Is Google Becoming Irelevant in Search?

gobeyond · 05-26-2006, 09:54 AM

I know Google is in the business of selling ads and it does have motivation to rank legit business sites lower so that they have to pay to get listed as sponsors.

These days, the Google natural search results seem really off wack. I just did a search: computer service new york city

The no.1 is the job site Monster. No.2 nyc.gov. The No.4 is craigslist filled with spams. Columbia Univ showed up among the top 10.

Anyway, it seems the search results are way skewed to non-commercial sites or in other words, useless sites. Not sure if this is happening across the board since I only tried a couple of searches. If this is the trend, it seems like Google is shooting itself in the foot by driving away searchers. That will be bad for their ad business.

Wonder what you guys' experience and takes on this.

Julie · 05-26-2006, 10:38 AM

The more words you use in any search, the more off kilter your results will be. It's time you learn the finer points of searching. Here's just one point I have to make:

"computer service" "new york city" would yield a more relevant search. NOte the use of quotations. When you just do computer service new york city, it looks for results with ANY of those terms in it, so imagine the results you'd get. When you use the quotes as I did, it tells the computer to find things with "computer service" and "new york city"....not computer or service or new or york or city.

gobeyond · 05-26-2006, 11:11 AM

I tried what you suggested: "computer service" "new york city"
But the result wasn't any better. Plus, how many regular searchers know to use quotation marks for their searches? If only the computer-savy folks can find useful info quickly at Google, I guess Google will lose its mass user base sooner or later.

BingoBalls · 05-26-2006, 11:42 AM

It may have something to do with the latest update Google has done. When they run an update the results go somewhat funny so they usually need to tweek their update which should bring better results. IMHO of course.

jeremycurtis · 05-27-2006, 05:09 PM

I've wondered the same for some time now too. Local search just does not seem to reveal useful results most of the time. There are many sites that are database driven that just replicate pages based on the town they are in and so when you search for a service in that town they repeatedly pop up even though they are just a national wide business with no local office at all.

I know that often I watch other people try and search for things get frustrated that they can't find it and give up. I help knowing how it all works and can generally find what they are looking for in a few searches.

I hope it improves in time otherwise, as you say, the general populus is going to get bored of looking for the needles in the haystack. That is Google's job, as I see it to pull those needles out.

Julie · 05-27-2006, 07:37 PM

People are dumb, that's why they can't find things.

irka · 05-27-2006, 08:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Julie

People are dumb, that's why they can't find things.

They can't even find google, they have to type google on yahoo or something in order to find it

mike21 · 05-28-2006, 10:15 AM

Google does not favor non-commercial sites over commercial sites, but
high-content over low content sites. Our research shows that commercial sites often have too few content or too few incoming links to get top rankings on Google.

**John Scott** · 05-28-2006, 09:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mike21

Google does not favor non-commercial sites over commercial sites, but
high-content over low content sites. Our research shows that commercial sites often have too few content or too few incoming links to get top rankings on Google.

Could you please explain what kind of research you did? I'm interested.

Google doesn't prefer lots of content. They prefer lots of inbound links. Doesn't matter if the site has 10 pages or 2 million pages. It's the inbound links and the anchor text of those inbound links that matter.

omsolutions · 05-28-2006, 10:03 PM

What I think is in order to eliminate spam google is fast becomming irrelevant these a days. For example say if I search for computer service new york city
I really wanna see some content and some commercial site. I dont want lame government site to come on top. I dont want amazon or ebay to come on top,neither I want craigslist on top. However for most of the search results google thinks amazon and ebay are authority comerical sites for that term and craigslist is authoprity content site for that term.

bratwebdesign · 05-28-2006, 11:48 PM

Quote:

Google doesn't prefer lots of content. They prefer lots of inbound links. Doesn't matter if the site has 10 pages or 2 million pages. It's the inbound links and the anchor text of those inbound links that matter.

I agree. The #1 result for gel candle on google has alot of inbound links and yet the site has not been updated since May 2002. The site has been under construction since that time.

CrapDice · 05-29-2006, 12:17 AM

I think what you are seeing is less "bad google" and more "lack of relevent content optimized for google".

Google is attempting to carry the torch on industry standards, and so far they've been winning when it comes to the web and downloadable free software, however there is absolutely no guarantee that within ten years Google is leading the push on 'best industry practices' for search. En Oh En E. None.

EricBlackwell · 05-30-2006, 03:25 PM

Mike21;

couldn't disagree more with your "research"...Throw some more links on the fire...a REALLY high %age of content direction comes from anchor text. Some text is good, but you certainly do not need to stuff in extra pages OR content per page AT ALL...

Best;

Eric

mookhunter · 05-30-2006, 07:24 PM

I've read through some of the posts here. Great stuff. I have read that Google, by the way, is about to get very strict on two new things. One, Google is cracking down on FFA site listings, and sites that are linked to too many sites that don't jive with their own. Two, Google is about ready to crack down on any site that is using word spamming (i.e. Google Bombs). My own opinion, with html and java being so common now in myspace and sites like mynicespace.com, I think this issue combined with 81 million individual new pages really muddles up the searches. Considering also how you manipulate anchor tags in such a way to also spam the search engine.

Check out my site some time. www.mookhunter.com

I'd love hear your thoughts on it!

-MGS- · 05-31-2006, 03:44 AM

Hey,

I was doing some searches yesterday and google also brought up some weird results for me. I have found that if I use something like Yahoo they bring up more better search now.

Whats going on?

Quote:

Originally Posted by gobeyond

I know Google is in the business of selling ads and it does have motivation to rank legit business sites lower so that they have to pay to get listed as sponsors.

These days, the Google natural search results seem really off wack. I just did a search: computer service new york city

The no.1 is the job site Monster. No.2 nyc.gov. The No.4 is craigslist filled with spams. Columbia Univ showed up among the top 10.

Anyway, it seems the search results are way skewed to non-commercial sites or in other words, useless sites. Not sure if this is happening across the board since I only tried a couple of searches. If this is the trend, it seems like Google is shooting itself in the foot by driving away searchers. That will be bad for their ad business.

Wonder what you guys' experience and takes on this.

gfriedm1 · 05-31-2006, 07:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mike21

Google does not favor non-commercial sites over commercial sites, but
high-content over low content sites. Our research shows that commercial sites often have too few content or too few incoming links to get top rankings on Google.

agreed Google is not favoring non commercial sites. doing a keyword search for the industry i am in, you can clearly see only commercial sites coming up. try it, key word: calling cards, phone cards, etc.

However, as JohnScott points out, i would like to see evidence supporting your claim. Through my own experiences, i have to agree with JohnScott, IBLs are everything. I do regularly update my content, and have many information rich pages, however, please provide an example of Google favoring high content over low content sites.

croix · 06-16-2006, 02:28 PM

I have found that in my area, google has become very strongly biased towards commercial sites, namely those that participate in adwords.

Take my site for example.
www.sliquid.com

Sliquid is the name of the product, and the URL. I optimize for several keywords, one of which is sliquid.

of the users who would type "sliquid" into google, I'd imagine that about 50% are looking for a place to buy Sliquid online, and half are looking for information, so they can decide whether or not to buy Sliquid.

But in the google results, there is nothing but pages that sell Sliquid, other than the obligatory Wikipedia result.

Seems strange to me that Google would not show sliquid.com as a result for a query for sliquid, especially for a well optimized page. (I have top 5 placement in MSN for 3 of 4 of my main keywords, and top 10 in yahoo for 2 of 4, though yahoo seems to follow google within a few months everytime google changes something)

The site is non commercial though, no product is sold direct to visitors.

Also, google still has pages cached for my site that have not been on the server for over a year now, and they ignore my requests to remove the outdated content. I use thier Sitemap service and it doesnt help either.

JuggoPop · 06-16-2006, 02:34 PM

I thought everyone knew to use quotes...

shahab6 · 06-18-2006, 03:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JuggoPop

I thought everyone knew to use quotes...

They should be, but most people don't know about it.

JuggoPop · 06-19-2006, 07:56 AM

google should put a link on the index with "search teaching tools"... so everyone can understand a little better. Basicly provide a tutorial for those who want/need it right up front.