Since the time I knew what a URL was I have been using google religiously for all my online searching needs. If I was looking for something it was google I used no matter what. About 90% of the time I would find what I was looking for on the first page of results, and if not then always on the second or third page. In short I have been a die hard google fan for years, But.... of late, sometimes I just cant find what I'm looking for on google, ill look through the first few pages of results, and then try changing my search terms, but alas, i cant find it, finally i started trying yahoo and msn, and wahla!! i found it on the first page of results. This has happened to me several times now and im starting to change my searching habits to searching yahoo when i cant find what im looking for on the first page of google results. This phenomenon started happening to me just a few months ago and i was wondering if anybody else is experiencing the same or if its just me? (hum... Idea: I have been searching for more technical items of late as I have been building my first few attempts at income generating sites? Maybe this could explain it)
No, its not you, its SEO. Everyone wants to be on google's front page so they can get SE traffic. The spam and MFA sites are quite good at it
Google needs to stay a few steps ahead of good SEOs, and Good SEOs need to stay, and keep folleing, a few inches behind google and both will livbe happily forever.
I guess that my attempts to get my almost worthless sites higher ranked in google so i can make money off of them is just part of the problem
Its probably seo that spam or distorts their results, once google pounces on it, you will get the reliable results google is known for.
Does anyone know how to report spam sites to Google when you find them? Is it worth the effort or should you wait and let Google find them on their own?
I have no problems finding the results im after. Going by some of the search queries my sites get found by im surprised some people can find their own keyboard.
Exactly, It's not Google, It's those fu*** spammers. Man I tried Live Search and Yahoo! Search yesterday they're terrible, I couldn't find a thing. Google WITH spam sites is still better than Microsoft and Yahoo! together
You can do it here: http://www.google.com/contact/spamreport.html (Sorry, I'm not allowed to link yet.) I've always wondered if unscrupulous site owners just entered all their competitors in hopes of Google finding a violation.
I still find Google's searches relevant. I think if anything spam results have diminshed over the years, not increased. I wonder if the reason you are finding more info on Yahoo et al is that you are searching for a topic that is relatively new. Yahoo and MSN definitely pick up on things faster. Google is the reliable tortoise. They are more afraid of irrelevance than being the first on the scene. Makes sense, protect your dominant position in the oligopoly.
Since its January 2007 update, Google has had a lot of trouble with spam. Before that, spam was a problem, but the update (which was meant to curb spam) instead added to the problem. So far, this has not been corrected. I think Google is losing it, especially compared to Ask.com.