Is google loosing the plot?

[kulture]

Google seems to be spending a lot of resources trying to out think and negate the work of SEO companies. In the last few days I have been frustrated in searches on google and have started using a different search engine to find what I am looking for. I have defaulted to google for more years than I care to remember, but it's results seem to be poorer than others at the moment.

I managed to find relevant results on page 1 of bing instead of page 3 or 4 of google.

Is it possible that google, in persuit of its seeming vendetta against all SEO has dropped the ball a bit? Has it forgotten that the one true metric must be that people searching find what they need to?

Realistically, what is wrong with allowing sites to buy links to invest in their position in search results? After all if the sites were no good, people would not convert, and the sites would loose money.

 

[Websitehandyman]

I hear the sound of a penny dropping !

Google was as good as every other search engine when it came out. People used it because it was neat and clean with no real advertising at the time. They then had the advantage of TV and films discovering the internet and almost every show or film said the phase "Google it" Bing later paid for this to be inserted as "Bing it"

So all that gave them a boost and they really took advantage but people are not not as easier fooled, it's no better then it ever was and the are 75% adverts to real search content.

In a word it's a rubbish search engine.

Bing on the other hand is a very good search engine, only problem is it has failed to capture enough pages so you won't find as many things in Bing as in Google searches not by a long way.

I prefer http://www.dogpile.com

"
About Dogpile’s New Results Layout

Arfie loves to fetch for the most accurate search results, and with our metasearch-powered technology, we’re able to do just that. Dogpile.com compiles the most comprehensive search results from the leading search engines, saving you valuable time from searching on other engines. Our new layout allows you to quickly review the separated ad results, and then explore web search results on the same page. The new split layout makes it easier for you to glance at the results, and get to the web pages you searched for more quickly."

 

[liongroup]

Google seems to be spending a lot of resources trying to out think and negate the work of SEO companies. In the last few days I have been frustrated in searches on google and have started using a different search engine to find what I am looking for. I have defaulted to google for more years than I care to remember, but it's results seem to be poorer than others at the moment.

I managed to find relevant results on page 1 of bing instead of page 3 or 4 of google.

Is it possible that google, in persuit of its seeming vendetta against all SEO has dropped the ball a bit? Has it forgotten that the one true metric must be that people searching find what they need to?

Realistically, what is wrong with allowing sites to buy links to invest in their position in search results? After all if the sites were no good, people would not convert, and the sites would loose money.

You make some valid points but on the whole, I must disagree with you. Whilst Google is doing other things e.g social, robots, cars etc, it's core business search is still a cash machine. This business is still growing too and when you're in a monopoly situation as they are, it's only going to get bigger.

Google is fine for me and until our search behavior changes - which we're slowly seeing it is with mobile - they will continue to be fine.

 

[faradaykeynes]

I like dogpile.com , thanks for suggestions websitehandyman

 

[kulture]

To be honest I do not care if the search result is an advert or organic. I only care about the relevancy.

 

[terryuk]

To be honest I do not care if the search result is an advert or organic. I only care about the relevancy.

People talk a lot about relevancy but can you give me an example of where you don't find relevant results?

The market loves Google.. I can't imagine a company calling to sell you positioning on Dogpile. It's a big circle - consumer, B2B and of course Google.

They only tweak a minority and everyone gets unhappy because they are doing things they shouldn't have been doing in the first place.... it is a hype, a very big one.

 

[lissya212]

Black hat techniques have come on somewhat since the days you when could fool Google simply by filling your page full of hidden text. Nowadays it's mainly about linkbuilding and adopting somewhat less admirable techniques to do what "should" be a long-term, organic process. The concern appears to be that the big G is letting a lot of clearly shaded techniques slip through the net, while we truthful hardworking folk undergo.

 

[webgeek]

Wolframalpha for the win!

 

[cjd]

All Google need to do to get its relevancy back to where it was is to provide a series of user controlled filters. Here's a couple of suggestions:

1. Remove comparison sites
2. Remove multinational brands
3. Remove review sites
4. Remove directories

Etc

 

[cjd]

Why remove multinational brands and comparison sites :|
As a consumer they are what I want

Then you don't click the button that removes them.

 

[Tin]

I prefer http://www.dogpile.com

I gave up using Dogpile about 10 years ago. It does show UK results but these are generally contained within the sponsored ads box which takes up the top 6 inches of the results. Most times, the organic results show sites outside the UK.

I thought Google was doing quite well in having a very faint background colour to it's ad box but Dogpile's is pretty much invisible. They must do well out of laptop visitors.

 

[MASSEY]

Are people so stupid? Google returns the best search results out of all search engines. Anyone who suggests otherwise doesn't know what they are looking for.

Luckily, all of my traffic, bar about 0000000.1% comes from google so enough people think it is perfectly fine.

 

[kulture]

Are people so stupid? Google returns the best search results out of all search engines. Anyone who suggests otherwise doesn't know what they are looking for.

Luckily, all of my traffic, bar about 0000000.1% comes from google so enough people think it is perfectly fine.

Can I suggest that this is bollo**** . I know what I am looking for. And for you to suggest otherwise is somewhat rude. Google used to get it right most of the time, recently less so. The trouble is that some people will slowly get frustrated and try other search engines and find that sometimes they are better, FOR THEM.

 

[deniser]

I'm with Tin. For the particular shopping category I am in, only Google really shows relevant results. Dogpile only shows me US results which are useless if you want to shop online in the UK.

What I noticed recently though is that Google has replaced the more specialist shops with the large chains which is not good. I don't really want to be directed to a "department" store if I am looking for a specialist shop.

 

[RadiusBPO]

Although I can't find the exact searches (i got very deep) I've recently been redoing my kitchen. Obviously trying to buy everything online but I kept being shown US, CA and AU sites, this was very tedious but no idea if Bing would have been any better..

 

[bdw]

I have a website that has been around since 2001. In its niche it pretty much dominates the results internationally in Google and Bing for all manner of searches. It is not in the top 50 results in Dogpile. This illustrates that people outside of the US do not get good results from Dogpile.

Use it and you will be missing many of the most relevant UK results.

 

[Chunkford]

I really can't take a search engine seriously with a name like dogpile. It sounds like its a pile of dog mess.

duckduckgo, now thats a search engine

 

[kulture]

To be honest I still use Google as a default. BUT now if I do not get what I am looking for in the first few pages, I try Bing instead. If Bing continues to provide results that I like, sooner of latter I will switch my default.

 

[directmarketingadvice]

As a searcher, I get the feeling that, instead of giving top priority to pages that match my search queries, they're often giving priority to "authority sites" that partially match my search query.

I don't know if that's just happening to me. Anyone get the same feeling?

Steve

 

[terryuk]

As a searcher, I get the feeling that, instead of giving top priority to pages that match my search queries, they're often giving priority to "authority sites" that partially match my search query.

I don't know if that's just happening to me. Anyone get the same feeling?

Steve

That's been the case for some time now another possible flaw of the algo

 

[MASSEY]

Can I suggest that this is bollo**** . I know what I am looking for. And for you to suggest otherwise is somewhat rude. Google used to get it right most of the time, recently less so. The trouble is that some people will slowly get frustrated and try other search engines and find that sometimes they are better, FOR THEM.

Theres only one way to settle this

Post some google searches that do not give relevant information back

 

[Chunkford]

As a searcher, I get the feeling that, instead of giving top priority to pages that match my search queries, they're often giving priority to "authority sites" that partially match my search query.

I don't know if that's just happening to me. Anyone get the same feeling?

Steve

Eric did say "Brands are how you sort out the cesspool"
Maybe this is what is meant by it.

 

[kulture]

Theres only one way to settle this

Post some google searches that do not give relevant information back

Google always returns "relevant" information. Its just not always relevant TO ME. Since it becomes a matter of opinion, and not fact, this cannot be settled in the way you suggest.

I will however direct you to the opinions expressed above which in part agree with me. So other people have noticed a slight degrading in the relevancy in their opinion in some cases.

 

[bdw]

I changed my default search engine to Bing about six months ago. I hate to say it but I often have to revert to Google when searching.

.

 

[Annoying Donkey]

Luckily, all of my traffic, bar about 0000000.1% comes from google so enough people think it is perfectly fine.

I'd be concerned about that. Better to have multiple sources so if one goes bad, your don't lose everything...

 

[Annoying Donkey]

I changed my default search engine to Bing about six months ago. I hate to say it but I often have to revert to Google when searching.

.

I think Giggle shows less relevant results than a couple of years ago, but I've yet to find anything better...

 

[Annoying Donkey]

Theres only one way to settle this

Post some google searches that do not give relevant information back

I had a bit of time so I decided to try this. My location is set to Haslemere.

First attempt was a search for 'painter' as in painter and decorator. The result was Coral Painter, a software product No Haslemere painters in organic results.

So I tried 'plumber'. Not a single result in the organic was a local plumber. And one of the results was a daily mail story titled

Philippe Loret 'believes he is Adolf Hitler's grandson': French ...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...andson-French-plumber-tells-family-story.html

No Haslemere plumbers in organic results. Some for London and St Albans, a long way from haslemere.

Next was electrician. Guess what, no Haslemere electricians in organic results.

While not exactly a definitive test, I can say that a couple of years back we were able to find some local plumbers...

Edit: Thought I'd try '24 hour plumber'. None anywhere local to Haslemere. No 2 is Birmingham, Another in wirral, most results look a lot like lead gen sites...

 

[bdw]

I'd be concerned about that. Better to have multiple sources so if one goes bad, your don't lose everything...

There is nothing you can do about while Google is delivering upwards of 95% of UK traffic.

.

 

[Annoying Donkey]

There is nothing you can do about while Google is delivering upwards of 95% of UK traffic.

.

Search engine traffic maybe, but G has no control over traffic in general.

 

[RadiusBPO]

There is nothing you can do about while Google is delivering upwards of 95% of UK traffic.

.

Engage Rand Mode:

This is where the "brand" plays a part. If your brand is strong and popular enough people will be looking for "you" maybe more than people looking for your "product".

EG [car insurance] = 550k pm | [compare the market] = 823k pm

Disengage.

That is expensive and hard to get some brand loyalty, it takes time. But it does strengthen a business.

But this could hurt Google big time.

[car insurance] = £6.84 cpc
[compare the market] = £0.72 cpc

With stronger brands people will stop searching for short and long tails, they will just go to a site they follow on twitter or facebook, they will ask recommendations from their network and just search for the brand name. Just like what they do with car insurance.

 

[bdw]

Search engine traffic maybe, but G has no control over traffic in general.

Well that is certainly a very radical view. Not sure that many people would agree with it. :|

Currently, here in the UK we must accept that Google is delivering > 95% of our traffic. If that is not control I don't know what is.

.

 

[MASSEY]

Weblinkplus,

Do you see how ironic your advice is. Do you not require google, and pretty much google only, to make a living?

I am happy relying on one source, totally fine.

The world is going to end one day you know

 

[Annoying Donkey]

Do you see how ironic your advice is. Do you not require google, and pretty much google only, to make a living?

Not at all. If G was taken out of the equation we'd still be making a healthy living

If you are specifically meaning our SEM business, even there, our current clients are big enough that they don't need help with rankings.

One of my priority projects has been to design an SEM business plan that is not reliant on G or any other search engine. It's coming along nicely and I hope to release a course later this year...

 

[kulture]

Weblinkplus,

Do you see how ironic your advice is. Do you not require google, and pretty much google only, to make a living?

I am happy relying on one source, totally fine.

The world is going to end one day you know

I do not know what you are marketing so I cannot properly comment on your 99.99% reliance on google. However for a typical retail site, I would expect a significant percentage of customers to be repeat customers. Many of whom would bookmark the site or type in the URL. I would also evpect visitors from inward bound links. I only rely on google for new customers. I would expect my site URL to be unique enough to pop up on any search engine even bing if the customer was looking fo me by name. So you statement that all but 0.0000001% of your visitors come via google is either inaccurate or a worry.

 

[kulture]

Well that is certainly a very radical view. Not sure that many people would agree with it. :|

Currently, here in the UK we must accept that Google is delivering > 95% of our traffic. If that is not control I don't know what is.

.

If you change this to read 95% of search engine traffic then I would agree. I would hope however that you get traffic from links and repeat custom.

 

[MASSEY]

I do not know what you are marketing so I cannot properly comment on your 99.99% reliance on google. However for a typical retail site, I would expect a significant percentage of customers to be repeat customers. Many of whom would bookmark the site or type in the URL. I would also evpect visitors from inward bound links. I only rely on google for new customers. I would expect my site URL to be unique enough to pop up on any search engine even bing if the customer was looking fo me by name. So you statement that all but 0.0000001% of your visitors come via google is either inaccurate or a worry.

Not a worry to people making lots of money

I currently have a site offering domestic services. Kitchens, bathrooms, rewiring, plumbing.

Looking at last weeks stats 100% of my traffic was google.

Then i have another site, in the loans market. On average it gets about 2000 hits a month. 99% of that is google. The 1% that isn't google are where people have used smething like talktalk search or BT search, which use google as their engine to display anyway

There are very few means when it comes to delivering traffic to websites other than google, unless you have millions of pounds marketing budget like autotrader type sites or compare the market.

But even then , the chances are people use google to find the brands rather than go direct to the site.

 

[MASSEY]

Not at all. If G was taken out of the equation we'd still be making a healthy living

If G was taken out of the equation, what would take it out of the equation?

 

[Suzuki]

Then i have another site, in the loans market. On average it gets about 2000 hits a month. 99% of that is google. The 1% that isn't google are where people have used smething like talktalk search or BT search, which use google as their engine to display anyway

But thats the big difference when you compare your loan site to real businesses. I don't mean to cause offence but your site is a silly little affiliate site, if it dies tomorrow you can set up another one. Its not a real business by any stretch of the imagination. So you can afford to have 99% google traffic, you don't need anything else. People running real businesses don't have that luxury.

And before you jump on me for saying that, I'm in the same category - all of my sites are affiliate sites also, getting mostly Google traffic.

 

[MASSEY]

But thats the big difference when you compare your loan site to real businesses. I don't mean to cause offence but your site is a silly little affiliate site, if it dies tomorrow you can set up another one. Its not a real business by any stretch of the imagination. So you can afford to have 99% google traffic, you don't need anything else. People running real businesses don't have that luxury.

And before you jump on me for saying that, I'm in the same category - all of my sites are affiliate sites also, getting mostly Google traffic.

But it's a silly affiliate site romping up the serps for terms which show hundreds of thousands of searches a month between them.

How else could you send thousands of visitors to your site a month?

 

[Suzuki]

You could do any of the dozens of things Wonga, Payday UK, Quick Quid etc are doing.