GOOGLE needs SEO?

You need to ask why Alta Vista ranks higher than Google when you search on Google.

Alta Vista has more old backlinks pointing to it than Google does.

Google loves dinosaur sites, so putting Alta Vista at the top makes sense to me.

 

Oh wow, that's a good point.. I never thought about it like that.. just always assumed backlinks are backlinks, but backlink age.. that's horrible, google is basically saying any new site SUCKS, when it could very well be better than 95% of its index.

Lovely.

 

I mean that it would be pretty undecent by google to not link other search engines when people search it

 

Makes perfect sense to me.

Otherwise the members here could maybe rank number 1 for msn using their resources.

If my site has been there for years, if I have invested time and effort in working it, if it is busy and ranks well, if people have been pointing to it for 5 years. Then it is far more likely to be a quality resource. Not always the case but im sure aged backlinks should be credited with more 'weight' - that is not to say new backlinks arent worthwhile (even rotating links work).

Also, I think google's index is very good if you know how to search well.

 

This is why google results are so shit...

 

In what way are googles results so bad?

 

Compared to Yahoo!, the results are generally more stale...

I've gone over this in a number of threads now.

IMO, the sandbox is ruining the Google index - I find Yahoo! to be a hell of a lot better these days - It's just difficult making the transition over to a new SE...

I'd say that there have been 6 or 7 occations this week when I've done a search on Google, then ended up using Y! or M instead...

 

Never say always....or is that never say never?

 

I see much more spam in yahoo on the whole - as far as new information - usually the top ranking sites discuss the 'new' news.

For example:
http://www.google.com/search?q=affi...ient=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=affiliate+news&ei=UTF-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&fr=moz2

I dont use search engines for searching the latest news or info really, I will look on/ for sites that I know will have it.

As for older/ stable results. Google is much better IMO.

I have nothing against Yahoo at all. I still think they do a good job.

 

I'm not saying Yahoo! is full proof, but over the last 6 months, I've seen a *massive* improvement in the quality of it's index.

Google on the other hand is returning worse and worse results all the time.

It's not that google is letting spam sites in the index so much, as it isn't letting (what I would call) *good* sites in there.

Yahoo seem to focus on making sure good sites are included, while Google focus on making sure bad sites aren't.

As for MSN, I still think it needs a *lot* of work (Way way way to easy to manipulate - all you need is a few thousand links and you can get #1 for pretty much anything you want).

 

Yes, MSN requires work. As shown by the backgammon results. Id like to know who that guy/ girl is

Yahoo.. I remember my first ever visitors coming from yahoo.. before google kicked off I guess. It them provided Google results and now its own. I dont see anything really that is better than Google in Yahoo.

Yes, new sites struggle much more in google - Good! there are only 20 results that anyone ever looks at on a term and it takes time and money to get to the top for a decent traffic term. So what you provide tends to be good too.

Adverts at the bottom and top (too many imo). There *own* results at the top with their own little icon. Supposedly 'hard coding' top results. It also likes blogs too much I think.

 

Good point. Google also seems to be focused more on making people "pay their dues".

 

Just goes to show PR isn't everything.

 

Yeah, I've noticed the PR meaning very little overall in the index results lately.. if it's not a big influence in search results, what good is it really? Why is it worth so much money to everyone?

 

Build it and they will come.

Anyway, I am pretty new to the web mastering world (about a year), but imho... Yahoo has rewarded me far better than Google for my quality content. Didn't I read somewhere that I should just focus on good content and they would do the rest?! *cough*

 

Not really, Alex.. Google seems to think if other people link to you, you are an authoritative resource. I personally don't agree, or think that should be the major factor in relevance.. but it does seem to weed out a lot of the spam/scraper sites.