Google going downhill?

Has anyone else noticed that the Google search results aren't as useful or accurate as they were a few months ago?

Whenever I search for something now I get tons of affiliate pages and web stores junking up the first few pages of the results. I think Google need to re-look at their latest changes and workout why they are now letting so many dodgy sites through.

Anyone else think Google is losing it?

Also out of interest does anyone here actually use something different than Google as their primary search engine anymore?

I've noticed it, but I don't think it's Google's fault. It's because annoying companies and webmasters think that they've figured out Google and are trying various things to get to the top.

google is screwed -- it takes me 15 to find what im looking for now- if i can find it at all --- i find mysefl going to netscape or something sucks -- -- alot of businesses are losing business---

Alltheweb seems to be good... but it is WAAAAY slow on indexing sites. It took the bot 5months from visiting my site to actually get indexed... I've found this to be true with many sites that (aren't) on alltheweb. If they get some of the server power that google has they'll move up... but then again, they're not well known by everyone.. .not nearly on the scale google/yahoo is.

I have noticed that same thing as well. I used to be able to go to google, type in what i was looking for, and almost magically, there would be the exact thing i wanted. Now, i type in what i want, wade throught 2 pages of those spammed results where your search term appears in the title, then finally start ot get to some semi useful stuff. I had never heard of All the Web, but i will start to use it some and see how it does. I sure hope google can correct this, as i really like them

-Jonathan

I still use Google also, but I have had this problem lately, and it's definately new. You shouldn't have to revise a search such as "i90 Ringtones" because it produces 10+ pages of garbage results. Have a look: [searchweb]i90 Ringtones[/searchweb]

yeah, you're right I haven't stopped using Google since 3 or 4 years, but now every time I search for something and the first page is full of crap, that's very bad for them and if they don't fix it they'll go down very fast...

This looks similiar to what Altavista did a couple of years back - imho they never recovered and Google really took over (at least for my own use).

The reality is that Google is now making so much revenue from its adwords and content related ads that it wouldnt surprise me if it was deliberately screwing up its basic searches to encourage more people to sign up to Adwords!

I read here and everywhere else I can. We were hit and dropped from top ten to thousands down the list, under hundreds of search strings for our products and services.

From what I can surmise, Google in getting ready to make an IPO "found out" probably with the help of M.S. lawyers, that the basic algorithms were owned by the fed.gov. and the university that paid, via grant funds, for the original Google work. Since they paid, Google Inc. does not really own the source code, so to speak, in my opinion... thus they don't own the foundation underneath the offer to IPO>... since they are in a war to the death with M.S. now - with M.S. wanting to have the best Search Engine... I would guess that there is a lot of "midnight oil" being burnt and a lot of elbow grease being used at Google these days, trying to come up with something saleable and workable.

Just a guess, as I'm CERTAINLY not an insider.

Interesting stuff Jody, got any URLs with any more juicy info?

No... as I said, this is my own musing and when I first looked at Google there was a reference someplace, perhaps on Google.com about the way Google started... with the federal grant at the university.

Here is the current version of the history of Google:
http://www.google.com/corporate/history.html

They are making as much $$$ as fast as they can for the IPO

ntrance makes a good point about screwing things up for more AdWords...

some more points to consider...

1. At 6.95 per domain name...those STUPID email spammers are doing the same thing with websites...obviously if all they have to do is write a good title include keywords in the content and link it to the other 300 websites that they already have ...well there you go!!! their number 1...easy as that!!

(Raise the cost of domain names would cut down on this!! anyone agree??)

2. perhaps google does this maybe not...but instead of link popularity what about search/click popularity..the more people that search and return your site then click the link to get to it should raise you higher...even better if it could track how long they stayed....I know my server logs show this...if there was some way for google to see that...that my friend would be the ultimate popularity equation...of course that goes back to having a good title in the first place (spammed or otherwise)

3. Perhaps raise the rankings of sites that have been registered longer....say a site-spammer registers i90-ringtones-for-everyone-that-wants-free-crap-to-download.biz (note spammer like those hyphenated names!!) then did his evil spam dance with the coding...well he's gonna overtake legitimate sites....BUT not if they wouldn't let him get so high without paying until he has some months under his websites belt!!

4. extreme--your sites not in google unless your site has verified ownership....meaning you call a 800 number for google and they verify your information in your whois with what you give them on the phone...they could even charge a minimal one-time fee (4.99-9.99) to cover the cost of phone people) Then when you pay by credit card on the phone they verify your card billing address with the billing info in your whois record, same with contact number because now they have that too....This way spam sites must give legit info...I know they can change it later but it might cut down on the crap...

5. have a central site where you register your site and it passes an inspection...once passed you display a small logo logo with appropriate code on it...that tells the google spider that you have been verified by an actual google representative to not be a crap spam site...no logo lower rankings...now versions of crap may differ in everyones opinions...but oh well...

6. adult sites can only have .xxx domain extensions...i've been saying this for years...RULES PEOPLE!! REGULATE THEM!! If we cant have a strip club within 2 miles of a church/school/federal place then dont let adult content nest where we do!!...nothing against them...I run a couple myself...but that can block out stuff like...I want to book a hotel in Paris and I want to stay at a Hilton.....so go figure...20 pages of Paris Hilton doing the nasty is all I find!!...and then google can exclude the .xxx extension from normal searches...

well thats all for now....You heard them here first!! so if google does any of these I want a cookie! ( and not a cookie in my temp folder!)

Joey


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.xxx is an exellent idea, you should submit that to whoever decides things like that. That would vastly improve search results, and website filters.

I realy don't think google is going down. I personaly haven't stopped using google, and alot of the people who don't know there is a difference between search engines is probably using google anyways. I think google has enough money to hold them out untill they get the algorithm fixed. There might be a dent in their profits but they will probably get back up.

Those are all good points and worth bringing in. Personally I favour a really simple solution which Google already has the code for. Here's the scenario -

Searcher types in a 2 word phrase (i.e. web hosting). Google returns 2 decent results and a load of spam. Google records which links are clicked (the non spam ones) and raises them up the list next time that phrase is entered. Sound familiar? its more or less what they do with Adwords at the moment, popular ads are put higher in the list because they get clicked more.

Wouldnt work for everything, but it would certainly weed out a lot of the rubbish their results display at the moment. Would even help in your Paris Hotel scenario - keyphrases like "paris hilton video" or "paris hilton xxx" would show up for those combos but wouldnt show for just "paris hilton" (hopefully) because on that combo people would be clicking the hotel link.

Mind you it's probably open to a lot of abuse (just like adwords!).

Of course Google has ruled the roost for too long and their latest algo updates are bizarre and just dont provide the quality of results we are used to. In fixing some really spammy areas they seem to have screwed up the results for other non spammy searches. Altavista had its turn, I think Google's turn is now over. My tip for the next big search engine - Yahoo for a couple of months using the Inktomi data and then MSN when it finally gets its act together.

MSNs beta-robot has been crawling my sites to death recently so they must be hard at it!

I read somewhere that what is happening at Google is just a hitch, and that things will settle down soon.

But it did mention that thing about floating the company and needing to find a non-patented algorithm that somebody couldn't sue them about if they used it.

Not that it matters much, as her site gets very little traffic yet, but my pal Jennifer's site www.algarve-beach-life.com was sitting at number 9 on a search for its main keywords 'algarve beaches' in early January. But now it's disappeared off the Google map.

It's easy to see why those with significant traffic are 'going ballistic' about the time it's taking to sort things out at Google.

Just my two cents' worth.

Sara