January 19, 2004
Google sucks lately
Searching for product info on Google has become an absolutely pointless endeavor. Once upon a time the search results for a product name or model number would bring up either the vendor's own pages or a few user comment pages. This was of great help in determining whether a product was worth purchasing.
Now Google returns hundreds of garbage pages that are either nothing but keyword traps or half-assed storefront pages. For example, when looking some info on a Pioneer amp model#VSX-D412K look at the results. Pure junk. There's nothing but storefront pages. What a waste of time.
Google wants to go public. The public wants good search results. Don't be surprised when the go the way of the rest of the dot bombed stocks.
I find it particularly funny that Google swore up and down year after year that they would always remain a privately held company, including clearly stating so in front of hundreds of Fortune x00 execs during a conference a year or two back.
Posted by: Jeremy Gray on January 19, 2004 09:09 PMWhat I don't understand is this: is google sabotaging itself? It wants to go public NOW, when its search results are all screwy from their little 'Florida' routine and nobody can find anything useful, NOW they want to mess with their finances too? wtf?
Posted by: dave on January 22, 2004 08:54 PMi think that finding something on google is a waste of time,, they dont give you the information that you need, even listening to a song is a problem,, they just give you the option to by the cd,, they dont even give you the chance to listen first!!!
To the Board of Directors of Google
Is Google in the business of driving websites out of business?
Almost every screen door manufacturer/retailer has disappeared from your top search listings. My site has been ranked since 1996. We haven't changed our sites or tried to "beat your algorithms". We are not spammers, I'm not a web developer, I'm just a business man who employees people and makes a modest living! Will I need to let my employees go if customers cannot find my site screendoors.com? Since your last "upgrade" in November 2003; my customers now have to search high and low for a screen door company. They cannot find any company that sells screen doors with out going through some directory with even more advertisements. Go ahead try to buy a screen door using Google without using one of your Adwords advertisements, but I suppose that's the point isn't it! Please note I am going to tell every business I know how Google is screwing with small businesses!
Try this: "allintext:here your search". It returns results similar to prior versions of Google.
Posted by: quino on February 1, 2004 05:35 AMCame here from searching "google sucks"
I used to love Google. It was nice after Yahoo started clogging their pages with flash advertisments. And the search results used to be great. But now it seems the top results are all affiliate links and directory pages that are usually so ugly and hard to use that I give up. I recently tried teoma.com and I have to say the results are much better. I did a search for local realtors in my area. Google turned up nothing but directories that went in circles. Teoma turned up actual web pages for real life realtor for the town I put in. Amazing!!
Is this what all ultra popular search engines will become sooner or later? Just filled with spam until they become unusable?
Posted by: Eltron on February 10, 2004 04:29 PMGoogle, the wanna be Wal-Mart of the internet zone. If you’re a Mom & Pop small business, the backbone of the American economy, say goodbye. Google appears to be catering to big business by using their PageRank algorithms, which bases its search results on link popularity. Link popularity is in the retail world, the number of suppliers that provide products to a store.
For some reason, Google thinks that if you have tons of links, vendors, pointing to your website, then you must be an exceptional store front. Is Google trying to be human, kind of like you referring someone to a good restaurant?
Link popularity, for the time, is nothing more than a search engine acting like a fish out of water. Which will soon “flounder” and perhaps their demise.
Where you a Mom & Pop business that had favorable rankings on Google? Well, here is link that can show you where you were before Google decided to be the internet Wal-Mart, http://www.google-watch.org/scraper.html
This link came from www.scroogle.com, and excellent site.
once MSN gets it's search going, you know it will be better and more widely used than google. Microsoft is king of everything, and if you are in the same market they are in, you will be driven out, it has happened before, and it certainly will happen with google.
the demise of google has started, it will be very intersting to see what happens in the next year. I am praying for a MSN search with similar google products, such as adwords and adsense. No way an IPO will ever happen from google.
Posted by: John Smith on February 11, 2004 08:54 PMWhat Google did back in November, dumping small business websites from their site, was all political. Google is a liberal entity, a democratic machine, seeking to undermine the Bush administration. By dumping small business owners from top listings just before the largest shopping season, Christmas, resulted in a substantial impact on the economy. The money produced by internet small business vanished.
Why is this obvious? Remember the conspiracy against President Bush on Google? Could it just be coincidence that at one time, searching for the term, “miserable failure,” and a few other related terms, resulted with links leading to President Bush.
Let me be clear, I don't buy into this bullshit about Google having some sort of political or anti-small business bias. That's just conspiracy theory at it's most lame. They need to quit whining and recognize the effort necessary to advance their business. Getting a free ride from anyone, let alone Google, is not some god-given right. Wake up.
Posted by: Bill Kearney on April 6, 2004 08:33 AM
