Posted by hchickpea on April 14, 2006, 11:17 am
I never paid a whole lot of attention to the way that google ranked
sites in searches, and I just assumed that it was based on content
with a few other factors tossed in to keep the scammers and spammers
from rising through the ranks. I now think that the criteria it uses
has become so flawed that it can't be trusted.
A few years back, I posted an extensive history of an area in Vermont
called "Bolton Falls" on one of my websites. That work was lauded by
the local historical society and the University of Vermont, and has
remained available since then with very few changes. There are no
advertisements on the site, and there are no hidden attempts to tweak
the google ranking. It is simply good solid information about the
area.
Yesterday, I decided to see if there was any new information on the
web about that area that I needed to include on the pages, so I
plugged "Bolton Falls" into the google search engine. As expected, I
didn't see anything that looked like new information. What was
unexpected was that my site, which is _by far_ the most informative,
had dropped in rank to the one-hundred nineteenth site listed, right
after the site that got listed for the phrase "Except MAYBE if Michael
Bolton falls off a cliff or something"
Another extensive set of pages on my site concerns the "Mount
Mansfield Electric Railroad" Using that unique quoted search term,
the site comes up 15th, right after a couple of other search engine
listings that caught my site for use of the words "snowplow" and
"lumberyard"
Just to make sure that the world hadn't gone totally crackers, I did a
Yahoo search on the two phrases. The sites came up as the number one
and number three choices, as I had expected, and as had been the case
on google previously.
What the FUCK is google doing?????
While this obviously screwed up ranking on google is an irritant, it
doesn't cost me money, but only thwarts my good intentions. However,
I can now understand how companies have to battle to keep their sites
ranked properly, and an unwarranted drop in ranking can kill their
business.
I mention google's problem here because many of us use the search
engine to research our responses in the group. I have recently
noticed a general increase in difficulty using it, specifically with
the secondary search engines getting high ranks with spurious
information wasting my time, but ranking errors like the one I just
found are simply inexcusable, and indicative of huge problems within
the searching software. My frugal tip? If you don't want to waste
time while searching for information, try a different search engine
first, and relegate google to a second or third choice. Google seemed
to have passed its expiration date and started to smell.
Posted by hchickpea on April 14, 2006, 12:00 pm
>> I mention google's problem here because many of us use the search
>> engine to research our responses in the group. I have recently
>> I mention google's problem here because many of us use the search
>> engine to research our responses in the group. I have recently
>> noticed a general increase in difficulty using it, specifically with
>> the secondary search engines getting high ranks with spurious
>> information wasting my time, but ranking errors like the one I just
>> found are simply inexcusable, and indicative of huge problems within
>> the searching software. My frugal tip? If you don't want to waste
>> time while searching for information, try a different search engine
>> first, and relegate google to a second or third choice. Google seemed
>> to have passed its expiration date and started to smell.
>There is, on average, two of this type of posting to alt.www.webmaster
>per month. I would recommend doing a search through that newsgroup if
>you want information on why your site has likely dropped, how you can
>increase your siterank and result listing, and why it's a bad idea to
>count on one company as your advertising source.
The site in question is a purely non-profit informational and
educational site with no link to any company. It does not even have
any third-party ads to generate income.
>That said, what makes you think it's Google's fault? Have any websites
>that link to you dropped their links or gone offline? How much time
>have you invested into promoting your site lately? You can bet at least
>some of your competition has invested quite a bit.
That is precisely the issue, but stated from a negative point-of-view.
Google has changed the search engine concept from being a place where
you get ranked based on the quality of your information, to one where
you get ranked based on how many friends are willing to link to you,
and what other esoteric algorithems its programmers can dream up. The
site in question doesn't have competition. It isn't oriented to
subjects that foster competition. It strives to be what some us
thought the good part of the WWW would be.
Do I think the lack of ranking is Google's fault? Hell, yes. Google
designed the ranking system it uses, and it claims to be a useful
search engine. If I looked on a map for New York City, and found ads
for diners in New York City, T-shirts for New York City, other cities
that had people with relatives in New York City, and other cities that
had "New" or "York" in their name, BEFORE I found New York City, I'd
be totally pissed and I would throw the map in the garbage.
Google designed the ranking system it uses, and it claims to be a
useful search engine. It is NOT my responsibility to kiss Googles
feet and whine "Oh please give me a better ranking, oh great Google."
It is Google's responsibility to provide useful and intelligent
searches.
I am in an unusual position of not depending on Google for business on
this site. What a search containing my site does do is point out the
horrendous mess that Google has made out of its search engine,
degrading it from the number one choice in searching the net to
something less useful than Billy-Bob's Search-o-rama and Goat Cheese
Outlet.
Posted by arccos on April 14, 2006, 2:02 pm
hchickpea@hotmail.com wrote:
> The site in question is a purely non-profit informational and
> educational site with no link to any company. It does not even have
> any third-party ads to generate income.
That does not make it inherently more valuable, either to Google or the
the Web community at large. It doesn't come into play in Google.
> >That said, what makes you think it's Google's fault? Have any websites
> >that link to you dropped their links or gone offline? How much time
> >have you invested into promoting your site lately? You can bet at least
> >some of your competition has invested quite a bit.
> That is precisely the issue, but stated from a negative point-of-view.
> Google has changed the search engine concept from being a place where
> you get ranked based on the quality of your information, to one where
> you get ranked based on how many friends are willing to link to you,
> and what other esoteric algorithems its programmers can dream up. The
> site in question doesn't have competition. It isn't oriented to
> subjects that foster competition. It strives to be what some us
> thought the good part of the WWW would be.
> Do I think the lack of ranking is Google's fault? Hell, yes. Google
> designed the ranking system it uses, and it claims to be a useful
> search engine. If I looked on a map for New York City, and found ads
> for diners in New York City, T-shirts for New York City, other cities
> that had people with relatives in New York City, and other cities that
> had "New" or "York" in their name, BEFORE I found New York City, I'd
> be totally pissed and I would throw the map in the garbage.
Strange... I type in "map new york city", and get on-target results
from page 1-5. Image search gets me maps of the city, too. I didn't
look any further. What words are you searching for?
> Google designed the ranking system it uses, and it claims to be a
> useful search engine. It is NOT my responsibility to kiss Googles
> feet and whine "Oh please give me a better ranking, oh great Google."
> It is Google's responsibility to provide useful and intelligent
> searches.
The system isn't designed to give you a good rank if you think you
deserve it. The system is designed to give you a good rank if the Web
community thinks you deserve it. It works perfectly every time I use
it... I have never had a failed search on Google. And I do mean never.
If I search for "Bolton Falls," Google is going to give me what I asked
for, the most popular pages about Bolton Falls. I need to be more
specific if I'm looking for more specific information about Bolton
Falls.
> I am in an unusual position of not depending on Google for business on
> this site. What a search containing my site does do is point out the
> horrendous mess that Google has made out of its search engine,
> degrading it from the number one choice in searching the net to
> something less useful than Billy-Bob's Search-o-rama and Goat Cheese
> Outlet.
Depending on Google for business is an unusual and dangerous practice.
One company is not going to stay ranked high forever. I disagree that
they have made a mess. Google is a tool, no more no less. It's not a
tool for getting higher ranked pages, or traffic, or pagerank. It's a
tool for finding useful information on the web, and more generally, the
Internet. Using it to evaluate the posiition of your specific page
means you're not evaluating it as the tool it's designed to be. You're
trying to use a hammer to unscrew a screw. :-)
Again, take a look at those discussions in alt.www.webmaster. If you're
concerned about the ranking of your site, then you can do something
about it. If you are not, then don't.
Posted by hchickpea on April 14, 2006, 11:50 pm
>So, do you have any recommendations, or do you feel it's sufficient to
>trash the market leader to appear knowledgeable and cool?
So, when did you stop beating your wife? You know me better than to
ascribe motives like that to me.
The simple solution is to change the weighting of factors to provide a
more balanced view. If you sense a theme, you are right. Google has
taken an extreme and claimed it as proper and normal. I've learned
over the years that extremes usually end up in disaster, and do no
service other than showing how bad extremes are.
Follow the logic. Another poster mentioned tourbus, which I had never
heard of. I checked it out and found this page:
<http://www.internettourbus.com/arch/Tourbus_is_Dead-A032106.html>
Still think google is a benign "will of the people?"
What google is attempting to foist on the public is the rule of the
mob, where thought, logic, and science play second fiddle to the whim
of the moment and the popular fetish. In a peculiar way, it is an
anti-snopes, and Ayn Rand's worst nightmare, where rumor can be linked
to rumor, and the herd of sheep that follow the rumor give credence to
the rumor by adding more hits and creating more links.
The "prank" of the "miserable failure" googlebomb exposes the issue.
Until the "prank" appelation was used, such blips were called "the
mind of the web." They are no more the mind of the web or a schoolboy
prank than the mind of a rock or the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The
anomalies are representative of the perversities of humanity that
civilization and manners have worked to control for centuries.
The real miserable failure is the google search engine, and the way
that it lacks the critical thinking skills of a tiny fish which can
determine what is food and what is a worm on a string.
Galileo summarized the problem long ago:
"I seem to discern the belief that in philosophizing one must support
oneself on the opinion of some celebrated author, as if our minds
ought to remain completely sterile and barren unless wedded to the
reasoning of someone else."
Google holds by that credo, and hails the rule of the mediocre and
those who know how to manipulate the mediocre.
Posted by Jim P Sharma on April 15, 2006, 12:48 am
hchickpea@hotmail.com wrote:
>> So, do you have any recommendations, or do you feel it's sufficient
>> to trash the market leader to appear knowledgeable and cool?
> So, when did you stop beating your wife? You know me better than to
> ascribe motives like that to me.
> The simple solution is to change the weighting of factors to provide a
> more balanced view. If you sense a theme, you are right. Google has
> taken an extreme and claimed it as proper and normal. I've learned
> over the years that extremes usually end up in disaster, and do no
> service other than showing how bad extremes are.
> Follow the logic. Another poster mentioned tourbus, which I had never
> heard of. I checked it out and found this page:
> <http://www.internettourbus.com/arch/Tourbus_is_Dead-A032106.html>
> Still think google is a benign "will of the people?"
> What google is attempting to foist on the public is the rule of the
> mob, where thought, logic, and science play second fiddle to the whim
> of the moment and the popular fetish. In a peculiar way, it is an
> anti-snopes, and Ayn Rand's worst nightmare, where rumor can be linked
> to rumor, and the herd of sheep that follow the rumor give credence to
> the rumor by adding more hits and creating more links.
> The "prank" of the "miserable failure" googlebomb exposes the issue.
> Until the "prank" appelation was used, such blips were called "the
> mind of the web." They are no more the mind of the web or a schoolboy
> prank than the mind of a rock or the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The
> anomalies are representative of the perversities of humanity that
> civilization and manners have worked to control for centuries.
Wota terminal fuckwit.
> The real miserable failure is the google search engine, and
> the way that it lacks the critical thinking skills of a tiny fish which
> can determine what is food and what is a worm on a string.
Wota terminal fuckwit.
> Galileo summarized the problem long ago:
Nope.
> "I seem to discern the belief that in philosophizing one must
> support oneself on the opinion of some celebrated author,
> as if our minds ought to remain completely sterile and barren
> unless wedded to the reasoning of someone else."
> Google holds by that credo,
Wota terminal fuckwit.
> and hails the rule of the mediocre and those
> who know how to manipulate the mediocre.
Wota terminal fuckwit.
Google leaves anything you have ever done for dead, fuckwit.
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>> engine to research our responses in the group. I have recently
>> I mention google's problem here because many of us use the search
>> engine to research our responses in the group. I have recently
>> noticed a general increase in difficulty using it, specifically with
>> the secondary search engines getting high ranks with spurious
>> information wasting my time, but ranking errors like the one I just
>> found are simply inexcusable, and indicative of huge problems within
>> the searching software. My frugal tip? If you don't want to waste
>> time while searching for information, try a different search engine
>> first, and relegate google to a second or third choice. Google seemed
>> to have passed its expiration date and started to smell.
>There is, on average, two of this type of posting to alt.www.webmaster
>per month. I would recommend doing a search through that newsgroup if
>you want information on why your site has likely dropped, how you can
>increase your siterank and result listing, and why it's a bad idea to
>count on one company as your advertising source.