Posts Tagged google
Google Tool Bar
Posted by mcgelligot in Uncategorized on April 15, 2008
It is amazing how often a quick view of the Google Tool Bar’s page rank sends me into a tizzy. I will be going back to a webpage on InDepthInfo, for whatever reason, to find out that some page or other that has been on the site for more than a year, that I spent hours, researching, writing, rewriting, integrating the links to the page into other appropriate pages, just to find out that Google has more or less relegated the page to the supplemental index!
A perfect example is my Brief History of Iraq which I wrote to supplement information on my Iraq War and Gulf War pages. How, I wonder, could these 5 pages be relegated by Google to virtual Siberia when it is well referenced in very popular on-site pages of a similar subject matter?
My Gulf War pages get a couple thousand page views per week, while the History of Iraq might get 10. Sure the Gulf War pages are much older, have many more references from other websites, but does this mean that the History of Iraq pages warrant, not a zero, but no page rank at all!?
It seems unjust. But who said life is fair? My next thought is…”How do I rectify this situation?” If we listen to Google then I do nothing and hope for the best. Do I go out and hussle links? Truthfully, I am tired of begging for links. I have no intention of stooping to social media links, artificially manufactured which have clogged up the web with opinionated nonsense (like this post?). I don’t subscribe to black-hat techniques…
The funny thing about all this is that Google’s algorithm makes me consider adopting unorthodox techniques, because playing by the rules is not helping. I have already tried to indicate the importance of the page by internal links. Google has chosen to ignore this, and pretty much ignores the pages about Iraq history altogether. No wonder the algorithim seems to me to be failing and giving largely opinion results.
What am I going to do about it? I suppose complaining is not getting me anywhere. The only answer is to make my site the best resource it can be, if the few who visit those pages recognize their merit and reference them somewhere, Google too will recognize their worth as well.
Google Results Becoming More Opinion than Fact
Posted by mcgelligot in Uncategorized on February 1, 2008
Is it just me or are the results on Google becoming more slanted toward opinion than fact? I haven’t seen anything about this in other blogs. Yet, when I find myself looking for hard information on something, I normally begin with a Google query. After scanning the first page and finding no websites that will answer my query. I quickly jump to Yahoo and give it a shout. I have actually been finding the Yahoo results more appropriate of late.
What could cause this change in results on Google? I have a feeling that it has to do with the down-grading of directories and the increasing significance of social media. The relevance of directories has been coming more and more into question. Google has been sending most of the directory results and link page results into the so called supplemental directory. Because of this, I keep seeing more and more results from blogs and less and less from static sites. This would be okay, except that I find that blogs are less carefully written than static sites and also less well researched – more opinion based than fact based. Perhaps I am biased. Disclaimer – I create mainly static webpages for InDepthInfo.
Not sure, but I think Google may begin to feel some negative results from their campaign to devalue directories, especially the quality directories. Directories have always been a way to sort out the serious sites from the frivolous. In a day when anyone can create a blog and write ad infinitum about any subject, without any editorial control, it would seem to me that the quality of the information spewing forth from them can only decline. Truthfully social media sites are easier to game than quality directories. With directories, many of which charge for a listing, at least the person seeking a link must be serious enough, and confident enough in his website to put his money where his mouth is.
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