Have you noticed search results going down hill? I can't seem to find anything these days and the results that do come up are just pure marketing. I understand people need to make money and run their business, but it's just getting out of hand. One time I searched for "how to convert flac to mp3" and I got a result from a Demand Media Site (howto.com) telling me to: "Search google for flac to mp3 software, go to the page you find, download the software, install the software."
This is actually a pretty serious problem. I often seeking answers to a question and I'm redirected to a forum where the users say, to use google. Look back and forth, which eventually leads nowhere. However, this leads to the fact that you have to re-learn how to use the search engine. You have to use the advanced search features to find anything.
Google results seem pretty good to me. But yeah... if they aren't giving you relevant results for real world searches you are doing (outside of test searches, since that's not real world use), use something that does... {shrug} Yahoo, Bing or whatever else... The last search I did in Google was to get the phone number for a restaurant I was having lunch at, and the results seem pretty good to me. In fact, what I was looking for (phone number) was right on the search results without needing to go to another page.
Google has some sponsored/paid search results that appear at the top of the listing. I still use Google some but I tend to find better results with Yahoo. I voted in your poll too.
In the end, as an end user, I don't care if ALL of it is sponsored or not... what *I* was looking for was the phone number for the restaurant, which ultimately was there. Why it's there or how it got there doesn't matter to me (as an end user), because ultimately I just wanted the info I was looking for.
I have noticed that Google's search results are not as good as they used to be. I was searching for information related to driving and I kept getting UK links and I live in the US. Checked to make sure I was using Google.com and not the UK Google and I was indeed using Google.com. Have been doing a little more of my searches using Bing these days.
I have not really noticed much difference. When I go to search for what I need, I get exactly what I was looking for.
Google is still the best, but it seems these days, about a couple of weeks ago, that Google is making major changes, this affect results greatly until the update is announced. I guess Google is trying to develop an engine that will be also able to compete with Facebook Graph Search
The hotel thing I am seeing on Google.ca lately ticks me off, but hey, it's their website and they can do anything they want with it really. Yeah, it does suck to only have one true organic result above the fold, but I guess the paid ads are also relevant, although not the most. I think there is a similar thing on Google UK with insurance rates. A few months back I was struggling with results when I was searching my car's specific model year and make and a problem that I was having... all the results on page one were useless. It was a mixture of ehow and about.com results and spam pages thrown in. This has now been fixed and shows me the proper forum thread with the solution to my exact problem like it used to. I also had trouble searching for specific Author name's and book titles and would get these weird phone listing results, this is also now fixed. The only other major gripe I can think of would be having a cluster f*** of youtube videos in my results when I am obviously searching for information or a third party map download for one of my favorite video games. The videos are never really relevant to what I am looking for in the game even. The results are also dated from versions of the game that is months old and wont work on the latest patch. Ugh.
Google is still the best but their quality is sinking. I often need to visit page 2 or 3 of the search results now to find interesting websites which are not shops etc. The google image search is worse now too, the images are big, but the website names are not there initially you also can't see anymore if an image is a png or gif if you search for those. I wish there would be good alternatives.
I still get the exact info that im looking whenever I do research...Google search results still good for me, its a matter of how specific you are
I dont get much difference. When I go to search for what I need, I get exactly what I was looking for.
I'm in 2 minds. Sometimes the answer is easy to find. Other times, I just resport to asking followers on Twitter. I very much use long tail quesztions to google. i.e. "What is the best codec for windows 7 vs windows 8" sometimes it takes a few searches to get it right but this is the direction Google is tryinbg to head in i.e. content marketing. It's going to take a while for the industry to catch up
Hate Google for its monopolistic outlook but as for search results, love the way it comes up with innovative improvements each day. For example, if you search for 'what is my ip' your ip will be displayed on the search results page itself.
These days there are lots of updates being done, changes are occurring daily thats why it is causing search result quality.. when it would get stable then it would work fine.