click system has certainly targeted the small business sector, Does this mean that in a short while small businesses will have to pay to be noticed on the google search? With paper ads and yellow pages its a very easy system for the owner of the business to use, and they have a good chance of converting these tradition ads into sales, without have to employ a search engine specialist to get their site noticed. What an ordeal for the business owner.

Many business owners in italy have ignored the web for sale generation, because of this fact. And will continue to do so.

I hear: Whats the point of having an online portfolio if nobody see's it?, Ive already spent 1000euros on my website now i have to spen another 1000euros to get it noticed? THANKS BUT NO THANKS, i'll stick to what i know works.

google ignore small businesses at your peril because thats where all the big business develop from.

thanks

blink

[mj2043]

Originally Posted by blink

google ignore small businesses at your peril because thats where all the big business develop from.

Or invite small business to Adwords....

And only people working one website or try to do SEO found Google results are bad, for ordinary pepole it is not much different and still use it.

[blink]

And only people working one website or try to do SEO found Google results are bad, for ordinary pepole it is not much different and still use it.

?

[minstrel]

I believe what 2003m2003 is saying is that the only people who are finding Google "bad" are webmasters who aren't ranking as well as they wish -- and that for the rest of the world, Google works just fine.

[pne]

minstrel,

Kind of agree, kind of don't. I'm finding Yahoo! increasingly returns (slightly) better results in my niche than Google. But that's subjective, irrelevant and not the point.

My feeling is that the mega-directory sitting at the top of the SERPs is anti-competitive and against the ethos that (I guess) most posters here subscribe to.

The fact that Google is the search engine of choice for most searchers is as irrelevant to the issue of "quality" as my subjective opinion posted above.

These issues are market-driven. Google has primacy because it (once) served up the best searches, it had a clever gimmick and it was hip. I think it's losing it's search engine relevancy (slowly for sure) and that's a good thing for us, i.e. Webmasters.

Regards,

pne

[minstrel]

pne, my last post above was actually interpreting what2003m2003 had said, although I do tend to agree with him.

Elsewhere, I have acknowledged that how "good" Google is relative to Yahoo, etc., may depend on what you are searching for. Almost all of my searches are for information and either Google Search or Google Groups definitely returns the best results for me. However, I rarely search for products or services on the net; some who do claim that Yahoo is superior for that type of search. Given that different search engines use slightly to somewhat different methods for indexing and determining relevance, it wouldn't surprise me at all if it turns out that how well they perform is partly dependent on what they are cataloging (spelling?) interacting with HOW they are doing that.

[pne]

Absolutely agree. I suppose my main bone of contention is mega-site domination, which has been discussed to death.

Regards,

pne

[sfowler]

Like I said, we just do not have the choice of German interface SEs, Google is definitely tops there. Perhaps some of you should be spending your marketing budget on advertising the other SEs instead of PPC or Overture. So long as Joe Public uses it, it remains important, and it is really irrelevant how bad we consider the results to be.

[pne]

Simon,

You've hit the nail on the head. It really doesn't matter (for now, wait for MSN) how bad any of them are. Public perception, backed by marketing spend is where it's at.

Unfortunately.

pne

[MathsIsFun]

Well, I am increasingly turning to Yahoo for general searches (not related to my webmaster duties).

I initially search on Google out of habit, but after a couple of pages I think "let's try Yahoo", and I seem to get more relevant results !

A recent search for a map yielded only one useful result in 3 pages of Google, but two good results in 2 pages of Yahoo.

Irrespective of that it is all about public perception, but if Yahoo can keep this up, they may yet come back to rival big G

[jacobwissler]

If you do a search on Google for topic A, you get infromation about topic A, do the same search on Yahoo, and you get a person who wants to sell topic A.

[mantawebsolutions]

i find google results to be relevant to every search.

Most of my site visitors come from searches done via google. I guess google is still popular worldwide...
Yahoo almost fades away in comparison

[blink]

Originally Posted by jacobwissler

If you do a search on Google for topic A, you get infromation about topic A, do the same search on Yahoo, and you get a person who wants to sell topic A.

Hi Jacob, please read the whole discussion then you will relise that you dont always get A when searching for A

regards

blink

[pne]

blink,

Couldn't agree more. The issues are connected to search relevancy and - apart from obvious spam - can only be judged on a more or less subjective basis.

pne

[dracula]

Simply no! Google is still the best to me.
First in the 90:ies my favorite was Altavista ...then Infoseek ..and now Google....
..but what´s next ?

[Lee Deeming]

The vast majority of Google users aren't as efficient as they could be, when using search terms. When using Google correctly, I always find the results to be more than satisfactory.

[Lordmk]

Originally Posted by blink

Google fast becoming the worst search engine on the web?

I say this with reason, some recent searches i have made have turn up some of the worst results i have ever seen on a search engine, only about 1/2 of the results were related to my search.

When searching alltheweb the results on the whole have been much better.

Whats going on?
You thoughts please.

Blink

I do not agree, google is still number one on search engines. Did you try Yahoo lately? All resulds there are old min couple of months and the results are terible comparing with Google

[blink]

Originally Posted by Lee Deeming

The vast majority of Google users aren't as efficient as they could be, when using search terms. When using Google correctly, I always find the results to be more than satisfactory.

What are you searching for? yes i agree that mainstream seaches are good on google, but go non mainstream (small business)what are your results? thats what were discussing in this topic.

please respond with more than one line and a quote.

regards

blink

[beanstalk]

Originally Posted by blink

Google fast becoming the worst search engine on the web?

I say this with reason, some recent searches i have made have turn up some of the worst results i have ever seen on a search engine, only about 1/2 of the results were related to my search.

When searching alltheweb the results on the whole have been much better.

Whats going on?
You thoughts please.

Blink

LOL ... anybody wanna reflect back about, oh say oh, 12 months and recal what Google was up to then. ;)

Google has it's moments but all in all I'd say it's a pretty good engine. You ran double checks on other engines but did you run the hundreds of searches you do on Google on those ones too? How were your results accross the board on the various engines.

[agi13]

Hi everybody,

it was fun listening the debate...

I would be glad to see what do you think about Google and Yahoo!search after having read the followings:

At Google.com:
1/query:
travel guide in budapest
comment:
"in" is a very common word and was not included in your search.
result:
homepage (www.tourguide.hu with title Travel Guide in Budapest) is to be found on the 6. page
2/query:
travel guide to budapest
comment:
"to" is a very common word and was not included in your search.
result:
homepage (www.tourguide.hu with title Travel Guide in Budapest) is to be found on the 8. page
3/query:
travel guide budapest
comment:
none
result:
homepage (www.tourguide.hu with title Travel Guide in Budapest) is to be found on the 14. page

I can read at suggestions:
Automatic "and" Queries
By default, Google only returns pages that include all of your search terms. There is no need to include "and" between terms.
Keep in mind that the order in which the terms are typed will affect the search results. To restrict a search further, just include more terms.
For example, to plan a vacation to Hawaii, simply type: vacation hawaii.

I find searching for travel guide budapest at Yahoo!:
homepage (www.tourguide.hu with title Travel Guide in Budapest) on the 1. page

What a big difference...

Can you explain it to me?

Best,

[urknighterrent]

I still have my google toolbar, and I still use it, but I'm inclined to agree that the quality of their organics is slipping fast. I started using yahoo when I caught myself skipping on google to page 4 to try and get past all the indexes and unrelated sites.

I'm inclined to think google is putting too much importance on links and not enough on content.

I still use it, but I'm finding myself turning to yahoo more and more. If their toolbar didn't hijack my "Ctrl+f" function I'd have installed it.

[sfowler]

I think that is exactly it. We are told that links make the difference, so everybody goes out chasing links, meaning every website there has a couple of hundred links placed on it, which are all showing up in the results. The we are told, write articles, and post them everywhere. So we do that, and articles about nuclear energy turn up on websites about dairy farming. It's no wonder the results are screwed up in many cases. So long as links are such an important part of the ranking algorithm, people will try and collect as many as possible. It is only natural and human, and for those of us who are paid to ensure that a site is ranking well, it is part of the job. The end result is a complete labyrinth of partially related links and incorrect results. Sorry, I had to let that one out after a long search for something obscure that produced a rash of seemingly unrelated results.

[hawkwind dave]

Originally Posted by jacobwissler

If you do a search on Google for topic A, you get infromation about topic A, do the same search on Yahoo, and you get a person who wants to sell topic A.

Now I tend to find the exact opposite of this, any topic search i do on GG always throws amazon up trying to sell me a book on the subject.

I don't want the book, I want the info. (still, I get round this these days by preliminarily searching for topic+forum and take it from there, half of it is knowing how to use a perticular search engine)

[mantawebsolutions]

I think sfowler hit the nail on the head. Every1 links to every1 else, therefore when you search for A, then B (with a link to A) also shows up...

[blink]

sfowler your the man!
Thanks for showing us some light on the subject,

So another question pops up, if everybody links to everybody else then how can the search engines find the right pages?

will domain names become more important in the future, thats the only way i can think of that the SE's will be able to provide correct results in the future.

thanks again sfowler

cheers

blink

[urknighterrent]

I'm not sure that's the answer. Domain names can be just as misleading as anything else. And I don't think it would be a good idea to completely eliminate the link=vote element of the algo. Link popularity is a valid consideration when deciding a sites relevance. Unfortunately, link networks are NOT organic. This detracts significantly from their importance.

Google should pull back a little to the old days when they also considered the content of the site, but should still keep an eye out for relevant links. I've taken to calling Google "link junkies". Links should not be the end-all of page rank.

[jackson992]

Links are useless for judging relevance IMO

[sfowler]

With a little help from Google we have made them irrelevant.

[MathsIsFun]

I think part of the problem is Google's relationship with webmasters. We are like an enemy.

I mean, we KNOW what searches we would like to arrive at our websites, and we try to convince G by having *just the right* number of keywords on the page, IBLs with our chosen words in them, and so on.

Can't they just let us tell them directly?

Yes, yes, it is all about fighting spam, and any avenue that opens gets abused - but there has to be a better way.

Maybe they could judge a page by it's professionalism - at least the top pages would look good :)

[Firwefly]

The debate (thread) started with a pretty silly headline (Google the worts blah blah?!) so what can we expect? 'Links are everything' - 'links' have ruined the web, life and everything'...
It's difficult to believe that peeps could believe that GG is based on links... when it's clear that it is just one part of the equation.
I do everything the GG way and check others regularly. SE like mamma and AV are a joke, they find so little (and so out of date, and irrelevant).
My stats show GG as the only SE of note. And *that's* official.

[mantawebsolutions]

eSolutionsWork: I do everything the GG way and check others regularly. SE like mamma and AV are a joke, they find so little (and so out of date, and irrelevant).
My stats show GG as the only SE of note. And *that's* official.

I totally agree, i see the same results in my stats. GG everywhere. I optimize my site for GG only, no need for others

[sfowler]

My traffic is also around 70 % Google, so I concentrate on them mainly. Anything else is a bonus.

[MathsIsFun]

I also agree - Google is the main provider of visitors to my site.

But this is now. What of the future. Yahoo IS starting to provide noticably good results, and there MAY be a trend away from Google as a result.

Check out this related topic: http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=31035

[sfowler]

Joe Public will not bother to change the set start page more than once, unless there are VERY good reasons. If MSN starts producing good results we will see a trend to MSN, since it will be set as default at installation. Those who now have Google set will leave it as it is in most cases.

There are also very few SEs with a good interface in other languages. We don't all speak English, and Yahoo is no good in German, for instance.

[minstrel]

Originally Posted by sfowler

Joe Public will not bother to change

That's true. I remember Joe from Grade 6 -- he always was lazy and unmotivated. By high school, all he was interested in was "fighting for his right to party"...

There are also very few SEs with a good interface in other languages. We don't all speak English, and Yahoo is no good in German, for instance.

We're all still waiting for the rest of the world to learn English. It would be so much easier for us Anglophones if the rest of the world would just cooperate in this... God Save The Queen! ;o)

[urknighterrent]

Absolutely, Google is the biggest. I disagree that that makes it the best. Most important... definately, but not the best. When I need information or products/services, I personally will continue to login to yahoo (MSN is just yahoo with paid ads disguised at the top for the time being). When my clients want to talk SEO I offer to do a content optimization, tell them that they need a Google optimization, and kick them your way with a warning that anyone asking less than 6 grand a year is prolly either an amature or a cheater.

My traffic? It's only one visit... but more and more it's coming in through Yahoo!.

[smakyyy]

Simply no! Google is still the best to me.
First in the 90:ies my favorite was Altavista ...then Infoseek ..and now Google....
..but what´s next ?
_________________
//Rudi
____________________

next is the search engine i am going to come up with ;-)

[sfowler]

Minstrel, considering you live in a country with two OFFICIAL languages, not to mention the minority groups, I feel that the problem should be very close to home for you. Even those who do speak English will probably try a search in their own language first, because then they may hope to find documentation and support in their own language, which is useful for those who do not speak it.

Trouble is, if you have used Google to search in say, Afrikaans, are you likely to switch to Yahoo! to search in English? I wouldn't.

[hawkwind dave]

This is where the argument for esparanto comes into play, one second language for us all, one second language for the net.

not that I know any, but it sounds like a good idea.

[sfowler]

Fine, just get it made compulsory in all schools throughout the world, including Britain and the US, and we will talk again in 20 years! Trouble is, we have to keep eating until then, so I suggest that an interim solution might be a good idea.