Google from Good to Bad to Ugly

[Ghost Eyes]

Today I searched for gristmill to do a little research for an historical article I needed to write. I "Google'd it" and get (I am in Virginia):

1- A restaurant in Texas
2- Wikipedia
3- A Bed and Breakfast - Vermont
4- A restaurant - Connecticut
5- Actual Mill doing tours - Oregon
6- Actual Mill doing tours Pennsylvania
7- Actual Mill doing tours - Rhode Island
8- Grist Mill Market and Cafe/Gas station - Michigan
9- Old Sturbridge Village - Massachusetts
10- Gristmill Builders - Vermont.

There are at least three old gristmills in Virginia within 20 minutes of me dating back to the 1600's that offer tours and such.

Oh and the dictionary definition of gristmill - Page two at the bottom.

Google has gone from good to bad to at least today, down right ugly. Wonder how long it will take for the general public to take notice and start switching to alternatives like Bing/Yahoo?

OH and search for Grist Mill - same results different order.

[robjones]

Is that the lesson you took from that exercise? I'd have concluded you tried far too general a search to reasonably expect the localized category specific result you hoped for.

[Ghost Eyes]

I didn't want any localized information or restaurant's - I wanted general information.

What I took from this is I searched for a general term but was returned specific information I didn't want. If I had searched for gristmill restaurants I think I could fully understand the returns.

I have done this type of search many of time, never has the results been like this. The sites with quality content, information on how gristmills worked and what they did are all buried on page two and further. I wonder why Google assumed I wanted gristmill restaurants and not information on what they were? If anything I would think I would get a mix of things in the top ten - at least that what they used to do.

I don't have a site or any investment in the keyword gristmill, just saying as a search person, I am not impressed with the return results post Panda/Penguin.

[Cricket]

Sorry, but Google is not a mind reader. If you wanted historic sites then you should have searched for those.

[Ghost Eyes]

Playing devils advocate here, forgetting we are webmasters and know anything about search engines - you are saying these are exceptional results for a generalized search?

I beg to differ about the mind reading, there are numerous results that could have come up here and I just find it interesting that restaurants and B&B's dominate the top ten.

You both have valid points about refining search but two things, one the results pre-panda was extremely different and much more useful and I would think a general search term would lead to general results, not 50% eateries.

Maybe its just me and I am looking at this wrong but I would think at least the definition of gristmill would be in the top ten (Like Bing) for such a general search.

[DigitalAlien]

In your title you say that Google goes from Good to Bad to Ugly which implies that at one point in time you didn't have this problem. Did you used to get results that had the gristmills in your local area? I would love to hear the process of how it went from Good to Bad to Ugly.

Also, people aren't going to be using alternatives like Bing or Yahoo as you suggest. Do you see the local results that you're looking for when you search on their engines?

[rypher21]

Be specific and do a thorough search, sometimes the data you get from the search engine arent the ones that you exactly looking for so be patient and think of good keyphrases

[Ghost Eyes]

Originally Posted by DigitalAlien

In your title you say that Google goes from Good to Bad to Ugly which implies that at one point in time you didn't have this problem.

It's not a problem on my end. If that is the results Google wants to present then so be it. I used to be able to at least get one of the dictionary pages to come up first page when I did this kind of search. The good is when a definition would came up first 5, then it was bottom of first page or 1st of second. Now it was almost last on second page.

Originally Posted by rypher21

Be specific and do a thorough search

This is not my first rodeo, I am just pointing out what I consider bad search results but it seems that marketing by Google has deep effects. Everyone seems to think I must change my search word to get it as close to perfect as possible instead of Google coming up with the best results based on content like every seems to scream should be the discerning factor.

Yes, this search term was very general, but what if I didn't know what it was? By these results I would conclude a gristmill was a restaurant chain.

So based on every one's response here, the top ten results are OK?

I also agree with DigitalAlien that no way does this effect Google in any way. Google = Search in the public eyes.

Before we go further, I realize nothing is going to change because of this discussion, its their results to present how they want and all that so just was hoping to get opinions on how accurate you think the results were.

[robjones]

This is not my first rodeo, I am just pointing out what I consider bad search results but it seems that marketing by Google has deep effects.

I think we catch your drift. Is that your final answer, or would you like to would you like to rephrase that in a way that doesnt suggest everyone that took the time to address your question, including the admin and a mod, are just incapable of factual answers because we're swayed by google's marketing?

Please choose your words more carefully in the future if you expect anyone to answer.

[Ghost Eyes]

Originally Posted by robjones

I think we catch your drift. Is that your final answer, or would you like to would you like to rephrase that in a way that doesnt suggest everyone that took the time to address your question, including the admin and a mod, are just incapable of factual answers because we're swayed by google's marketing?

Please choose your words more carefully in the future if you expect anyone to answer.

I apologize if that came off the wrong way I meant no disrespect to anyone and sorry if anyone felt that way.

[Cricket]

I understood what you were trying to say, but the thing is, just because your first thought in response to "Grist Mill" is historical, doesn't mean that is what the majority of people are looking for when they type in that phrase...

In fact the options as I type seem to say otherwise.



The truth is, if someone would have mentioned the phrase "Grist Mill" to me, a historical site would not have come to my mind quickly.

[weblaunch]

Bing is gaining market share at the expense of other search engines. Competition is always good in the free market.

[akasheg]

Humans are not perfect neither are the machines. So isn't Google. You can't expect them to know exactly what you want. You need to be more specific if you are looking for perfection. And Google is already trying hard to improve its search results. It still provides the best search results out of all the search engines out there. Doesn't it? Thats why its the most popular one.

[plumbers101]

Don't just focus on general keywords, better to work with long tail keywords and low competition keywords.

[Lorel]

The reason those sites are ranking higher is probably because they rank higher for the word "mill", i.e., a more aggressive link campaign. With "gristmill" being a more specialized business I would think they might find it harder to find sites where they can submit links. Also how exciting can a gristmill site be re social marketing / viral videos etc. I would think they just need to work harder to compete with other "mill " sites.