Is it just me, or is it getting more and more difficult to find things in google? Specially since they started showing those featured content thing. They are even showing entry exit levels for stock markets, which are actually from past. When you go to the website from where they pulled it, you will realize that the levels showed by google were from 2 days back... Is this just annoying to me?
Unfortunately Google is shooting themselves in their feet. Just today they discontinued the webmasters search console and replaced it with something that does not work most of the time, and when it does work, it is TOTALLY USELESS and SLOW. The old webmaster console worked well for YEARS and I cannot see ANY reason why it should have been dumped. I fail to see WHY Google would spend HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of dollars to program a search console that WORKS, then trash it and spend HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of more dollars on something that is USELESS. Why in hell do they need to REINVENT the wheel? Why in hell do they need to fix THAT WHICH IS NOT BROKEN? A few years ago Google discontinued showing snapshots of the web pages in their index. That was a really useful feature for websites with DYNAMIC content. Now it is IMPOSSIBLE to find the content on dynamic websites that Google indexed, which makes all the links that Google shows for those sites TOTALLY USELESS. That's not even touching on the touchy issue of CENSORSHIP which Google, Fecesbook, TwitterTrash, etc. are engaged in. Sooner or later Google will collapse because slowly but surely they are eroding their customer base. NO company can survive by constantly driving their customers to their competitors.
@mmerlinn I agree with you. I do not use that webmaster console, but I am getting fed up of their search results. Most good sites have slipped to 7-10 positions, and top spots got taken up by ancient 1999 websites... And it would have been one thing if those 1999 websites were still useful, they almost crap now. Its like google is believing in the philosophy of using "myspace" in times of snapchat and facebook...
Since I am in Africa, I am seeing less of the things you mentioned. I think Google is showing different things to different locations. But yes sometimes the space is filled with products or ads which can easily mislead the searcher to go to the ads instead of the organic searches. And then sometimes Google looks like an assistant - a real person behind me. And at other times, it seems it can't understand what I am trying to find.
True, sometimes its really helpful, like when you search for a single word, and it shows the meaning of the word. Most of the times, this is what I am looking for. However, other than this, its really bugging now... The most annoying part is that some of the most ancient websites are now ranking top. These websites are still using 1999 methods of displaying data and stuff, in tables for example, and so heavily filled with ads that it takes long time to load these websites. Some others are so new that there is no credibility in those...
Things with Google are like the security check in malls, railways, and airports. It was the time when we enjoyed the luxury of entering these places without a security check. But those days are now gone because of OUR SAFETY purpose. In the same way, gone are those EASY to do SEO for USER's BETTER EXPERIENCE. Every SEO and Webmaster is also a user of someone. So, the change is for OUR better experience. Enjoy the change... it is Soooo Good.
So, WHY do I need Google or anyone else to TELL ME WHAT IS GOOD FOR ME? I do NOT need a nanny and there is NO reason for Google to BULLY me just because OUR OPINIONS are different.
If you don't need Google, then its very simple... just don't use it. Stay away!! Google is not going to pull you from your home to use them.
There are two answers here- Google is getting more and more user friendly and showing exactly user is looking for... Google is getting annoying for digital marketers because updates and rules are more complex now.
Google is definitely getting more user friendly but I won't be so sure about Google search. Maybe it's just because some SEO companies optimize generic and wrong keywords the results are not matching with the expected results...
Well, what I said in my post by giving an example of a security check is VERY MUCH CORRECT. But, your saying that it is getting harder to find required info in Google seems correct to me up to some extent. And there is definitely logic behind it. As I said, Google is trying its level best to provide a better experience to the users and in order to achieve it, they seem like they started using a number of signals which are getting difficult to manage, control, and settling down in the right way. Just to show you a glimpse of it... When a user enters a non-specific search term (kind of generic term) in Google and just be analyzing the search term no one can understand what exactly user want to have then Google thinks that it would be a good idea to show a variety in top results. So, they just come up with 1-3 results from blogs, 1-3 results from youtube, 1-3 results from local sites (maybe business pages), 1-3 results from popular e-commerce sites, few Que-Ans type pages, few images, like that. And this definately gives a clear sense for the user that finding the desired result is getting difficult because every user is either looking for videos or blog tutorials or ecom site or local business but NOT ALL simultaneously. And Don't think that Google has already achieved its final maturity. It is still in development and it will take years (maybe decades) to attain the final maturity (if it could achieve at all). So, it may happen that Google just changes its behavior of showing variety in the results by upgrading its "RankBrain" algo and taking it to a new level. Hope this will pacify you to some extent. Cheers!!
That is pure bullshit. Google is getting MORE and MORE and MORE user UNfriendly with every update. They keep fixing that which is NOT broken, then it IS broken. ONLY THE STUPID FIX THINGS THAT ARE NOT BROKEN.
there are too many content and websites appear each day, while google updates its algorithm, that's why it looks so difficult to manage with it.
OK. Consider the webmaster console. Working fine for years and was very useful. It was not broken. So, Google REINVENTED the wheel INSTEAD of improving it. Now it is BROKEN. Now, IF it works, and it often does not work, it is SLOW, HARD TO NAVIGATE, and is generally USELESS. I used to use it EVERY DAY. Now I SELDOM go there.
Well, you are correct up to some extent. In my opinion, Google is smarter than we think. When Google decides to shut down something then it first makes it slow and then reduces its usage to a minimum. For example, earlier Google was best to show backlinks using the link: command. And when it saw that SEOs are using it for making backlinks (Google want every link to be naturally made) so first it started giving poor results, then no result at all, and now showing poor results again. So, it may happen that Google is in a situation of confusion when it comes to webmaster console and analytics. On one hand Google needs to show clear, deeper, and wider stats and on the other hand, Google needs to keep the confusion so that SEO guys don't misuse the information and manipulate to get higher positions in SERPs.