23 replies to this topic

[zenia]

when a search term is typed into the search box of google a lot of options appear. they are not always the sites the user looks for. so it can take a lot of time to watch a lot of the sites offered by google before a site with the information the user looks for is found.

[Ahsaniqbal111]

when a search term is typed into the search box of google a lot of options appear. they are not always the sites the user looks for. so it can take a lot of time to watch a lot of the sites offered by google before a site with the information the user looks for is found.

The problem is not with google mind you, It is the problem with all the search engines and in fact google is the best of them and that is why it dominates the industry today. If you try to find something on yahoo, you may very well find it but i can bet that you can find the similar thing much easily on Google with all other conditions constant. So instead of making the topic "The disadvantage of google" You should have chosen the topic "The disadvantage of Search Engines"

[Niketan]

Google is the best search engine than Yahoo, BING etc. If you are saying it takes more time to search required thing on the Google. First you should know how Google Search Engine works. It works based on the searching techniques. Searching techniques are the technical part. But whenever you type some text/string in the Textbox of Google then google search for the same text in his database so if you type the gmail then it will show you gmail.com at the top of the search because gmail string is matching 100% with gmail.com and then after gmail.com it will show you the result which contain this gmail string or it will show you less matched string with gmail. If you type largest string then it will show the result at the top whose content is matching 100% with the required string. Means at the first you should type the proper text/string to get your required result. If you want to search some largest string then it should be searched with double quotation mark at the start and end of the string.

[Ahsaniqbal111]

Google is the best search engine than Yahoo, BING etc. If you are saying it takes more time to search required thing on the Google. First you should know how Google Search Engine works. It works based on the searching techniques. Searching techniques are the technical part. But whenever you type some text/string in the Textbox of Google then google search for the same text in his database so if you type the gmail then it will show you gmail.com at the top of the search because gmail string is matching 100% with gmail.com and then after gmail.com it will show you the result which contain this gmail string or it will show you less matched string with gmail. If you type largest string then it will show the result at the top whose content is matching 100% with the required string. Means at the first you should type the proper text/string to get your required result. If you want to search some largest string then it should be searched with double quotation mark at the start and end of the string.

I agree with you that google is a better search engine than the other engines available. This is proved by the dominance of google over the internet. The advertisement program of google is also the best and that is why about 99% websites that use advertisements to generate revenue, use google adsense. All the webmasters prefer adsense over other ad programs.

The topic starter "Zenia" might have some issue with google but this does not mean that google is not the best.

[vhortex]

Google is one of the best and in fact the top most search engine. If you can't find what you are looking for then perhaps you are using the wrong search string. You can refine search strings, use whole phrases by putting them inside double quotes.

Unless you are looking for a non popular term on the internet, Google will always pull down nice results.

I saw some common error that people commit when searching such as...

When searching for guides on migrating MSSQL to mySQL, the term most commonly used was "MSSQL to mySQL" which of course will pull down softwares that convert MSSQL to myMSQL. Refining it will yield better results such as "PHP how MSSQL migration mySQL" which will pull down results that are talking about PHP and discussing MSSQL and mySQL. You can also use a whole phrase or even a sentence.

It is also common that SEO people are cheating the search engines into categorizing themselves on areas that they don't belong. Such method was being used by a certain "legal" website which pulls down all popular search terms from a certain search engine and padding them at the footer.

I stumble on the site when I was searching "connecting PHP to MSSQL" which to my disgrace, the site was selling vitamin pills and sporting goods. At the footer was the terms "PHP, MSSQL, SQLserver......", I am hoping that google can find a way to remove this trick out like the way they stop SEO black hats from exploiting the meta, description and alt image tags to gain a high rank/points in search results.

[Ahsaniqbal111]

It is also common that SEO people are cheating the search engines into categorizing themselves on areas that they don't belong. Such method was being used by a certain "legal" website which pulls down all popular search terms from a certain search engine and padding them at the footer.

Google handles these cheaters in the best way. These cheaters might get huge benefits in terms of ranking in search results on search engines like yahoo, bing etc but on google it is very difficult. Yes the benefits of black hat seo does exist on google but they are limited. For example a website using the black techniques cannot get more than a fer rank points higher because the main thing that google uses to assign ranking to websites is their PageRank syste,. In this system the main thing that decides the authority of a website is not the meta tag or the density of keyword etc (these factors do play some role in the final result but are not the major actors) but is the number of legitimate backlinks that you get. This system is based on a simple logic that the better you are, the higher is your popularity in the field and higher popularity in terms of websites mean greater number of backlinks to your website.

This system is quite difficult to cheat because not only the quantity of the links is taken into account but quality is considered as well so if you think you can improve your webpage rank in the search results by getting links from sites like Link farms, it is not going to happen. The best cheating you can do with this system is to buy links from high status websites. Which is again a very limited method because there will not be many high status websites that would like to become a part of such cheating.

[vhortex]

Google handles these cheaters in the best way.

They are actually getting away with it by using Facebook like and other bookmarking services. On my point of view, they have hit a weak point on the algorithm which I presume was aimed for the Google bot into thinking that there are more sites linking to them. This method never worked before last year but it was working now. Mostly they reside on the first 1-2 page of the google result and some manage to reach rank 1.

I also seen a weak point on the Google system and this was made possible by weak comment system from different blogging systems. This weak point utilize spamming with comments that don't look like real spam comments such as "nice article" and leaving a website link on their post. Posting the website inside the comment will trigger spam alerts for blog post but if you will add it up only as a "commenter website", it will make the commenter's name clickable with links going to the black SEO/spam site.

Google also takes into account the final destination of a short URL service sucht as bit.ly, this also gives leverage on black SEO.

[The Simpleton]

There's no real problem with the issue that the OP mentioned, but the only thing that bothers some people is that due to the suggestions provided, they may get distracted and search for something else than what they were originally searching for. A lot of people easily get distracted by the various suggestions that Google gives and they may go after something else that is totally unrelated to their original search! Google can't be blamed entirely for this. It is just a feature that is extremely useful in a lot of cases and this distraction occurs only in a few instances.

[Ahsaniqbal111]

What you call a problem is not a problem at all. We see different companies add new features every now and then. Keep in mind that every new feature added costs huge volumes of money to the company. So if the company thinks that this particular feature is not going to earn them more (no matter whether it is in a direct or indirect way), the company will simply not invest in it. You said that google is sort of problematic because you get too many options to choose from. This might be the case for you but not for most of other users of Google.
I would like to quote the example of Google Search Suggestions. It is a great feature for some but for others, it might not be so great. When it was made online, I didn't like it at all. The main problem I was having was that my browser had some bugs in it and it won't allow me to save google preferences. I often needed to extend the search page to 100 results per page instead of just 10 to check the rankings of various pages of my website. But with Google search suggestions enabled, I couldn't do this. And because my browser won't allow me to save Google preferences after turned the suggestions on, I had to find other sources to check SERPS of my web pages.
Now when I have fixed the issues with my computer, and I can save the preferences to do whatever I want to do, I can surely say that Suggestions are extremely useful and saves a lot of time. Look, google is a giant and knows a lot about its users. You behavior online triggers the type of search results you would see on google. And similar is the case for Suggestions. In early days, when I was having problems with this new feature, I used to say that it is bad. But now I have realized that the feature was not bad at all. It was me, who was having problems with it. When I solved the problem from my side, the same feature which used to be a problem, became a time saver.
So if you say that google is problematic because it makes you choose from a huge list of options, I am afraid you might not be correct in saying so. It is you who is having problems for one reason or the other. The features are not problems. They are very useful tools for some, who without them will have to spend a good amount of money to achieve similar results.

[manuleka]

as people becomes more web and computer literate adding more features to websites isn't so much of a problem...

[loremar]

Google has changed its algorithms from time to time to find the most relevant contents. So by now, relevancy is more important than authority. Google would prefer original unique contents than more backlinks though backlink is still a major factor in search engine optimization. So if question is if google now is giving what a person is searching for in the internet, then I must say that google is now more accurate because it is choosing relevancy over popularity.

[urbano18]

they know everything about you and everyone else.
the dont own the internet but have a huge say in how it works
they can choose what pops up when you search and so have a huge influence over us

[yordan]

they know everything about you and everyone else.

I would say that they know everything about what you are searching using google.
If you don't search, or if you don't use google, they don't know anything.
Suppose that you go surf on a single website - let's say astahost.com - and you only use a POP3 mailer, they will know nothing concerning your private life.

[Quatrux]

I agree, but it's quite hard for youth to not post information about themselves, it's so easy, sometimes you can just google a person and find how he looks, what he does and etc. usually by just knowing the nickname if it's quite unique, or if you know first and last name.

[yordan]

I agree, but it's quite hard for youth to not post information about themselves,

That's different. If people want to claim things concerning their private life, then Google helps them claiming. In that case Google is helpful.
They don't steal your private information, they help you shouting what you want to claim.

[brownsmith]

as people becomes more web and computer literate adding more features to websites isn't so much of a problem...

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i dont think so any disadvantage by google.com
as per my opinion.

BSmith

[yordan]

So, lack of info (before Google) was a problem. Today, excessive amount of info is a problem too?

[HoRuS]

It is.. Lately there is too much sensitive information available on the internet and it's not that hard to find with Google

[Ahsaniqbal111]

It is.. Lately there is too much sensitive information available on the internet and it's not that hard to find with Google

What exactly do you mean by sensitive? Do you mean pirated stuff or CIA stuff. If you mean pirated stuff then there is no doubt about it. Google is one of the main sources of people getting access to pirated stuff. I don't mean that Google has a policy of promoting pirated stuff. They say they are against it but in a way they are responsible for people getting access to pirated stuff and I don't accuse google because they just show the existence of websites related to some Keywords. But then again it might not be as simple as this..... Corporate Stuff..... Confusing.
And if you mean CIA type of sensitive information, then I think there is more information kept hidden than what is disclosed. And most of the disclosed stuff is leaked by other sources. Again google is responsible only in the sense that it presents link to stuff.

[vhortex]

If you mean sensitive stuff about your private life then it was not Google's problem. People are getting reckless on posting thousands of info on social networks about themselves then blame the world wide web if those info gets exposed to millions of people.

For an example, I have seen more than 50 person in 3 months posting their real name, age, address, birth-date, home address, location and life style patterns. Some have posted candid and sensitive pictures of themselves shared to the public.

If the search engines find this, it was not their fault since the user have started putting them up on the web. I even saw some funny civil cases where people tried to sue Google when their "naked" photos return as a result from Google's photo search. The images in question was shared to more than 500 people on facebook, some websites grabbed the photo and added it to their content. Surely that is not Google's fault.

The REAL problem with Google is that it collect a lot of info about you including your website visiting habit.