News Source: http://www.pcmag.com
Published: Nov 19, 2008 - 05:58 am
Story Found By: SEOkevin 1284 Days ago
Category: SEM
30 Comments
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News Source: http://www.pcmag.com
Published: Nov 19, 2008 - 05:58 am
Story Found By: SEOkevin 1284 Days ago
Category: SEM
30 Comments
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"Inability to identify a home site. All the search engines have this habit, but often it is laughable. You’d think that if I were looking for Art Jenkins, and Art Jenkins had a Web site named Artjenkins.com, search engines would list that first, right? Most often this page is never listed anywhere." Well, artjenkins.com is a parked site, so I imagine that’s why Google doesn’t list it first -- there are indeed more relevant results. By and large, getting home pages listed is something search engines largely improved years ago.As for:" Ask Google to find you a site that honestly compares cell-phone plans and tells you which is best. Try it! All you get are thousands of sites with fake comparisons promoting something they are selling."Well this:http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=compare+cell+phone+plansGets me some promising results in the first page, including Dvorak’s own publisher CNET’s page coming up first."What’s particularly bad about this is that the few honest sites trying to present information without SEO and all the trickery needed to get attention are put out of business"Sigh -- SEO equals trickery. Plus, Dvorak fails to realize just how much SEO that his publisher does internally already."Have you ever gone to look for something and found what seems like the perfect site near the top of the Google results? You click on it only to find one of those fake "parked" sites, where people park domain names, pack them with links to other sites, and hope for random clicks that pay them 10 cents each. How does page ranking, if it works, ever manage to give these bogus sites a high number?"So with artjenkins.com, he dings Google for not listed that parked site tops, then complains that parked sites are ranked well? Which is it?"We have to suffer until something better comes along, but there is at least one crucial fix that could be easily implemented: user flagging."Sure, perhaps using that "Dissatisfied? Help us improve" link at the bottom of every search result?"Unrepeatable search results. Ever run a search a week later and get completely different results? In the end, you have to use the search history and hope you can find it."No, I haven’t. I’ve gotten slightly different results. I don’t get radically different once. I think the reason he does is becaues he forgets exactly how he searched in the first place. I understand the concern, but that’s exactly why Google provides search history. He makes it out like it’s a failure for Google to offer that."This is compounded by the weird results you get when you are logged in to Google. These are somehow customized for you? In what way? Google sign-in changes a query’s results to an extreme with no discernible benefit."Um, Google Now Notifies Of “Search Customization” & Gives Searchers Control covers how Google notifies you of when this happens and explains why it is happening. And the results usually aren’t that different."Often two people are on a call trying to discuss something and both will try finding something online. The conversation often goes like this: "Here it is, I found it. Type in the search term ’ABCD Fix’ and it’s the fourth result listed." "I don’t see it. The fourth one down is a pill company." "You typed in ABCD Fix, right?" "Yeah." This goes on for a while until you realize that one of the two people is logged into Google."Agreed it’s annoying that there’s no way to see "default" results. However, there are good reasons to customize results, too.Overall, I sympathize with his frustration, and search could certainly be improved, but this felt like a mish-mash of stuff that’s not fully backed up.
why Danny Sullivan is a God and assclowns like @TonyNWright will always be assclowns.I felt the same way when i heard @TonyNWright speak.. it’s like dude.. you are completely missing it.. CLUELESS!!! but.. i kept my mouth shut.. now.. not soo much.. now.. mr. been doing seo since 99 --> (@tonynwright the assclown)... anyways sorry... bug up my ass today.. or assclown @tonynwright take your pick.. Dvorak is doing the same things as SteveRubel did today in a blog in Advertising Age Today.. PageRank = blog influence.. except SteveRubel is not an assclown.. he is a PR blogger.. @tonynwright IS an assclown
Nicely broken down Danny. When I first read the article, I was hesitant to post it because it simply seemed like one man’s attempt to bad-mouth SEO, but then I figured there’s probably a ton of people who feel exactly like he does. I agree with you that it seems it was written out of frustration. Thanks for your valuable input.
"Yahoo! had a good idea when its search engine was actually a directory with segments "owned" by communities of experts. These people could isolate the best of breed, something Google has never managed to do"Uhm... Google has it’s own human edited directory project Dmozand arguably, it sucks, but I think he just showed his ignorance of what and how Google really works.
Although it is frustrating when you’re taking a white hat approach and are getting beaten out in the rankings by made-for-Adsense sites. Doesn’t seem right.
footinmouth actually Yahoo! started the human editors back in late 96.. abuot a year and a half before Netscape started ODP.
Go Danny Go! Thanks for the response to the goofy post. I’ve always liked Dvorak, but he’s really going somewhere he knows very little about - obviously.
Seems to me that a bit more research made by Dvorak on the topic of SEO and how rankings work before trying to seem so knowledgeable might have done him some good - especially since he could have found more valid search engine and ranking issues to gripe about!Thanks Danny for helping Dvorak pay better attention to his concerns. It does help keep SEOs in the business of training those who don’t quite "get it" since some things are so easily pointed out.
Good response Danny! ha! Are frustrated by his ignorance by any chance?!
I hereby nominate Danny Sullivan as Secretary of State :)
In response to the question Danny posed ...http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&newwindow=1&safe=off&q=allintext%3A+plan+OR+plans+information+OR+analysis+OR+comparisons+OR+evaluations+%22cell-phone%22+OR+cellphone+OR+%22cell-phones%22+OR+cellphones&as_qdr=y&btnG=SearchYou get from Google exactly what you ask for. Some questions require more complex searches than others.If you want good results, then you always have to do an advanced search in Google.
"Too much commerce, not enough information. There seems to be an underlying belief, especially at Google, that the only reason you go online is to buy something. People merely looking for information are a nuisance."I sphinned this one because of the above comment.
It really sounds a lot to me like Dvorak searches like a "newbie", that is to say when he wants cell phone comparisons, he searches "cell phones" or maybe even "phones". Search engines will never be able to guess what you exactly mean without explicitly stating it, and nor should they. If they make too many assumptions they just end up pissing off some segment of the population 100% of the time. People who learn to properly qualify their query get considerably better results from their search activity. It’s a search engine tool, not a magic 8-ball.And not to beat a dead horse, but Dvorak should be smart enough to have put the pieces together that maybe the reason sites he expects to show at times do successfully appear is that an SEO has helped to lay out their site structure and coding standards as well as carefully ensured a clear path to indexing was maintained thoughtout the site. But no, it’s easier to call SEO’s spammy trickster than to actually use a brain cell or two to posit how in the heck people actually do things the right way. Here’s a hint Dvorak, it’s not an accident.And this guy claims to be some kind of technology authority? What’s his qualifications? What, was he the first guy in his office back in the day to learn how to hook up the printer? What a maroon.
Wow, the SEO bashing linkbait still works, you have to combine it with Google bashing. I’ll have to add to my "7 Most Succesful SEO Bashings" list.It’s sad, because some of the points he raises are true but by sounding ridiculous he undermines his won credibility.
Agreed, it reads like a column that was banged out in a hurry. A bit more focus, better research and examples would have gone a ways to make the article more credible.
What a ridiculous article! Basically every point he tries to make is wrong...Inability to identify a homesite - I find that all SEs do this very wellToo much commerce - in Google? This is laughable. Ever hear of wikipedia? For commercial queries, more commerce related results display for obvious reasonsParked sites - parked sites rarely show up high in search results, almost never for any high volume termsUnrepeatable search results - is this really a major problem for anyone? The author wants to "wikify" results into a directory "with segments ’owned’ by a community of experts". Could an idea be more terrible than this? Imagine if this system replaced SEs.I can’t believe that PC Magazine would allow this nonsense on its site.
Stunned, PC Magazine articles are usally pretty good. They tend to be written by experts on a given subject or field. But I have to agree and was shocked after read this garbage that most of you here will agree with is completely filled with Misinformation, wrong or inaccurate information and just plain sloppy facts.
<div id="wholecomment58459" class="comment-body"> "Too much commerce, not enough information. There seems to be an underlying belief, especially at Google, that the only reason you go online is to buy something. People merely looking for information are a nuisance."I stand by my previous endorcement of this comment. Wikipedia? Wikipedia has absolutely nothing to do with it.Google is in business to make money. Ergo, it stands to reason that Google favors commerical sites selling products over purely free sites offering free information. Why? Because Google makes most of their money from advertising related ventures. Furthermore, all you have to do is produce a product that can be sold. And, retailing websites will automatically link to your, irrespective of the quality of the product being sold. Magazine X is a magazine. And, magazine X is just one more commerical product that can be sold. Hence, Google’s pagerank algos favor commerical products over pure information providers.Who buys advertising from Google? Commerical companies do. Enough said. </div> <div class="comment-info"> <!--Reply--> <div id="reply-58459" align="left" style="display: none"> Send comment HTML is disabled <table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="320" height="240" class="mceEditor" style="width: 320px; height: 240px"><tbody><tr><td align="center"></td></tr><tr><td dir="ltr" class="mceToolbarBottom" height="1" align="center"><img src="<img src="<img src="<img src="<img src="<img src="<img src="</td></tr></tbody></table> </div> </div>
Yikes is all I can say.
If nothing else, I liked the suggestion about user flagging. It would certainly help Matt Cutts and his team of spam fighting ninjas identify the stuff that isn’t reported by the SEO community, which would hopefully translate into better results for everyone.
It’s hard to make any positive comments on this article - obviously Mr Dvorak feels frustrated with Google for not giving him exactly the results he’s looking for, but he does seem rather confused about what he actually wants, not least in terms of parked domains.I think Google has definitely made big strides in supporting users at all levels, so this article does seem rather naive and the sort of thing we might have expected 5 years ago, but not today.
This article was comically bad...still, it should be Sphunn because such idiocy should be exposed since many unenlightened people still believe what John believes.
And people wonder why a lot of mainstream publishers are struggling?Maybe if they stopped paying sums of money for poorly researched articles by non-experts, they’d be in better shape.Sadly, if you ask the average consumer and/or marketer, they would tell you that they would abide by this hack’s viewpoint over someone like Aaron Wall.
"Google is in business to make money. Ergo, it stands to reason that Google favors commerical sites selling products over purely free sites offering free information. Why? Because Google makes most of their money from advertising related ventures."Your logic makes no sense. Why would Goolge favor commercial sites in its organic listings? If Google wanted to do anything to increase its advertising revenue, it would favor informational sites in its organic listings so that commercial sites would be forced to pay Google if they wanted traffic.
that sounds awful, I always use google as my search engine.
If Google did die, I think the worlds suicide rate would triple.Search has come a long way recently. I think it’s far more effective and relevant at it’s job now than what it was even a few years ago.John Dvorak’s article is a prime example of SEO bashing and being Sphunn and the amount of attention received from this is probably exactly as intented. If his personal views are legitimate, then I think he is speaking from inexperience and touching the surface of area where he is out of his depth.
Sheesh some seo needs to drop an email to Leo and get on TWIT - Danny? (you need to get a proper mic though)
Jeez we have seen bad SEO articles from big press for years. It wont stop foolks.
Your logic makes no sense.Google’s search returns are based on what? Content? Heck No! It is their patented pagerank and link building.Which sites naturally grow more links? Producers of Commerical Products. Or in other words, commercial.Which sites got the money required to game the system big time? Sites that make money or commerical sites.Your logic makes no sense. There are monsters in this world. But, thank goodness that some people can actually think for themselves.
Another stupid SEO bashing link bait by someone who has got no clue but loves attention.