Google really is off the rails!

Owlcroft

Mar 16th 2004, 9:53 pm

One needn't be biased against Amazon to feel that including links to books for sale as responses to searches for web pages on a topic is perhaps inappropriate.

Aside, though, from overt spammers like the page cited above, one questions what curious balance of factors Google is using for rankings. The pages-referring paradigm must have seemed a bright light bulb when it was new, but somebody somewhere needs to rethink that one. One of the several niches I fiddle in is a rather narrow one, but it is annoying to not only bounce from #34 to #51 to #37 to #48 for my keywords in as many days, with no material changes in my site or the sites above me; more annoying is to see several sites ahead of me that have been closed down for a year or two or more, but that no one ever cleaned off the server.

I had a sense--I don't follow these things closely, and am a newbie here--that Google was supposed to have started recently paying some attention to the freshness of content, an idea that would help right the boat, but I see no evidence of it yet.

As a nonexpert, I wonder also if someone could help me out with an explanation of whence Google gets their links listings, and of how they treat them. When I ask Google who links to me, I get a list far shorter than the one I personally maintain (and those linking pages are checked nightly for validity, so my list is current); if they are basing their page ranks on only what they are showing me, that suggests that they are missing a lot. Also I wonder: do links to the pages of a site have any effect, even if indirect, on the ranking of the front page of the site? Common sense suggests--at least my common sense--that a site with many pages linked to is of some weight, even if links to the actual front page are fewer (perhaps by far) than links to the site as a whole.

--
Cordially,
Eric Walker

digitalpoint

Mar 16th 2004, 10:10 pm

Well not being in the industry of a manhattan beach accommodation, I would find a book on it quite useful as an average user. I don't think it should be the #1 spot, but from a pure relevancy standpoint, as an end-user, I do like it somewhere in the first page of results. Maybe that's one of the approaches Google is taking... Maybe books or informational only sites are given a higher weight, but only a select few pages so the results aren't spammed out. In the end, Google is trying to give good results to the end user. They are going for most relevant (for that end user), not the most optimized. I don't think anyone can objectively judge relevancy on something when they have a bias towards any site within those ranks. I of course think I should rank higher for every single one of my keywords. But that's because they are my sites. :)

In regards to Google giving a fresh content bonus, that's been happening for some time now. Google seems to give a ranking boost to anything that is "fresh content" for about a week (give or take a couple days).

- Shawn

Owlcroft

Mar 16th 2004, 11:21 pm

>In regards to Google giving a fresh content bonus, that's been happening for some time now. Google seems to give a ranking boost to anything that is "fresh content" for about a week (give or take a couple days).

Which still leaves me wondering how literally dead and abandoned sites can rank well above live ones with decent in-links, substantial page counts, and reasonably fresh content. Allow me the electrons to give a sample; this is a particular search of interest to me, but there is no reason it cannot stand as a general example.

Here's the text from the #40 Google hit under the terms <fantasy "science fiction">:

The requested domain is no longer available on our nameserver.

The #4 hit was last updated, by its own statement, 2002-08-03. The #20 hit also hasn't been touched since mid-2002. Perhaps most hilarious, the #26 hit is a domain-redirect page made in 1996, redirecting to a site not modified since July 2002, but which site (at the new URL) is the #32 hit--and they are far from being the only pair in the top 100 that are the same site with only slightly different URLs (which I thought was supposed to be deadly). The #47 hit is a "non-page" (its body is a single Javascript command to 'close window"), both live and in Google's cache (moreover it's a relatively new hit). And the #3 hit is a page merely listing a large numberof links within that site, a very general one, only one of which contains the phrase "science fiction" and most of which are about fantasy sports or sex. That page cannot have any real in-links from any sites to do with the search topic, and barely mentions it itself.

None of this is pique over some site I just don't like being ahead of me (though the two Amazon books annoy me)--it is a matter of dead sites that never did have much, or nonsites, or sites with multiple URLs that are not to different site parts getting high ranks.

So I'd agree, yes, Google is well off the rails, indeed about into the river.

digitalpoint

Mar 16th 2004, 11:33 pm

Well the fresh content bonus is a very small part of the whole thing. If the sites have tons of links from relevant website that Google considers "important", they will rank well regardless of what is actually on the pages themselves.

- Shawn

Foxy

Mar 17th 2004, 12:43 am

What I think has happened here is that we have gone back to post Austin pre latest shuffle/dance [end feb] as these look familiar

So in answer to some of the above - if google is using old material at the moment then those old pages will still show up before they reshuffle again

There is a definite feeling of google going back and back to old algos in order to get this one "right" and judging by the stats being quoted they are losing customers in droves.

The point is if I wanted a book on the subject I would go to amazon or whatever - but I am not asking for a book on property in france I am asking for <b>property in france</b>

Look at the first five here

Amazon.co.uk: Books: Buying a Property in France: An Insider Guide ...
Buying a Property in France: An Insider Guide to Realising Your Dream,
Clive Kristen, How To Books. Amazon.co.uk, ...
www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1857037693 - 47k - Cached - Similar pages

Amazon.co.uk: Books: The Complete Guide to Buying Property in ...
The Complete Guide to Buying Property in France: Buying, Renting, Letting and
Selling, Charles Davey, Kogan Page. Amazon.co.uk, ...
www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0749440163 - 52k - 16 Mar 2004 - Cached - Similar pages
[ More results from www.amazon.co.uk ]

French Property News - Buy and sell property in France
FRENCH PROPERTY NEWS The most widely read publication for buyers of property in
France Today's Exchange Rate (�uro) : � Sterling 1.4572 $ US Dollar 0.8089 ...
www.french-property-news.com/ - 13k - 16 Mar 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

Property in france from French news
France's English Language Newspaper for residents and lovers of France.
www.french-news.com/property/ - 2k - Cached - Similar pages

IFP : Reference : Buying a property in France, pratical advice for ...
Buying a property in France, pratical advice for purchasing real
estate in France. ... Buying A Property In France. The laws relevant ...
www.french-property.com/reference/ buying_property_in_france.htm - 16k - 16 Mar 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

All books news etc

To the average punter who only goes 10 listings they will move on elsewhere as this is irrelevant to what they want - it casts doubt on the next 5 listings as well

I went and looked at mcdar [ for those who don't know it here it is again http://www.mcdar.net/dance/index.php ] and checked the www against the New [64s] and it is not showing any change yet but my guess would be at the end of the week.

digitalpoint

Mar 17th 2004, 12:49 am

While I agree it's annoying (depending on the end user you ask of course), I don't think that books and news automatically should be removed from the SERPs just because the user can get them elsewhere. If that were the case, Google would have no users, because anything in Google can be located elsewhere. Google is about making the massive amount of info on the Internet useable.

Google wants to draw users so they want to be able to be both broad and relevant at the same time.

We forget sometimes (myself included) that Google is not our personal little money making tool. :)

- Shawn

Foxy

Mar 17th 2004, 1:05 am

Oh I quite agree

Don't get me wrong - I like Google [ I've been using it since it first started in 1999] and I want it to succeed - perhaps not at 75% market share but 50% is OK - and I use these forums to let Google know [they do read them don't they?] the problems and relevancy of their searchs as well as the fact that we are watching and commenting on what they and others do.

Sort of a thought police!

Now I'm not claiming any credit here, but the post I made [in a previous life] about adsense and being Hammered by Google had the desired effect and all my testing nowadays is showing very little problems in that area - but I still keep adsense out there on non critical sites to test the waters.

:)

hans

Mar 17th 2004, 2:04 am

but the key and main factor why that site is top ranking is its domain name !
hotel-manhattan.cheap-accommodation-budget-accomodation.com

domain name is one of the key factors in favor of any site if all else is equal
and in favor if even title and discription are partially missing or wrong
such as in this case.

and his main bonus point is that he separated each word in the domain name - so it really counts in many SE.

same applies for dolder names and file names

Owlcroft

Mar 17th 2004, 2:36 am

I gather that most or all who post here are professionals, so I am somewhat out of place as an amateur. Still, I simply do not get what is going on here with Google: right now, it is showing 17 backlinks--yet I have, by my own count, 111 All 111 are live pages--I check that much daily--and even if, somehow, one or several had decided to omit my link (which I doubt, as those who add rarely subtract), that's still a whacking great disparity.

I do not believe, either, that it is as I have seen suggested elsewhere, that low-rank link sources are not shown, because of those that _are_ shown, there are a couple or three that more or less have to be rather low-ranking, and conversely some that I know exist but are not shown are definitely high-ranking.

(I would not be at all surprised if there are other links I don't even know of--I rely on Google, and occasionally some other lists, to find them for me unless I am told by the linker.)

On another point: books from Amazon as search hits is bizarre because Amazon itself (and B&N and maybe others) are explicit centers for finding all available books on a given topic. As was said above, when we search, we want web pages on a subject--if we wanted books, we'd search for books. My 2 cents on that, anyway.

digitalpoint

Mar 17th 2004, 8:14 am

Well low PR links definitely do not show. At least I've never seen one that does. Do you have an example of a low PR page that shows up for anyone when you use the "link:" query?

If they did show, digitalpoint.com would have 100,000 back links alone just from the internal links. :)

- Shawn

Foxy

Mar 17th 2004, 9:32 am

Go on Shawn tell us how you do that!

100,000 internal links can never be done by hand or is there a program out there to do it - I certainly don't know of one.

In reply to the other post - the problem comes from the link text I would think.

Up to May 2003 it did not matter whether you linked by url or by the actual text in the link eg http://www.housingdomain.com needed to become
<a href........>Housing< etc

So all the links now need to be themed - and once before I used to have all the links showing - now I don't and am in the process of theming every godam link that there is - that means coming from a page of similar theme to the page that you wish to link to.

It sort of goes like this -

I have a site that is black.com and I greate a sub section that is Grey and explain on that page that you need white with black [both linked] to make grey and then the white page is linked from a relevant source that was originally the opposite.

Make sense? or ..... :confused:

digitalpoint

Mar 17th 2004, 9:49 am

I don't bother with theming... not because I don't think it's a good thing to do, rather I don't have the time... I figure it will all work out in the end on it's own. Google is smart enough that I don't need to "help" it out.

As far as having 100,000 pages... it's just content... {shrug}

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&c2coff=1&q=allinurl:www.digitalpoint.com+site:www.digitalpoint.com+

The estimated results for Google is bad when it gets over 5,000 or so, BTW.

- Shawn

compar

Mar 17th 2004, 10:58 am

I wonder also if someone could help me out with an explanation of whence Google gets their links listings, and of how they treat them. When I ask Google who links to me, I get a list far shorter than the one I personally maintain
Google only reports backlinks of PR4 or higher. There are some exceptions to this general rule, but it will explain your question about not seeing all known backlinks.

duncan pollock

Mar 18th 2004, 8:17 pm

With all due respect, Google's choice of books instead of a list of sources for buying real estate (e.g. local agents, lists of homes for sale, etc) is part of the problem that I think all search engines have. In other words, what exactly are you looking for? Is it general info, when a list of books on the subject are perhaps the best route to take? Or are you trying to buy something, when a real estate company is going to be a more sensible starting point?
Much the same thought applies -- at least as I see it -- if you simply punch in "science fiction." Books? Well known authors? Movies? Somewhat academic discussions about how it's predicted so many things that we now take for granted? Or what?
I'm inclined to think that Google et al need to encourage (and become better designed to handle) more complete (and therefore considerably longer) search phrases.
As perhaps an extreme example, my logs today showed that someone did a search about "legal rights when a verbal agreement to buy something and then found out it was not worth what I paid." Now there can't be much doubt here about the sort of answer they were looking for, can there? And although, the first Google page includes several legal eagle sites, it also (Eureka!) gave a link to one of my own webpages in which, albeit in something of a roundabout way, I deal with this very question.
Indeed, despite the concerns about the Florida shakeup and its apparent ongoing tweaks, I suspect that Google are simply fine tuning results with some recognition of what their own log stats are perhaps telling them about the basis/bias of searches that people are making. Or, in other words, maybe they can see that books are what most searchers are looking for, etc., etc.

Duncan
PS. Not with any thought of self-promotion but rather to account for the search example I give, let me explain that I'm in the real estate business.

digitalpoint

Mar 18th 2004, 8:25 pm

Google has never stopped fine tuning their results since the day they opened their door. Which is part of the reason they took over the search engine market. :)

Back to the original point though... I still have a different opinion on a book being in the results. As an end-user that knows nothing about the topic, a book on the subject is welcome within the results. I surely don't want *every* (or even most) of the results to be books, but for me personally, I like it.

I'm in the isp billing software market, and while I of course always want to be #1 and #2 for "isp billing" and every related search, I think a book on the topic would be relevant for the average user (again, as long as it's one or two, and not the entire results).

- Shawn

GuyFromChicago

Mar 18th 2004, 8:33 pm

I could be wrong, but I swear I read somewhere (can't for the life of me find it again) that Google only counts an official "link" if the site has a PR of 4+.

Anyone else heard anything along these lines?

digitalpoint

Mar 18th 2004, 8:37 pm

Google still counts it (internally). It just does not display them publicly via the "link:" query.

- Shawn

Foxy

Mar 19th 2004, 12:31 am

This is turning into a fascinating discussion as everybody here is right and at the end of the day it is the collective thoughts of many that will shape the way search engines go.

Although I can see the reality of the search giving sites that include books about a subject, like Shawn, I have serious doubts about the rational, as for, eg "property in france" you would end up with pages of books, magazines first as they are "authority" sites.

So what would give the average punter what he wants if that case was to stay?

The punter would have to change his search query to be "more intelligent" that is to put in a question that the search engine would return the answer that he wants.

That is just not logical it is the job of the search engine to meet the requirements of the client - not the other way round.

Whilst I agree that the SE will always have this "problem" the fact is that Google had it right before Florida [for you pure Real Estate guys] and "not" after and had it right before Austin, wrong after but then back again after Austin and now wrong again, from other points of view.

So Google can do "it" [get it right] for the search phrases but seems to be meddling too strongly at the moment and people just will go elsewhere to more stable search engines giving more relevant results like Yahoo - the amazon pages are still there but are further down and the first pages are in fact much more relevant to finding "property in France"

Owlcroft

Mar 19th 2004, 2:37 pm

I do not think that adding the word "books" to a search is asking any great deal from a user who does, in fact, wholly or mainly want books on a subject returned as the answer, and that is putting aside the fact that Amazon is virtually a book-search engine in itself.

If a user makes a search and does not include in it the word book (or books), what I would consider reasonable behavior by a search engine would be to include books, if any at all, well down the list.

As I think has been pointed out, for most searches, unless almost comically narrow, there would be enough well-on-topic books to fill the first several pages of hits; an engine returning books must needs select--almost arbitrarily, as there will usually not be significant differences in relevance--some few or else thoroughly clutter the responses with books. Putting it another way, logically it is virtually an "all or none" situation, and absent books in the search, my two cents is on "none".

Foxy

Mar 19th 2004, 10:52 pm

Spot on Owlcraft

Isn't there a book titled the "Fox and the Owl" or something ;)

Owlcroft

Mar 20th 2004, 1:08 am

Isn't there a book titled the "Fox and the Owl" or something ;)

The Owlcroft designation is not entirely fanciful:

http://owlcroft.com/owlcroft/index.html

Foxy

Mar 21st 2004, 12:21 am

Interesting Site Owlcroft - go look at this one

Timber Frame Homes (http://www.timber-top.com/)

Your house encourages me

Thankyou :)

Owlcroft

Mar 21st 2004, 2:45 pm

I have always felt that living in a home one did not design oneself is like wearing another person's shoes. The modular-timber idea is a nice one for people who want to have a hand in the design but are not able to dedicate the time to becoming, effectively, "instant architects".

Me, I'm a compulsive. I designed that house myself (my second) down to specifying what types of nails to use where. By and large, after four years in it, we are pretty happy with the result. This winter, we had a night that got down to -30, so our total heating bill for the season was 1/4 of a cord of wood instead of 1/5 like last year. Love that solar!

compar

Mar 21st 2004, 3:31 pm

How did this thread get so far off topic?

Is Google off the rails or not? I personally don't think so. I still go there first for all my searching and rarely if ever move to another search engine.

GuyFromChicago

Mar 21st 2004, 4:24 pm

Google is the only SE I use for my regular searches. I tinker with the others (yahoo & MSN mostly) from time to time just to see what they're up to, but never for a "real" search.

I still think, hands down, Google brings the best results.

compar

Mar 21st 2004, 6:08 pm

Hey! GuyFromChicago. You are going to have to stop agreeing with me so much. People will talk :)

GuyFromChicago

Mar 21st 2004, 8:26 pm

People will talk :)

No they won't.

Hows that? :D

Foxy

Mar 21st 2004, 10:52 pm

We got off the rails in just the same way as you are now - just chatting

Sorry

But back to the subject

The trouble is that we use it, Google, because of market dominance that came out of relevancy that the public at large, not us, detemined, and the directories such as Yahoo followed in order to keep in the game, give them some breathing space, which is/was determined by the executive based on commercial practice not too disimilar to ourselves.

However the public does not understand the "global" picture and only sees what it sees and if that doesn't give then what they want they will go elsewhere - which is why we need to watch Yahoo figures.

Searchwise for myself I still use Google - for two reasons

1. It is in my Browser and

2. It is still the biggest

BUT

I now watch Yahoo a lot - which I never used to do and, increasingly, I use it for, yes wait for it, relevancy even though I have to load the search page first.

Owlcroft

Mar 22nd 2004, 12:51 pm

I fail to see the logical connector between the propositions "we mostly use and prefer Google" and "Google is doing a great job".

If I'm interested in gas mileage and I own two cars, one of which get 9 miles to the gallon and the other 7, I'll drive the one that gets 9 mpg, but that scarcely means I'm driving a fuel-efficient vehicle.

There are entire web sites, not frivolous, dedicated to analyzing what's wrong with Google. We don't have to accept every claim they make as gospel, but neither can we handwave them all away as irrelevant or nonsensical.

Google has become the M$ of search engines, and correspondingly acquired the M$ attitude: "we don't care--we don't have to." That is why the emergence of Yahoo as a viable alternative is so important to the entire internet community, which nowadays is to say the entire world. Already the potential competition has sent Google scrambling to wallpaper over some of the worst cracks in the plaster. If Yahoo takes off and acquires a solid market share, we will all benefit: that's how a marketplace works. If it does not (nor M$ itself), Google will be no better than it has to be.

My limited experiences with Yahoo suggest that they have some rough edges yet to sandpaper--one should never see crude and obvious search-engine spams high in any results--but those samples, albeit limited so far, have shown me notably more relevant results than Google is yielding.

compar

Mar 22nd 2004, 4:10 pm

What have you seen specifically in Google's behavior that convinces you that they have adopted a "we don't care--we don't have to." position?

I'm not a Google defender or apologist. But it seems to me they have always cared more than the others. MSN is a bit of a joke and Yahoo didn't care enough to even have their own search engine until very recently.

So yes competition is a good thing, but just because you may not like where Google ranks your site doesn't mean they don't care????

GuyFromChicago

Mar 22nd 2004, 5:35 pm

My opinion - Google "cares" as much if not more than Yahoo or MSN.

Yahoo and MSN decided to take search seriously after Google started whooping their backsides. If either of these companies really "cared" about search and improving it they would have invested years ago in improvements, but they didn't. They were both interested in providing free e-mail and selling ad space on their portal pages.

I also find that Y & M serps can get somewhat stale. Some will complain about Google's recent updates (Fl for example), but to me that shows a company trying to make serps better. Yea, Google serps have been a little shakey recently - but they are leading the field and pushing all the other SE's to get better, or try another business model.

If nothing else you have to give Google props for taking search to a whole new level. Even when competition was light they were constantly innovating and trying new things.

Is Google "perfect"? Nope
Is Google a better general SE than anything else out there? No doubt about it.

I guess that means G is getting 9 miles per gallon while Yahoo & MSN are still standing at the pump trying to figure out how to get gas to come out of it :D

Owlcroft

Mar 22nd 2004, 9:46 pm

Frankly, I sort of resent the implication that my qualms about Google derive from personal pique about "where Google ranks your site". My point is not my site's placement: it is that its niche is an arena in which I know exactly who and what the players are, and so can form some reasonable judgement of how well Google is doing in terms of relevance. (I think I do quite well enough for one person running, as a sideline, an amateur site that is, by design, a niche within a niche.)

So, when I play the part of an innocent seeker after knowledge and enter the appropriate terms into Google, I can say, with some right to an opinion, that there is something bizarre about the #3 hit being a site whose content relies on freshness for its significance but which has not been updated since August of 2002; the #10 hit being just a small links collection, 20 links, of which only one is even remotely relevant to the search; 6 of the top 20 hits being 3 pairs of repeated sites; the #18 site having not changed in almost two years save for a monthly feed it takes from another unrelated site; and so on. I am not complaining that the sites don't come out ranked in the order in which a knowledgeable human would rank them on content--getting serp that is largely independent of content is what seo is all about; I am complaining that even mechanical serp ought to be able to do better than this with stale sites and multiple closely related pages within the same site.

Yes, I agree that Google is still (probably) the best engine right now--after all, for a long time it was virtually the only one. Yahoo is essentially still in beta, though I daresay the various Yahoo shortcomings noticed elsewhere here will be cleaned up soon enough (though even as is, it gives satisfactory results, some looking, to me anyway, more relevant than Google's, and I don't mean just in my niche).

As for Google's attitudes, forget my remarks: you can--dare I say it?--Google up plenty from numerous other sources, at least some of which have some fair claims to expertise.

Nor do I think Google is pushing anyone else to get better: others are pushing Google to get better. Surely we don't imagine that all this frantic, seemingly hourly twiddling with their algorithms would have happened absent Yahoo's debut?

Just on today's news are stories from both
the Associated Press (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=528&e=4&u=/ap/20040322/ap_on_hi_te/desktop_dustup) and Reuters (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=581&e=1&u=/nm/20040323/tc_nm/tech_google_dc)
with numerous quotations from industry experts to the effect that Google's leadership position is on shaky ground.

When in doubt--as a wise old saying has it--follow the money. When I see a market expert saying that he does not intend to buy into Google's IPO, I think I have found out something significant.

GuyFromChicago

Mar 22nd 2004, 10:18 pm

Surely we don't imagine that all this frantic, seemingly hourly twiddling with their algorithms would have happened absent Yahoo's debut?

Absolutely I do. Google has been constantly improving search, and everything about it, ever since they started. Yahoo, and maybe even MSN will catch up -but it won't be today or tomorrow. They have plenty of $ and name recognition though, so it won't take them 5 years either.

2004 will be interesting to say the least. Who knows, maybe I'll be doing my holiday shopping though Yahoo this December...nah:D

compar

Mar 23rd 2004, 5:10 am

I sort of resent the implication that my qualms about Google derive from personal pique about "where Google ranks your site".

I apologize for the implication. I just wanted to challenge your unsupported assertion that Google had developed a "we don't care attitude". And I guess I was correct because so far you haven't shown any grounds for support.

Owlcroft

Mar 23rd 2004, 3:35 pm

so far you haven't shown any grounds for support.

I can say, with some right to an opinion, that there is something bizarre about the #3
hit being a site whose content relies on freshness for its significance but which has not
been updated since August of 2002; the #10 hit being just a small links collection, 20
links, of which only one is even remotely relevant to the search; 6 of the top 20 hits
being 3 pairs of repeated sites; the #18 site having not changed in almost two years
save for a monthly feed it takes from another unrelated site; and so on. I am not
complaining that the sites don't come out ranked in the order in which a knowledgeable
human would rank them on content--getting serp that is largely independent of content
is what seo is all about; I am complaining that even mechanical serp ought to be able
to do better than this with stale sites and multiple closely related pages within the
same site.

If they cared as deeply as we are supposed to believe about the relevance of their results, they would be more diligent in assuring that travesties like those described occur only infrequently. I suspect that as Yahoo ramps up, Google will take steps to assure that such goofiness becomes rare. But would they have otherwise?

Then, there are other sources of information:

Google Watch (http://www.google-watch.org/) (which, I believe, now also has an archive of the curious "Scroogle" site). A Google on <Google problems> will turn up more. Is everything so found trustworthy? Of course not. Is some of it? Almost certainly.

None of this is hanging evidence in a court, at least not without a deal more investigation. But I think it more than suffices as some grounds for thinking the position, as a lawyer would put it, "colorable".

duncan pollock

Mar 23rd 2004, 7:09 pm

I'm a long way from being an expert regarding Google, but then who is?
However, being aware of how upsetting Florida was to numerous real estate webmasters -- and admitting that there were some ups and downs in the results for a while -- I'm certainly noticing that there now seems to be some decided logic in what's turning up and that things are being treated in distinctly different ways for two seemingly similar but, on due reflection, subtley dissimilar search phrases.
I haven't checked out locations other than those in my own geographical area but real estate st. catharines (or other community) brings up a succession of information and directory like sites that list agents serving the locale; whereas homes for sale st. catharines (ditto) produces a series of websites for individual agents operating in the particular field.
It seems to me that the algo tweaking that's been going on -- and I'm quite sure has yet to reach its end -- is adding to Google's worth. Before Florida, things were much more mixed up and, beyond question, they included spam entries. Now, though, I can either find out about the local market and who's serving it in general or I can learn who specifically to contact when I want to list or buy something.
Of course, I'm not so sure the public will recognize the difference, but I won't be surprised to eventually see Google (and for that matter all search engines) begin educating people about matching what's exactly in their heads with what precise results they're seeking.
Meantime, needless to say, we're no doubt going to suffer some more of Google's growing pains.
Duncan