

How the “focus on first” helps hide Google’s relevancy problems - ab9
http://searchengineland.com/focus-on-first-helps-hide-googles-relevancy-problems-50253

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supersillyus
Not the main point, but why would google.com search list google.com in the
results for "Search engine"? You're at google already, so it isn't really a
helpful result.

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patio11
You drastically underestimate the number of people who think the Google is an
Internet, browser, program, web page, etc. (I have at least one customer who
thinks her school Internet and home Internet are different places because the
start pages are different and The Google finds different sites on each. She
uses Bing at school, but does not know Bing is not a Google.)

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Andrew_Quentin
Well, she should learn!

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joe_the_user
_"In January, I was invited to speak to Google’s search quality team about
issues I had with Google’s search results. My topic? For queries where I know
a subject really well, I often found Google provided some pretty poor results
in the top listings along with the good ones. I wanted more perfection!"_

Oddly enough, I like it that Google isn't going to return only things that a
given field's experts like. It's good that it's possible that if you hit
enough criteria, you can be _one_ of the top search result even if you aren't
what the authorities like. It keeps things interesting.

 _What’s happening is that Google rewards longevity. AltaVista was around ages
ago, gained a lot of links over time, and in particular links from other aged
sites._

Again, I think it's good that Google is using the Internet's memory. Searching
is seeking information. Altavista might just be the _term_ for information on
search engines with the most discussion around it. Maybe it's the "best search
engine" but perhaps my searches for "search engines" isn't about that but
rather about how a search engine is built, how people interact with a search
engine or what-not. There, the memory of the Internet is crucial.

If every search for X becomes "what is the best X in the world", the Internet
will be rather diminished.

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Natsu
I find it ironic that he's complaining about the relevancy of SEO companies on
the first page.

After all, if they made it to Google's first page of results, so they have to
be pretty good at SEO to get high results for the search for SEO... right?

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Andrew_Quentin
Yes. That is why he used the term SEO, to show that google is doing worse than
the SEO companies who are so good at getting to the front page.

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Natsu
Call me crazy, but wouldn't someone searching for SEO _want_ to find an SEO
company?

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Andrew_Quentin
Sorry, what I mean is that google is doing worse at protecting itself from
being gamed by the clever SEOs who got to the front page without meriting it.

