Google - home of the irrelevant

Not trying to trash my bread and butter, hand that feeds me, and all those other cliches. But when do you think the average joe blow user will start to switch to msn? I did a search just now on Google for "websites for sale".

The number one rated site in the serps is a site that hasnt been updated for three years. Google rewards old, not optimized. So I guess make a website, leave it alone for a while, check on it in a couple of years, and you will find your site at the top of serps. But only if it is irrelevant. Thats the key. Don't make a timeless site that works for any time, for example, a site about ancient Rome.

 

I think the biggest problem with Google at current is they are caring to much about being relevant its making them become irrelevant. All there algo's do not take in that maybe people want to find news sites, maybe they don't relise people want to find the site without mass of content, heck sometimes even some dup sites!

(Oh btw websitebroker.com is a activly created site, its 3 years old yeah.. but it still gets updated and be it has a PR5)

 

I agree with you in many search keyword you will find irrelevent results

 

I agree with you about Google being too caught up in the algos. But on the websitebrokers.com site, sorry, you got that one wrong. This site is an artifact. There are more broken links on this site than . . . clever metaphor goes here.

 

At least you didn't start crying like some other clown here a while ago and saying "oh, google should ban all these old sites"

The first site listed for that term seems to be websitebroker.com, what's irrelevant about that?

 

what's irrelevant is not the content, but how old the content is and how neglected that site is.

 

The site is totally relevant for the term, so I don't see the problem, a search engine is for finding sites relevant to the keywords you type.

 

every time we found less relevant results in Google, and there's a few market research reports to claim google's getting more users in search market. is that weird?

 

If you can't understand the problem of the world's most prolific search engine not being able to chisel out those neglected sites then I feel sorry for you. Think about it this way:
If someone does a search for "new cars" and get a number one listed site selling new cars when they were new in 1999, do you really think they are going to be happy?

 

Do you get that site when you type "new cars"?

 

Seriously though. I was just talking to my wife today about this and she was telling me that she gave up Google a few days ago because she is tired of sifting through shitty results. (she also likes yahoo for all the "goodies")

I personally prefer Yahoo for certain markets and Google for others, but I am seeing more and more people getting frustrated with G.

Google was good when Google was just a search engine and was actually "good". It does seem to be getting worse. I could just be seeing a slump in the serps when I have been searching lately but it has been bad.

 

Google results have been... to put it bluntly... crap.....

I've noticed a considerable shift in their quality over the past year. Must be that Microsoft syndrome. The bigger they get, the less they offer.

Pretty much everything you search for now brings you to a site with 8 zillion text ads and links and adsense code left right and center with about 4 paragraphs of actual irrelevant content. Gee thanks! When I used to be able to Google ANY term/item and have the source of information within 1-3 site selections (usually the top 10 of the results), now I find myself going deeper and deeper. Sometimes spending up to 20 minutes and landing on results in the 80s before finding what I need.

I find Yahoo has really begun to take over this market. I'm finding my results are much more bang on and informative on Yahoo these days.

I think the problem is that Google is playing GOD too much these days (the ego is getting to them) and they are taking FAR too long to index new sites, as well as updating their index for sites that are not PR5+. Not to mention the fact that there are tons of sites they just don't "feel" like indexing for some odd reason.

Prime example: There is a 12 year old kid who has just survived a rare cancer and now he is selling t-shirts on the net from his little freehost website that he setup last month. He will be selling them for 3 months to raise proceeds for research. You hear about it through word of mouth.. do a quick search (because you want one)... Opp.. not in Google. He doesn't have 7000 backlinks. He doesn't have a PR5 rating. His site is still sandboxed because it's too new... if it ever gets indexed because its on a freehost.

That same site would be in Yahoo within a few days (as was every single site i've ever created and submitted).

Grow up Google. The world wants an index of the ENTIRE intenet. Let the users sort out the sites. I'm sick of being TOLD what sites I should visit... especially since the top 20 are generally either multibillion dollar corporations or spammers.

 

I think part of the problem is with everything google has done they have completely stripped out timeliness out of the search engine. So if something is hot and new it is unlikely to be a factor for months to google. And I think a lot of searchers are looking for the newest and most current information when doing a search, not the encyclopedia.

 

I agree with you exactly about the lack of NEW information. But you see... Google believes content is only good if its got AUTHORITY or has been on the net for a long time with lots of backlinks and PR.

I learned this first hand when trying to find up to date information about the hurricane in New Orlean's. Very little search results came up with Google (mostly about past hurricanes)... yet with Yahoo (and even MSN), I was able to find stuff that was written/posted the same day and the day before.

That's what I'm looking for.

 

i totally agree that these days, you get the best results from search.msn.com.

the sector i have expertise in is very local and far-flung, but still quite competitive. i get absolutely useless results in google for just about everything related to our island. yahoo is okay but still some spam here and there. the best is by far search.msn.com. let me go on the record as stating: microsoft have the best algorithm when it comes to search.

now, i want you all to know how momentous it is for me to say this. i was totally anti-microsoft for decades. i was a diehard mac evangelist with an apple sticker on my car. only used explorer for testing sites, and promoted netscape (and now firefox) with religious fervor. i turn off the TV whenever bill gates is on it and wouldn't dream of buying a microsoft product that's not pirated. so it is a pretty big thing for me to say that msn do it better. but they really do.

i stopped using google for everything except image searches about a month ago... yet still find myself googling occasionally out of habit, and because it is easier to type "google.com" than "search.msn.com". microsoft and yahoo need a snappy name that you can turn into a verb, and a shorter url, and a snazzy logo. msn need a longer text input box.

since i make most of my money from adsense, i hope google get their act together sooner or later... before users start waking up.

 

the problem is adsense.

adsense has driven the market to slam out "ad holders" and traffic magnets.

and while they are busting the scraper sites, the scraper sites get created far faster then they can handle.

good for publishers, bad for users.

amen to that. it's time they focused on delivering what we want, and focus less on what NOT to deliver.

 

The entire 'selling' feature of the net was that ANYONE from ANY walk of life could put their thoughts up online and give everyone in the world the chance to read what they've wrote. I remember back during the gulf war when Iraqi teens would put up websites with first hand accounts of what they were going through. This was information that could NEVER be seen by the masses using traditional forms of media.

The Internet is supposed to be about global exposure and keeping information FRESH and UPDATED and NEW. It was like this for about 8 years now but it looks like if everyone becomes dependent on Google, we midas well go back to the library and renew our cards. So we can look at information thats months-years old.

 

but at least it's factual.

 

no dude... restaurants go out of business, place names change, populations grow, jurisdictions move, customs evolve, rules and regulations are updated, fees are increased, phone lines get new numbers, etc. etc. etc. if the information is out of date, it is often far from factual, i.e. totally useless.

 

I can't believe you guys really think that google search results are irrelevant compared to yahoo's or msn's. I am having trouble to be ranked in google but I don't complain. You know why? The top 10 results are for companies selling the same product/service as I do but they are in the business for years now. As a customer I would prefer those companies compared to new ones god knows if they exist for real or just for adsense. I am well ranked in msn and yahoo, but still, if I want to search for something my first destination is google. I even use google to look for yahoo products