The death of Google
I'll admit it - I'm a Google nut. For years now they've been everything to me, a shining light in an otherwise bland and often obnoxious sea of arrogance and inadequacy. Many a time I've looked to them for inspiration, especially when I hear the latest client say "oh, and I'll need an advanced search, with options for choosing size of whelk and peanut discoloration type ..."
For god sake people, will you please let the professionals handle that side of things ...
That said there's something odd going on with search which I think might take their shine off - they're actually starting to produce rather poor search results.
Now I'm a consumate searcher, I've tried everything and was around when things like infoseek were the bees knees and was a huge fan of Coperinc for while. But Google changed all that, quite frankly there was just no point in choosing anything else. Even lately when I've switched to other engines for a bit they've always been a bit of a poor cousin, or the kind of date that only gets one trip out. Fun, friendly, you'd like to meet up again sometime probably, but no chance of marriage that's for sure.
So what's going on? Well it's the accuracy that's gone. I want something specific but instead I get - well - garbage. Sales garbage mostly. Most of the time it's fine, but when I really need Google all I get is salesmen. You know, I think the rest of the web industry has finally figured out how to get good search engine rankings, and are busy trying to push every little tom dick and harry they can find into the top 10. End result? The top ten is rubbish, and search engine results are flooded with irrelevancy.
Hell, maybe there's a point in all this. Perhaps there's a magic top 10 hidden way down around the 30-40 mark somewhere - maybe I just need to keep looking. Or then again maybe I need to change my search engine. I'll keep my Google Maps, my iGoogle, Analytics, Chrome and Docs for now (not to mention Blogger!) plus all the other great things Google are pushing out, but the search engine may have to take a back seat for a while. Shame - if Google loses their grip on search, what's next to go?
For god sake people, will you please let the professionals handle that side of things ...
That said there's something odd going on with search which I think might take their shine off - they're actually starting to produce rather poor search results.
Now I'm a consumate searcher, I've tried everything and was around when things like infoseek were the bees knees and was a huge fan of Coperinc for while. But Google changed all that, quite frankly there was just no point in choosing anything else. Even lately when I've switched to other engines for a bit they've always been a bit of a poor cousin, or the kind of date that only gets one trip out. Fun, friendly, you'd like to meet up again sometime probably, but no chance of marriage that's for sure.
So what's going on? Well it's the accuracy that's gone. I want something specific but instead I get - well - garbage. Sales garbage mostly. Most of the time it's fine, but when I really need Google all I get is salesmen. You know, I think the rest of the web industry has finally figured out how to get good search engine rankings, and are busy trying to push every little tom dick and harry they can find into the top 10. End result? The top ten is rubbish, and search engine results are flooded with irrelevancy.
Hell, maybe there's a point in all this. Perhaps there's a magic top 10 hidden way down around the 30-40 mark somewhere - maybe I just need to keep looking. Or then again maybe I need to change my search engine. I'll keep my Google Maps, my iGoogle, Analytics, Chrome and Docs for now (not to mention Blogger!) plus all the other great things Google are pushing out, but the search engine may have to take a back seat for a while. Shame - if Google loses their grip on search, what's next to go?
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