Google doesn't work!! It's that simple.

[Ampalian]

Google is a relevance based search engine. It does not deliver the most relevant results anymore. No engine is perfect but as far as I can can determine Yahoo delivers more relevance more often.
The Google algorithm has become over cooked over time and the more recent pursuit of cash has turned Google from an objective relevance based search into something very different. It is not what is was and it is not what searchers have come to believe it is.

[maxor]

Things like "relevance" and "more relevant" are SUBJECTIVE. Obviously YOU don't think they are relevant, but maybe others do.

Would you just tell us what keyword(s) your targeting that you're not getting #1 spot for so you can be done with your whining.

[Ampalian]

My point is it is the job of my site to find Google. It is Google's job to find my site, that's what it claims to do and its algorithm should place it in its rightful place on the results based on purely on content. If that position is correctly 9,965 that's fine by me. Google doesn't do that. It brings lots of other factors into play that distort results for their users.

Not a whine, just a fact. If I search for "buy digital camera" I want the site with the most information on digital cameras to come top. That doesn't necessarily happen.

If you look back you'll see that I am not universally disagreed with.

I like Google and I use Google but the results that I get have declined in quality. If MSN or another gets truly objective user will slowly migrate.

END!

[absolution]

I don't have any problems with Google.

I think it's a great system over all. It just comes down to if something becomes big enough, it will be exploited. I like the whole concept of rating a site based on backlinks (among other things of course too), sure it has good and bad points but I think over all it works out.

I tried looking at "buy digital camera" as you suggested, and most of the sites in the top 10 were indeed relevant.

There's no problem with the Google search engine itself, it just needs maybe better maintenance to weed out exploits, and lame attempts at cheating for rank.

[maxor]

My point is it is the job of my site to find Google. It is Google's job to find my site, that's what it claims to do and its algorithm should place it in its rightful place on the results based on purely on content. If that position is correctly 9,965 that's fine by me. Google doesn't do that. It brings lots of other factors into play that distort results for their users.

I'll repeat this again since you don't seem to be getting it. A websites "rightful" place based purely on "content" is a SUBJECTIVE position.

Not a whine, just a fact. If I search for "buy digital camera" I want the site with the most information on digital cameras to come top. That doesn't necessarily happen.

I would expect that search to give me a website where I could actually BUY a digital camera. If I wanted general information about digital cameras I might search for Digital Camera or Digitial Camera Information or Digitial Camera Buyers guide.

If you look back you'll see that I am not universally disagreed with.

Your argument still doesn't hold any water.

I like Google and I use Google but the results that I get have declined in quality. If MSN or another gets truly objective user will slowly migrate.

END!

At this point it's nearly IMPOSSIBLE to have objective SERP placement. You would need to have a number of humans evaluate a website and determine if the information was relevant or not. Of course you'd have to account for the millions of people who use the search engine each day and you would need a pretty huge sample size to evaluate your results.

This all comes back to the original issue of the SUBJECTIVE nature of SERP's relevance.

[r937]

yeah

what's relevant to the goose ain't relevant to the gander

or something like that

[samsm]

It is clear to me that Google has a problem with junk results, returning sites that are hollow vehicles for advertisements and would not be considered relevant by any reasonable person. That represents a problem even without accounting for variances in taste and perspective.

Also, why must taste and perspective be taken out of the equation? This is another axis in which Google and other search engines can improve.

I think the frustrating thing about Google is that it seems like a stagnant target. It's been 5 years! I expected another big leap by now, but instead it feels like results are actually getting worse. Perhaps I am just too accustomed to being amazed by technology but it feels to me like we should have reached another milestone by now.

[maxor]

Here is the problem with google:

Millions of people use google each day. By being #1-#10 for any given search phrase you increase the likelyhood that somebody will find your website. If you happen to be selling something, blue widgets, for instance, and you can get the #1 - #10 spot for the search phrase "blue widgets" you're probably going to get more traffic which will lead to more sales when compared to a website who shows up in results #60-#70.

When money is at stake, people are willing to go out of their way to be deceptive and purposefully misleading in an effort to attract a few more visitors and hopefully a few more sales.

The problem with google is the same problem with the rest of the world, there are deceptive people looking to make a quick buck. It's not google's fault.

It's also important to note that search engines, while dynamic, are not instant. Google cannot make instant changes overnight to reduce the amount of junk sites in their index. Google, and all other search engines, have to evaluate their index and update their algorithms to improve SERPs. These evaluations and updates take time and human interaction, it's not as if there is a big glowing orb in a server room in California that can think for itself and make human-like evaluations and determinations.

[Synaesthesiac]

it's not as if there is a big glowing orb in a server room in California that can think for itself and make human-like evaluations and determinations.

ZIGGY!

[Big Bill]

1. Since when do web standards have anything to do with search relevancy? A validated, standards-compliant website might be more well-coded, but the relevancy of its content could be exactly the same (or less) than that of a non-validated website. Content is what people care about, not whether or not the site they are getting their content from validates

A site needs to validate for an engine to have confidence in what it perceives to be the content. A poorly coded site might be about its content or it muight be about really, really small tables.

BB

[Synaesthesiac]

A site needs to validate for an engine to have confidence in what it perceives to be the content. A poorly coded site might be about its content or it muight be about really, really small tables.

BB

I disagree. Show me 100 validated websites and I'll show you 100 non-validated websites whose content is more relevant. Validation is always a good idea, just to clarify, but we're talking about content relevancy, not code standards. Apples + oranges.

[maxor]

While the validity of a certain website's code is not directly related to that site's relevance for a particular keyword(s), having code that validates and is light-weight will ultimately help said website when it comes to search engines indexing said site.

For instance, if you have a website that has a few hundred lines of javascript and css information before the <body> tag, it could have a lot of great information but it may not be spidered as well as a site which has 15 lines of code before the <body> tag.

So yes, validation doesn't equal relevance, but it can help the search engines see your site as more informative or more relative.

[Synaesthesiac]

While the validity of a certain website's code is not directly related to that site's relevance for a particular keyword(s), having code that validates and is light-weight will ultimately help said website when it comes to search engines indexing said site.

For instance, if you have a website that has a few hundred lines of javascript and css information before the <body> tag, it could have a lot of great information but it may not be spidered as well as a site which has 15 lines of code before the <body> tag.

So yes, validation doesn't equal relevance, but it can help the search engines see your site as more informative or more relative.

True.

[Ampalian]

http://home.clara.net/arianrhod/Alde...ventindex.html

No offence at all to the owner of this site. If you type UK Events into Google (pretty competitive term) this is the muber one result. There is ONE event on the site. ONE!

The title and description are
UK Event Guide
Live Action meets in the UK

There are 57 Google backlinks.

If Google is working how does this warrant its number one position?

Angain, best wishes to the site owner.

[maxor]

On www.google.com (the us version) if I search for

"UK event guide" I get this result: Edinburgh's Events Guide

On www.google.co.uk (the uk version) if I search for

"UK event guide" I get this result: Edinburgh's Events Guide

[bgray]

Wow! A lot of subjectivity, unrealistic expectations and faulty logic here.

The bottom line is that the internet is still in its infancy and things aren't going to happen overnight.

Changes will however take place and on an ongoing basis. If people are unhappy with a product it will be a simple case of economics and competition that will play a part in the situation until a product/service is available that meets and/or exceeds expectations.

Google/MSN/Yahoo all have some of the best and brightest in the world working on relevant results. Things will continue to improve but it's definitely going to take time.

[Ampalian]

The search on .com and co.uk was UK Events

[samsm]

The bottom line is that the internet is still in its infancy and things aren't going to happen overnight.

I don't know.

Much like how an infant child changes more rapidly than does an adult, I would expect radical shifts to occur frequently with relatively new technology as opposed to in industries that have been around longer.

[bgray]

I don't know.

Much like how an infant child changes more rapidly than does an adult, I would expect radical shifts to occur frequently with relatively new technology as opposed to in industries that have been around longer.

We'll have to agree to disagree. I think that is simply unrealistic. It goes both ways and for each new change you have to factor time to adapt.

[english-test.net]

I don't know.
Much like how an infant child changes more rapidly than does an adult, I would expect radical shifts to occur frequently with relatively new technology as opposed to in industries that have been around longer.

What exactly do you mean by I would expect radical shifts to occur? Do you really think shifts occur? Isn't it that any change has to be brought about by people? To expect means to wait and hope. And in many cases it also means to complain in the meantime.

[samsm]

Do you really think shifts occur? Isn't it that any change has to be brought about by people?

Absolutely, to both quoted questions!

I think that Google's arrival was a shift. At the time of it's arrival, Google's results were much better than those of existing search engines and by word of mouth alone, people flocked from other search engines to make Google the most popular. I'd call that a pretty radical shift: a technological jump combined with a new company rising to the top of the pack.

[spyross]

Nicely said Malcolm!

However, it seems like the MSN Search looks at the number of backlinks a website has to decide where it appears in the results.

Yep, when all they have to do is deliver fast results to their users based on the deep spidering of actual content that is updated on their systems in much, much less than a 3 week cycle. Is that such a difficult concept?

At least MSN can COUNT!

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...hodesguide.com

http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q....com&FORM=QBRE

[spyross]

It sounds like your main reason for thinking google is broken is because you have a site that doesn't rank as well as another site. Is google perfect, are 100% of the sites in 100% of the top ten search results for any given keyword 100% correct 100% of the time? NO.

More importantly, google is FREE, they don't have to answer to anyone, they don't make claims like "We provide the best search results, everytime" or "We rank sites with better information first, every time". Google doesn't have 'customers' they don't make people pay to use their search engine. That point you're trying to make doesn't hold any water, it's just idiotic.

Google with be around in five years. Why? Because they're still the best at the search engine game, and chances are they will be. They still get the most traffic, they still have the best algorithms, and they will continue to innovate at a rate higher than their competitors.

I'm sorry, but google isn't broken, it's just not 100% perfect all the time.

I would say that Google has very big problems delivering correct results. I see it everyday I do search. In the old days I would use nothing else than Google. Now, I use mostly Yahoo and then Google. As far as MSN is conserned, its mew search is still a bit "young" so I can't have a clear opinion.

I do know this however: all of my clients websites show up in top-30 in all other search engines, except from Google, where they usualy rank 300+. My own site ranks #1 for specific search terms in MSN, #6 in Yahoo, and Google doesent even have me in its search results at all!

This, in my opinion, is more just imperfect.

[r937]

My own site ranks #1 for specific search terms in MSN, #6 in Yahoo, and Google doesent even have me in its search results at all!

which site would that be, and what is the specific search term? i gotta see this for myself!!

[SimonMc]

i gotta see this for myself!!

Count me in too. I love a good witch hunt

Simon