> If you search for any topic that is monetizable, such as “iPod Connectivity” or “Futon Filling”, you will see pages and pages of search results selling products and very few that actually answer your query.
I suspect that most people searching for those things want to buy them. I Googled "iPod Connectivity" and the results (Amazon, Consumer Reports, Apple) seemed like a good selection of links for someone who wants that.
> Case in point: The Google.com page that describes PageRank is #4 in the Google search results for the term PageRank, below two vendors that are selling search engine marketing.
Actually, the google.com page that's number 4 (for me) is very vague about PageRank (essentially useless for someone who wants to learn about it). The three links above it are a PageRank checker, Wikipedia's description of PageRank, and an article about how to optimize your PageRank. While the last article is somewhat scummy, there is a good chance that optimizing PageRank is what the searcher was looking for.
> The vast majority of users are no longer clicking through pages of Google results: They are instantly getting an answer to their question:
These kinds of "vertical search results" only appear for very simplistic queries; while it's handy to be able to instantly find out the "sf weather", anyone wanting even slightly more specific information needs to contend with the blue links.
I doubt they're "clicking through pages" (i.e. going to the second page and beyond), but that's hardly an indictment of the quality of the blue links-- rather the opposite.
> If you search for any topic that is monetizable, such as “iPod Connectivity” or “Futon Filling”, you will see pages and pages of search results selling products and very few that actually answer your query.
I suspect that most people searching for those things want to buy them. I Googled "iPod Connectivity" and the results (Amazon, Consumer Reports, Apple) seemed like a good selection of links for someone who wants that.
> Case in point: The Google.com page that describes PageRank is #4 in the Google search results for the term PageRank, below two vendors that are selling search engine marketing.
Actually, the google.com page that's number 4 (for me) is very vague about PageRank (essentially useless for someone who wants to learn about it). The three links above it are a PageRank checker, Wikipedia's description of PageRank, and an article about how to optimize your PageRank. While the last article is somewhat scummy, there is a good chance that optimizing PageRank is what the searcher was looking for.
> The vast majority of users are no longer clicking through pages of Google results: They are instantly getting an answer to their question:
These kinds of "vertical search results" only appear for very simplistic queries; while it's handy to be able to instantly find out the "sf weather", anyone wanting even slightly more specific information needs to contend with the blue links.
I doubt they're "clicking through pages" (i.e. going to the second page and beyond), but that's hardly an indictment of the quality of the blue links-- rather the opposite.