Google’s Glory Days Are Numbered

[deepsand]

Three different users, three different behaviors from Google.

Since Google does in fact have the target URL indexed, truly relevant results should always return it as the 1st listing, which Google clearly does not. Worse yet, for one user, Google obstinately refuses do display it.

Pretty much puts a big wooden stake through the heart of the claims re. Google's superiority in search results.

[LD]

Yep - brings new meaning to the phrase "random results".

[deepsand]

May not be as random as appears. Might be user personalized vis-a-vis geo-location and browsing history so as to force a display which generates AdWords listing likely to yield the highest expected revenues, just as is the case for Instant Search dynamic results.

[DuncanM]

No company stays on top forever. We saw that with IBM and, more recently, with the auto companies. If a company survives over the long term, it is usually in a much-reduced and changed state.

I am sure something will come along sooner or later that surpasses Google.
I don't know the details of Google's algorithm, and haven't made a detailed comparison of search results among the various search engines, but at the moment I am somewhat annoyed at their interface changes.
I go to the "Search Settings" page all the time to set my search options. And I almost always use the "Advanced Search" page.

(Being in Canada, when I go to Google, I am always re-directed to google.ca).

Last year (I think) they changed access to these pages from a link on the main page to a pull-down menu on the "Options" bar (right beside the "Sign in" link) at the top right of the page.

Within the past month, they have changed the interface again. Now, on the left side of the page I have a pull-down menu that lists several Google services, (+You, Images, Maps, YouTube, News, etc), but I don't see a way to access the "Options". Even if I select the "More" option and then the "Even more" option, I still don't see a link or option for configuring my search settings or going to the Advanced search page.

The only way I have found to get to these pages is to specifically direct my browser to go to google.com (leaving the google.ca site).
Then I have the previous gear symbol at the top right of the page that allows me to configure search settings or do an Advanced search.
What an annoyance! Why do they do that?

If they were going to make such changes to their interface, they should have gotten rid of that dialogue box that pops up after you configure search settings.
For example, if you go to the "Search Settings" page, select some settings, and then click the "Save" button, a dialog box pops up on screen stating, "Your preferences have been saved". You then click the "OK" button and are taken back to the Google search page. Myself, I find that whole step pointless and a waste of time. Google should have gotten rid of that box a long time ago. That is the sort of change I would like to see. Not this constant rearrangement of features that just makes it confusing.

[dimples]

I still believe that Google will still stand strong through the years to come. No one can even see what the future holds so I am confuse why they had to always say that Google will fail, Google is going down type of conversations. I like Google even with the ads they show with their results. Its way way better than yahoo anyway.

Dimples

[deepsand]

... I am confuse why they had to always say that Google will fail, Google is going down type of conversations.

Because Google continues to aggressively push the boundaries with respect to what is legal and ethical to the point where more governments and more users are taking note.

Such behavior, continued long enough, inevitably brings a serious misstep and fall.