Why I Think Google Is Slowly But Surely Loosing On Quality

I agree with siteurl that google is more and more disappointing on helping people finding what they want.
Most of the frustration is not when doing generic research but when trying to find a specific place. I have had that experience many times. You are looking for a hotel or anything whit a specific unique name, and the real web site does not appear but comes after all the agents and yellow pages kind of places.
I talked to many people and they are disinamored of google. It is not looking anymore as a help for internet but as a business. It is getting a bit like MS products. It is time that some open source software company to start a new research engine.
Somethig that if you are looking for ABC hotel in London would give ABC hotel in london web site on first place. Not in 5th page after all the hotel agencies.
New search engine would have 4 boxes
exact (same as quotes)
similar (as it is with google but with a bar next to it showing how deep or loose should be similarity, 100% is almost like exact, 0% includes also typos etc)
geo (if there is a need to seach in certain areas)
not (words to exlude)

 

Okay, now I know that some of you are just ignorant, hard headed, and do not read instructions so I will try to keep my emotions in check while trying to help you understand how the use a search engine. FYI, I used to travel for 2 year up to 75% and what your stating is absurd... And are you seriously... seriously asking for 4 extra boxes in your search...

Here is a search you need to start with: "how to search on google" it will show you operators that will better target and filter what you are looking for

Also, go to this website: http://www.google.com/advanced_search which is Googles advances search site and lo and behold there are your 4 extra boxes!

 

General people don't know using many search operators......

Google should show the relevant and best result by default..

 

The problem I have with that is that people complain about how bad something is, but don't take the time to understand or learn anything about it. I thought we moved past the flashing 12:00 VCR era...

Now I am sure there are plenty on the forum that disagree with me and know gobbles more about SEO, rankings, algorithms, etc. but there are too many that read garbage about how search engines should work and think it's true.

If you don't get the results you want by default, then you are searching wrong. Search "how to use a search engine" to learn how to get better results.

 

What facts?

Let's see what happens for some London hotel searches (personalisation disabled, searching Google UK from the UK), where do their official websites rank (format: hotel name -> #position)?

Firmdale London -> #1
Charing Cross Hotel London -> #1
Millenium Hotel London -> #1
Hilton London -> #1
Novotel London -> #1
Travelodge London -> #1
Berkeley London -> #1
Apex London -> #1
Ibis London -> #1
Mitre Hotel Greenwich -> #1
Brompton Hotel Chelsea -> #1

The pattern emerging is you are talking rubbish and it's the usual (baseless) "Google hate" bandwagon you've jumped on.

 

Irop paze, you are not holding your emotions. Since you are calling mu ignorant and hard headed!
I exactly know how to find my way in google and you have not ready the topic. It is google loosing on quality? To me it does and the main reason is that it does not have a competitor.
Explorer is better since Mozilla is out. Office is better since open office is out.
Google started as competitor of horrible browsers (excite and yahoo) and look nicer and friendly.
If there would be a new browser less advertising and more "finding the official web site first" with tools to refine search instead of messing with typos, it would be better for everyone.

 

It's all about greed. Simple as that. It should just be called the "Paid Engine", instead of search engine lol.

 

yes google now a day losing its quality about SERP they are more focus on google adwords then organic result.

 

Good point except ignorant (meaning lacking knowledge) and hard headed (wont absorb knowledge) are pretty lame on the scale of letting go of ones emotions. I feel that they are appropriate for why you are having such a hard time contributing to this topic and understanding search engines.

I might have to better understand what quality means to you because I was using the definition of quality similar to the term Merriam Webster uses. I focus on "quality" of the service Google provides which I feel is better then Bing, Yahoo, etc. (I'm going to forgo your remark that Google doesn't have any competitors because bad competitors are still competitors). Also, Google search is a free service and if you don't like the quality of the service they provide then a good idea might be to enter the market and become the competitor that Google needs to force them to provide a quality service.

I really don't have anything more to write about this topic except that as a technology consultant and adviser I use Google a lot! and don't seem to run into the problems you guys are running into. The only time I see issues like this are when people don't know how to properly use a product or service (ignorant) and wont learn how to (hard headed).

 

For some reason I find myself defending Google too often, but it is remarks like this that need attention.

Do a search - you can use Bing or Yahoo even on "Paid Search Engine." Then tally up how much you are charged every time you perform a search using Google. I understand it is a stretch to put these two pieces of information together to understand my point, but give it a shot and you might understand more about how free services make money.

 

The main point that I'm trying to make is that, Google isn't living true to their original concept of the search engine to begin with. When they first founded the company, they vowed to remain true to their intent, which was to provide the best possible results that's more relevant to the user.

But, they have deviated from that original concept, and now value their paid advertisers more, rather than demonstrating the best possible result.

Yes, paid ads are necessary, but please explain to everyone why the heck does paid ads take up more than 25% of the top page 1 screen? They are now saturating the first page with paid ads, rather than natural results. It gets worse every year.

If you understand user behavior, about 70% of users only click on top page of results.

Meaning, natural search results are now being left emptier every year, while paid ads are growing in traffic.

So to my conclusion, Google isn't demonstrating the most relevant results anymore, it's just all about who paid the most now.

 

I appreciate your response this time because it has a little more depth than your last one and you back it with some reasons. However...

This is pretty subjective and hard to quantify, but I see your point. Where I disagree with you is that I feel that Google - at least from where I sit - does provide the best possible result that is relevant to the user. I don't see how their advertising in the yellow block changes that. The advertising block is just like an ad banner that has been around for ever, but it just fits the over all theme were-as other banners sometimes are animated and distract your attention when you visit sites.

This guy has an interesting different opinion than me:
http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/the_truth_about_goog.html

What is the balance from annoying ad banner to barely visible ad banner? People will complain ether way so I understand your argument. The bottom line is that Google has to make money to survive and stayed true to their promise of providing simplicity. Yahoo wants to tell me about news stories and plaster articles and pictures of celebrities all over their home page - not relevant to what I'm trying to do. Have you seen all the ad links they post? They also do a worse job than Google in setting them apart from search results. Bing on the other-hand is more subtle with their home page, but the big art scenes may give off the wrong impression of what people are doing at work. They also have an ad box at the top by the way.

I just don't see how the ad box takes away at all from Google’s values as a company or quality as a service. As a Linux user, I must say that I have a different outlook when it comes to quality service and it was a hard move from Windows, but I [we Linux users] understand quality over greed pretty well.

I don't feel that this statement is true and I think we differ because they types of searches we do. I do a lot of technical research and I actually don't get ads all the time, It's funny because I really couldn't remember what the ads look liked so I preformed the last few searches I needed and didn't get an ad block... When I performed a poor one word search, I got the ad block. So, I guess what I'm getting at here is that our experiences are different and for me to get your results I had to perform my actions as a laymen.[/quote]

So when I did my "bad" search I got 1 ad and 7 results which is less then 25%. You can add more results per page I think up to 100 so saturation is a stretch. By the way, how much ad space is acceptable for a free service?

So a small portion of my career field is to understand online user behavior and the goal is to change it. You should improve your behavior and stop clicking links that you don't want to... Pay better attention to the ad space and avoid it.

What type of search do you do that gets more ads then results? You mention that it's 25% now and if that grows soon it will be 50%? I don't see your logic. Give me a few of your typical searches so I can validate your claim.

Define most relevant because compared to other search engines I get better results - which in my case is more/most relevant.

Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn’t paying only effect the ad box and not the other results? When I search "Ubuntu" and Ubuntu.com is the first result you mean they paid to be there or that if I paid I can put my site as the number one result over Ubuntu? Ad I get - result I don't get.

The bottom line here is that my experience is fine because I understand that if I search for "VPN" I wont get good results (and ads appear), but if I search "OpenVPN" then I get what I need (with no ads). I learned how to perform searches with operators and get good results, but I have database experience so that might be an unfair advantage however I have taught even Windows users how to use search engines properly and more efficiently.

 

Good thing you're not CEO... phew!

 

Actually,no one here have something that will prove his statements. These are only assumptions is really Google losing on quality. My opinion that it lose on quality a little bit,but that doesn't have to mean that Google era is done.

 

Google is not able to identify if you point multiple domains to the same website.

A search on "sites in mysore" shows 2 different domains but pointing to same website. (sitesinmysore.com)

This means that you can have one website, point 9 different domains and achieve all many results in 1st page from same website.

Coupled with this, the aggressive ad placements which is almost making ads look like search results is sure to reduce the Google share in search by a big margin.

 

It lost its quality with first panda update.

before, when you searched some very specific technical thing, like (making up) "join 3 tables without foreign keys on duplicate keys with mysql", you would get one exact result answering your exact problem in a blog article which a datacenter guy wrote like 3 years ago in a 2-3 page blog which was created but abandoned. it was that good and precise.

now, all you get is stackoverflow. and you dont get your answer to your exact question either.

this is what you get if you prioritize 'authority' sites over others. you may weed out the spammy shoe shopping sites maybe, but you eradicate all other useful information.

so, google made the search results much better for shoppers, buyers and the like, but they made it worse for anything else.

so, to answer the question ; google is already becoming irrelevant since first panda or whatever update they did last year. just, it will take time for the effects to become prominent and consciously known.

 

In addition,

i think now it is quite stupid for webmasters to pay attention to google anymore. google is not only tweaking their algorithm way too much, but also often going back on what they recommended, and penalizing people for doing what they recommended.

but more than that, imagine that you have somehow managed to get good traffic, therefore business from google. and then one day, google changes their algorithm, set up a good business/website/community, making a living and even paying people salaries. and suddenly your traffic is cut to 20%.

what happens ? you are bankrupt.

that is not some proposition or hypothesis. it happened to many people with panda updates. in a certain automotive field (cant give details), the #1 website in that field on internet, with huge business, investment and investors, went bankrupt.

websites like digg lost 50-80% of traffic.

even a lot of small/medium size websites, blogs became irrelevant. as you saw from the numbers of aged blogs being sold in digitalpoint and flippa and similar sites, they were sold for cheap prices.

it would be a huge foolishness to bank on google, set up a business or any kind of organization on the internet by relying on it, only to have your ass handed over to you with the decision of a few technical executives in google.

google is a private company, and you have no democratic right or control on it, it can do whatever it wants with you if you feed off of its hand.

i personally started to totally ignore anything regarding google, and im just doing commonly accepted good/standard practices for my websites - like titles, h1 headers etc. i have started to rely on social, and mailing lists (through feedburner). even though feedburner belongs to google, you have the ability to download your entire mailing list any time you want, so it is on the safe side.

for businesses, i would recommend going on an advertising route - not on overly expensive, non fruitful adwords - but going to relevant websites/forum, and individually giving advertisements/banners to them, from cheap rates. not only it would support the webmaster community, but also it would liberate your business from google and its whims or overexpensive prices in adwords.

 

This post is one of the biggest load of Google bashing gibberish I have read. Are you for real that your business is so volatile that lost *Goggle* traffic can drive you into bankruptcy!?! It's not stupid to pay attention to Goggle - it's stupid to rely only on Google - and I know you didn't say that, but your claim of bankruptcy pretty much makes that obvious.

As I read the bashing posts, I'm starting to realize that I am actually wrong in my thinking of Google as a search engine instead of a free money generating cash cow. I just have to figure a way to manipulate the system to get traffic to my irrelevant site so I can blast visitors with ads and trickery. Oh, but if Google improves their algorithm to debunk my manipulations, then I have to give up the farm. Ridiculous!

Anyway, rant over - You said it right at the end - pay for a guaranteed spot on the top of their page instead of wasting time trying to trick their algorithm into thinking your content is more relevant than it is.

 

work on reading comprehension and learn not to make self-propagated conclusions before arriving in conclusions.

i didnt say it was my business. it was the business of a corporation in usa which was sizeable enough to gather investment capital.

what is ridiculous is that you seem to be thinking that all people who regular this forum are small time webmasters or professionals that pop up makeshift sites to generate 'quick cash'. this was a million dollar business.

and no they didnt 'manipulate' anything. they acquired backlinks appropriately according to what google guidelines 'were'. it was not their fault or responsibility that such guidelines were exploited by various parties. in the end google itself provided those guidelines. and one day, suddenly, previous guidelines were no more. just like how todays 'rating/raters guidelines' may suddenly become a 'no no' when google decides on a whim that it no longer serves their purpose. good luck to people who have spent any effort in complying with these new guidelines.

your assumptions are irritating.

 

@Unity100 - I'm actually very good at reading comprehension (and logic comprehension), but your post and your counter argument (to my post) both lack real substance. I totally agree that my reply to you wasn’t quality, but I wanted my assumptions to muse you into providing better content to your claims - you failed so I wont spend too much time on my reply.

Lets put this in into logical terms: How did the company make millions in the first place? If it was only from Google traffic and understanding Google’s algorithm and they failed to update their business methodology and tactics accordingly, then they were destined to fail anyway. Very few businesses survive that don't change with the times (if you'd like we can have that debate at well). The times in this case deal with technology and technology moves fast! This is a perfect case for why you need keep advancing a business and not keep your eggs in one basket - both things learned in business 101. So your conclusion to Google causing their failure has a deeper root cause - They got comfortable and slacked on keeping up with SEO perhaps. Either way, policy and guidelines change all the time and businesses have to adapt. Big business or small business it doesn't make a difference when if comes to bad business sense.

I just can't believe that someone would have the audacity to argue that Google's change can bankrupt a million dollar business. Google makes a change and the whole world is disrupted - is hogwash. The CEO that makes that claim should have invested more effort into Bing, Yahoo, etc. way before the profit line fell below sustainability.

*Another Assumption* You arguing that Google can't change their search algorithm so that businesses can avoid failure doesn't make sense. My counter is that I'm glad they do it to weed out poorly managed businesses who need to find another market.