Is Google Search getting better or worse?

[Anne.Curtiz]

Hi GT Bulmer


Thank you for sharing this article, it's a big help for me.

[GT Bulmer]

Hello, Anne:

What do you find most interesting about this article? In what way does it help or inspire you the most?

GT

[MichelleJ]

. . . I bet 99.99% of Googlers will use whatever google gives them, so you still need to optimize your content to suit Google's latest developments.

DH

Hey, David, thanks for the insight and the info-link. Your statement about "99.99% of Googlers" is so right on. That is my opinion, too, that despite all the controls, adjustments, refinements and tools available to search users, most of them couldn't be bothered to do anything but key in their query and hit the enter button.

And I'm speaking from personal experience, too, because I don't want it to be a "programming task" every time I want to look something up on the Net. I just want to key in my query and hit the enter button!

GT

I thought that the whole idea was just to key in a query and hit enter (which I am sure is what the majority of people do)

MichelleJ

[GT Bulmer]

We seem to be birds of a feather on this!

Search used to be so simple. But I have noticed the same move to complexity in other areas of the Internet, too. For example, Google Analytics.

They keep improving the Analytics feature, and in many ways the features are definitely more useful, but with each "improvement," it seems to take additional clicks and steps to get to the info you want that you used to be able to get with one click after signing in.

(My offline utilities providers keep doing that with their utility bills, too, lol. A few times a year they introduce changes to the bills, claiming they have "simplified" the bill. However, in most cases, it seems to make it more confusing to understand the info you REALLY want to know and used to be able to see at a glance.) (Hmm, is somebody "getting old" here and starting to sound like an old fogey? )

GT

[MichelleJ]

I think that it is a ploy to baffle you so you just accept whatever they want to dish up.

MichelleJ

[GT Bulmer]

I think that it is a ploy to baffle you so you just accept whatever they want to dish up.

MichelleJ

LOL, and it DOES work to serve that purpose sometimes! Unfortunately. Talking to the utilities companies on the phone doesn't always help to clarify things, either.

I suppose our only recourse is to stay informed on regular basis so we can recognize when something new or different is happening and respond to it quickly.

GT

[jessica_david]

I think google search is getting better and better day by day, I often use other search engines just for the sake of comparison but results provided by google are always best!

[David Hurley]

Hi Jessica_David,

I think you are right in general and over the long term, but Google makes plenty of mistakes on the way to improving what it does. See a thread that was begun earlier this week on Google's latest update:

viewtopic.php?p=41703#41703

David

[drdony]

Interesting read as the update flow in. Certainly a lot to offer hereon EC

Past experience of using a number of search engines, the results in some cases were understandable different. niche searches http://oedb.org/library/features/top-25 ... he-numbers for education

Google search http://www.enicholas.com/niche-marketin ... le-trends/

One that bother me is Blekko, the so-called spam free search. Spam words vary with the filter, and honest mistake of choosing the wrong word for a particulate filter, can filter you out of the results

[MichelleJ]

All I know is that I just seem to get it right and Google goes and changes their algorithms and I am back to square one again.

MichelleJ

[GT Bulmer]

All I know is that I just seem to get it right and Google goes and changes their algorithms and I am back to square one again.

MichelleJ

That's my experience, too. I am getting almost no search engine traffic now.

As far as using Google search to search for info, I don't use it enough to know if it is truly better or not. My wife just finished a Google Search training program offered by Google online and she found it to be very interesting and enlightening. There are some pretty amazing ways you can search for things, or refine your search queries...

...But I think most people do not worry about refining their queries: they just want to enter something into the search box, click enter and get results.

GT