Google's Favoring of Fresh Content

John Scott · 10-08-2006, 12:07 AM

I did a search for "Postwar Japanese Prime Ministers", looking for a list.

Of the top ten, 8 of those were news articles dealing with the very recent election of Shinzo Abe.

Kind of makes Google crap as a research tool.

John Scott · 10-08-2006, 12:08 AM

Look at this:

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=Pos...rime+Ministers

Google owned by Yahoo.

alinush · 10-08-2006, 01:47 AM

or you could easily do this

John Scott · 10-08-2006, 06:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by alinush

or you could easily do this

The results just get worse.

pabawn · 10-08-2006, 09:43 AM

speaking of your search results, i notice that journal that came in #2 slot for your original search, shows the full text to googlebot but a user visiting the page gets a "preview" in image format and a nag screen to sign up. isn't that considered cloaking? other site like expert exchange do this too.

Julie · 10-08-2006, 02:42 PM

Scholar.

aryo · 10-09-2006, 04:25 AM

yeah i prefer yahoo over google for research. hell, wikipedia over google for that matter. a non SE beats #1 SE. i guess most updated = most relevant to google.

vistadivine.com · 10-09-2006, 06:06 AM

Ya its sometimes usual with the search engines not only Google.

Akash

Julie · 10-09-2006, 10:06 AM

If you were doing research, I wouldn't use a search engine. There are other better sources for scholarly research.

gingercindy · 10-09-2006, 02:57 PM

Well alright, my question is how does Google know that content is fresh content? i hear this a lot but am thoroughly confused as to "what" Google considers 'Fresh content'

Thanks

Julie · 10-09-2006, 03:00 PM

new stuff. their little spiders can tell if something is new or not.

I notice that if I don't do updates on my sites, they slowly start to drop in the rankings. Do some updates, and *bam* I'm right back up there on the front page.

gingercindy · 10-09-2006, 03:13 PM

ok I am a bit confused here so please bear with me.

By fresh content do we mean
-changing the content on my site / adding new content OR
-google comparing the content on my site with other sites and then deciding if this is fresh/new companred to others.

thanks

vistadivine.com · 10-09-2006, 07:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Julie

If you were doing research, I wouldn't use a search engine. There are other better sources for scholarly research.

Any examples?

Akash

Julie · 10-09-2006, 08:34 PM

Proprietary databases have lots of info.

jasonpoteet · 10-09-2006, 09:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Scott

I did a search for "Postwar Japanese Prime Ministers", looking for a list.

Of the top ten, 8 of those were news articles dealing with the very recent election of Shinzo Abe.

Kind of makes Google crap as a research tool.

What I am getting tired of is no matter what you search for about.com, wikipedia.com and all the usual suspects are at the top. Google doesn't want us to SEO, but those few sites are in the top 5 for just about anything you search for.