Excellent post by SEObook (Aaron Wall)

Those issues were mentioned before but defenetly thats not the end of the Google

 

I'm sure Google will find a way out before it's too late. AltaVista was a total different company if compared to Google. G has enough money & minds with it to win the battle.

As far as microsoft goes, internet is not their piece of cake. They should work on their own issues first, albeit: fix vulnerabilities in their own operating system before claiming to be the next big thing at world wide web (which is a different area all-together). Compare Gmail with Windows Live Mail and you will see the difference.

IMO we are being too cynical about Google & It's algorithms. Believe me guys, without these measures that Google takes to prevent spammers et al, our job to get good results in SERPS will be 10x more difficult.

 

I'm pretty sure that's not the case Google is a huge company and I'm sure the other services are managed completely seperately.

However there's no doubt that Googles SERPS are getting worse, people have always complained about them but it's only recently that I've started noticing myself. I've [shock] actually used MSN and Yahoo to search for things in the past week, something I never do unless it's work related.

It's not really wise to say that as people has 'always' used Google they'll continue to. It hasn't always been that way.
There's actually quite a lot of awareness of Yahoo and MSN even though people don't use them, if Google continue to throw up bad search results then people will vote with their feet.

I think the problem lies with Googles paranoia about people manipulating the SERPS and giving automatic penalties for sites that are believed to do this. This almost seems to have become an obsession at the expense of good search results. I'm all in favour of useless spam sites and inappropriate sites being banned/penalised, however banning a relevant site because it sell links/actively aquires them is just cutting off their nose to spite their face. Dumping a relevant site becase it buys links and replacing it with crappy DMOZ/Amazon/Craigslist pages really isn't the way to go.

 

I don't quite get that part...You would have a point if you built an informational or unique site and that got you the position you deserve but I don't see how Googles cock ups have helped any people who just build sites because they have information or a service to provide.

 

My site ranks better at yahoo/msn than it does at Google. Then again, I am pleased with how google deals with those people who are just copying my meta tags and at times, the entire page(s). They are not even indexed at Google... though at msn and yahoo, they rank next to me.

 

I like my NineMSN search results...

 

So then relevant results aren't important provided your competitions rank sucks as bad as yours?

 

In my niche, there is a lot of competition going on already where every webmaster believes that his/her website is more relevant if comapared to the competitor. My website ranks at #1 on yahoo and msn for popular keywords from my niche. At Google, I rank at #3 and some (being honest) more relevant (old/established) sites top the charts.

I must say that the number of irrelevant results are growing in numbers at Google, especially those sites (with have nothing to do with what I'm searching for) that google favors (wikipedia/craiglist) are beating legitimate content providers.

 

I've actually commented to others as well as myself that Google results are poorer more recently. I cannot read Google's mind, but I think it's a reasonable assumption that it's some sort of spam-filtering kicking in.

It's pretty scary when people root for Microsoft, a 500-lb. gorilla when it comes to search, and to be honest, I'm seeing a lot of improvement. I've compared SERP "relevance" subjectively for competitive queries in the legal industry like "Vioxx," "Vioxx lawyer," "Vioxx attorney," etc. And what did I see? To be honest, unless Microsoft really does have people aggressively hand-coding those SERPs and some others I tested, Microsoft is rapidly improving the quality of their product. This does not surprise me, as Microsoft is known to be a great place to work for, and Google routinely steals Microsoft employees. So if Microsoft didn't have anything worthwhile, or any intellectual property, why would Google bother to snatch people? I commented on it more here http://www.seoegghead.com/blog/seo/msn-search-p5.html (new account so I can't live-link it).

Lately, I've been using MSN as a backup search engine. It used to be Yahoo. but the point is -- about 6 months ago, I never needed a backup search engine. I'm not a Google nay-sayer, but they've clearly gone downhill for now.

Google is clearly a new 500 lb. gorilla, but saying Google can't tumble is like saying Altavista is still alive, Netscape will live forever. I used to use Hotbot too. So, yeah, Google may be great, and it may be more branded than any of the former, but all it takes is a bunch of smarter college kids and some VC. and Microsoft, in my opinion, will be a close second in relevancy rather soon.

 

Maybe Google is just busy with other tools like Google Earth,building a Portal and once they are done they will move to SE algorithm

 

You forgot their most popular offering - GTalk....

 

Some good points have been raised. I think what we are seeing is the limits of Google’s authority/ trust-based algo. The problem is that a lot of “trusted” sites are getting thrown all up all the time that are low in relevance because they contain even a single reference to the searched term. Ironically, this algorithm does not stop serious spammers.

 

I just talked to a co-worker and he even noticed how crappy results Google is returning. He is not involved in SEO or any of this stuff.

So the average user is noticing.

 

Companies fail when their main thing stops being their main thing. Google used to focus on search. Now they focus on advertising streams. Google got market share by focusing energy on search quality and the advertising followed. Google will not become the next Alta Vista, that demise was much different. They are becoming more like Excite in terms of company direction, only on a much grander scale.

 

The core of their business model is search. Anyone who doesn't think that searchers don't notice differences in "quality" are fooling themselves.

Today's searcher is better and smarter than yesterday's and tomorrow's will be better and smarter than todays.

Dave

 

You know, in light of this whole spam fiasco and all the new Google offerings, it makes me wonder if Google isn't indirectly admitting that search itself is losing popularity. Maybe they know their main thing isn't going to be very profitable in the future.

With all the hype about social bookmarking, local search, mobile web, and similar competition to the search engines, maybe Google is trying to hedge its bets by expanding into these other industries. Maybe they're not concerned with the spam problem because search isn't as important to them anymore.

No idea if that's true - just a thought that popped in my head when I read the Seobook post.

 

my 2 cents: google is packed with spam

 

Non-tech users are noticing.

Last week my wife asked me if something just happened with google, because she didn't get good results on searches that she had gotten good results for in the past.

I don't talk to her about my seo work, what could be more boring for a non-tech person? She noticed the poorer results on her own.

Still though, it will take a long time (a year or so?) for people to change their google habit. They will keep using google, even if getting mediocre results, and using msn/yahoo as a backup, until eventually they are using the backup more than the 'old one they used to use'. Google has some time to improve.

ps: the search bar will be a big saving grace for google. It's there, it's easy. Even if the results are poor - people will type the search into that little box for a long time just because it's there.

 

There's a big difference between the average searcher being dissatisfied with G SERPs (if that's true) and that person actually switching to another SE.

That behavioral change does not come easy. Now if some slick new SE came around and dumped lots of cash into TV advertising (like Vonage did) and if that advertising said 'we're better than Google, just try us you'll see' that might be enough to start something meaningful.

But in the absence of a great SE and big-budget advertising, people will stay with G even if they whine and moan a bit.

/tom/

 

I don't think so. I don't think people are going to stick with Google if Google doesn't deliver. Today's younger people, who use the net a LOT more than their parents in general, are already hooked into MSN Messenger and MySpace and Yahoo-Geocities and they aren't going to give a damn about brand loyalty to Google. Remember: New Windows installations don't serve up Google by default - people have to have a reason to switch the default search engine and right now I don't think Google is giving them that reason.

Why do you think Google launched a legal action against Microsoft? You don't do that unless you think that person or organization has a reasonable chance of taking money away from you.