Is Google losing it?

[dagr]

In general, I only "google" when searching on the web, but after 2 or 3 three unsuccessful searches (by unsuccessful I mean 40 minutes spent ploughing through to page 15 or so), I thought I'd try MSN. Bingo! 5 of the first 10 results on page 1 were right was I was looking for.

I was looking for general info stuff, not a company's products or references, but wondered if anyone else had similar experiences.

Now, I'll probably still try Google first, but after page 1 or 2 I'll go straight to MSN.

[Coding Monkey]

Blind user test revealed 60% of people found MSN & Yahoo more relevant. But, you buy the story about Google ranking relevance. It's also far more accessible via browsers that they've been able to dominate even more. And you don't have to wait for the page to load, which MSN/Yahoo you do.

[Tin]

Another 'enlightened one' :-). Google has been dishing up lots of obscure results for quite a long time now. Hardly a search goes by now without me seeing either a spam site or highly irrelevant results within the first 3 pages of Google. MSN is very often much more targeted to the phrase without seeming to suffer from the level of spam in it's index that plagues Google. Msn's robot is very vigorous in it's crawl of pages and flushes new content into it's index very quickly which is one reason why it's index seems cleaner from spam as most spam sites tend not to change content daily.
I especially like the monthly 'flux' that Google goes into when it fills it's index with Directory sites like Kelkoo etc whenever it's purging different datacentres, who the hell wants directories that they then have to wade through when the search engine is supposed to do that work for us?
Your comment is one I've seen everywhere else, just a pity Google doesn't seem to notice them.

[DotNetWebs]

I completely agree general. I find MSN FAR more effective, especially for new or recently updated sites.

The general consensus is that Google has "Jumped The Shark" (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2011073,00.html)

[Eagle]

*
Google blows... MSN is the way forward. :)

[MarkPearson]

I wish that msn would be the most popular seach engine as we list top or very highly for a hell of a lot our search terms.

As a 3 month old business we get the majority of our search engine traffic from msn, and hardly any from google.

I am hoping that the now 'overdue' google update will help us to rank higher for some more of our search terms besides 'boxed roses'!

[Ravenfire]

I have noticed recently that Google doesn't seem to be working as well as it once did. Think I will switch back to using MSN see if that does work any better. The only other one I use apart from those is usually Yahoo.

[DarrenC]

I rank excellently in MSN, but the percentage of traffic from them is poor compared to Google.

70% Google (.com and international versions)
13% MSN
10% Yahoo
7% Others

This is just search engine referrals.

Im starting to see more and more people say the same thing about MSN being more relevant, and up to date, and I've experienced that myself.

I'm finding that I am not relying on search engines as much as I was 2/3 years ago, but it would be nice one day, not to rely on them at all, and the traffic is a bonus from them.

[DarrenC]

I wish that msn would be the most popular seach engine as we list top or very highly for a hell of a lot our search terms.

As a 3 month old business we get the majority of our search engine traffic from msn, and hardly any from google.

I am hoping that the now 'overdue' google update will help us to rank higher for some more of our search terms besides 'boxed roses'!

Sorry to put a dampner on it Mark - but the update won't help you rank higher in the search engines, what will rank you higher is getting links pointing to your website.

Write a few articles, and submit them (I think I have said this before :lol:) and you'll be amazed how many links you get back from them - one article I submitted has given me over 600 links, that's ONE article.

All the update will do is update the Google toolbar - nothing else.

[Tin]

Mark, as Darren said earlier PR doesn't mean higher rankings. Links in my experience are not solely responsible for top rankings. If we are talking about Yahoo & MSN then you can get number 1 spots with less than 10 links, if we are talking about Google then ok, he likes some more links (but not especially thousands). I've said it before to you, you've almost no seo on your site so how do you expect Google's robot to determine which words you are targeting when your site is so poorly optimised.
I'm sorry to sound harsh and I know that you seem to be doing a good job of promoting your site in the more traditional sense but you seem from an Internet angle to be like a boat drifting without oars, wherever the tide takes you, that's where you're going. If you believe faithfully in your roses do something serious about your site in terms of search engines because if you hang about much longer there'll be someone around the next corner who's got the money & faith to steer their own boat and know exactly where they are taking it.
I could buy an expired domain today (avoiding the 12 month Google lag and comes complete with established PR). Build a site on it about roses. SEO the site and be on page 1 of all major engines within a month of starting. All I'd need then are some roses and a machine for the printing. Do you see how easy it can be?

There's over 3,000 members on here with just a small handful posting. It's a business forum, how many members have thought seriously about doing what you're doing when the machine you use is available on Ebay for around a grand. It's a very small investment for a potentially huge & profitable business, just be careful you don't get swamped by your competitors wake.

Well done for getting this far with it. :)

[multilingual]

Write a few articles, and submit them (I think I have said this before :lol:) and you'll be amazed how many links you get back from them.

Submit to where exactly?

JB

[Coding Monkey]

And stock market values show that Tin has now increased by 14% through an anonymous investment ;)

[mattk]

Write a few articles, and submit them (I think I have said this before :lol:) and you'll be amazed how many links you get back from them.

Submit to where exactly?

JB
List of article sites:

http://forums.seochat.com/google-optimization-7/essential-google-optomisation-56410.html?pp=15

[Tin]

Tom said:
And stock market values show that Tin has now increased by 14% through an anonymous investment

and it's looking better all the time :wink:

[multilingual]

Thanks Matt

:)

JB

[Enigma121]

If you are really looking to find something that you are looking for I'd recommend (in this order).

1. Teoma
2. MSN
3. Yahoo
4. Lycos
...
100. Google

[mustang]

I agree, not only because MSN passes more relevant results but also because their updates are much faster and more effective than Google.

I got 4000+ hits from the Googlebot in December and the same in January and Feb is already at 3800+. I get half of that from the MSN robot yet MSN has indexed more pages than Google.

Not only that but MSN has listed 1000+ incoming links for my site and Google...Only 2.

[mattk]

I have to be honest, I still get everything I ever need from Google.

And looking at Welogs, bein ranked number 1 on Google is still far more valuable than being ranked number 1 on any other engine.

[DotNetWebs]

Hi Matt

Try searching for this on Google and MSN:

swindoner

I saw somewhere that you run a local website. I remeberered because I run a local forum and we both appear on a links page somewhere.

It is clear you should be no1 on both sites as you use this (pretty unique) term in you domain and your home page title. The page that is no1 on Google for this term is a deep linked page from a not particularly relevant site. (That roundabout brought back a few memories though :) )

I bet you your site was listed on MSN within a day or two of submission but it probably took a couple of weeks on Google.

As you know Google biases against new sites. The cynic in me thinks its so they can maximise the adwords potential.

I have finally got to no1 on Google with Horsham Forum but it took 3 months. It was no1 on MSN within days.

My point is when a new website is launched with a unique domain or title you should expect to be able to find it on search engines within a few days. I know that I can find what I want on MSN in this case. Google takes much longer.

Regards

[c2webdesign]

Got to agree with Matt. Google is still number one with me for searches.

The other engines are easier to empower and climb their rankings, and because of this Google results are usually more 'accurate', because it tries to filter out 'attempts' to be number one. Relying on content, it's popularity and the referals of others.

Example - a site we built went live three weeks ago. It was aiming for a keyword searched approx. 160,000 times a month (according to Overture and 123 Promotion) and already we are number 2 on MSN.

[DotNetWebs]

The other engines are easier to empower and climb their rankings, and because of this Google results are usually more 'accurate', because it tries to filter out 'attempts' to be number one. Relying on content, it's popularity and the referals of others.

But that is also its weakness. It is biased against new sites that may be far more relevant than the results it is returning.

This will be come more relevant as the internet goes more local. I have analysed the logs on my Horsham Forum site and the vast majority of relevant referrals are coming from MSN.

For example a new Indian restaurant recently opened near me. Lots of people were talking about it on the Horsham Forum and within days I was receiving lots of referrals from MSN using the terms haldi indian restaurant southwater etc.. I have showed this to the proprietor who has registered on the forum and is hoping to add some details on there. Google did not pick up on this for several weeks. As someone who mainly works with small local businesses MSN is far more effective.

In this age of forums and blogs etc. Today's internet content updates far quicker than it used to. IMHO Google has not kept up with this development.

Also as web developers I think we often look at this from the wrong angle. Because of its popularity A lot of highly ranked sites on Google hold that ranking due to SEO work that has been done. Although good SEO work may impress people like us on this forum it also results in a lot of sites being ranked above where they should be if it was down to relevant content alone.

[c2webdesign]

Completely agree with what you are saying.

Google certainly has let itself go with updates, and yes I personally think they should scrap our formidable advisary known as 'the sandbox' because newer sites coming a long are being built better than before (to an extent) and as such are languishing on page 1,467 whereas something with little content and hasn't been updated since the Battle of Hastings can take top spot - at least with MSN they have their chance like everyone else. Meaning Google's results aren't accurate.

I think MSN and Yahoo maybe would stand better chance by dropping the rest of their content (or moving to a seperate channel) and go for the clutter free appeal of the monster Google. It has been shown that this one factor is why a lot of people started using Google in the first place.