Has anyone else noticed that searching on Google is almost worthless? There are so many ways that people spam the search engines they have become impossible to use. Any search will bring up sooo much garbage that it is not worth wading thru the results. Maybe I need to start at the tail end of the search results to find relevant information...

 

I use the Yahoo search engine.

Never really had a problem with it.....so far.

 

i was kind of noticing but never thought about it until i read this post, i guess this is why my wife keeps on telling me to use yahoo for better results.

 

google "failure" sometime.

I can google anything though.

 

I'd rather 'Yahoooo-whooooo", then google.

 

I haven't noticed. I always pre-scan the results and read the couple of lines that it brings up to see if the keywords I searched for are used in a way that is relevant to what I'm looking for... if not, I don't click on the link. Try using " " around words that you know should be in a particular sequence for better results.

 

I use Google and have not had any problems so far. Occasionally I will use Yahoo and Ask.com.

 

You just have to 'have the power.' Using the right words and phrases always brings me results in one or two tries. I also guess that what you're searching for would really change the possible outcomes. Some things are more specific than others.

Ryan

 

There is a lot of advertising that comes up, but I have always found what I was looking for.

When you search try using quotations ("") around the words. This searches for the exact phrase.

For example: if you search on Ford Truck you will get everything with ford and truck on the page. If you use quotes you will only get the sites that have Ford Truck together. ("Ford Truck")

Another option is to use the minus sign(-). This is used to exclude a word from the search.

For example: if you search for "Ford Truck Battery" you may get a bunch of sites for eveready batteries. If you use ("Ford Truck Battery" - Eveready) it will not include the eveready sites.

 

Google is full of spam these days and there have been many webmasters on various webmaster forums complaining about it for over a year. They set the bar so low for their adsense program and don't enforce the terms of service well. So millions of sites, mostly run from 3rd world countries, are set up as "scrapers."

A scrape sends out crawlers to various web sites for a given keyword phrase (for instance "ford trucks") and collects 2-3 sentences from each site, bundles them all together in a useless mish-mash to humans (but it looks like perfectly legitimate text loaded with keywords to Google) and runs Google adsense ads on them. You go to the site, find nothing but crap. They make money on the people foolish enough to click an ad to get out rather than the back button. Pennies... but if you do it thousands of times you're talking about real money to a dirt poor guy in India.

Google is starting to clean up... they had a major shift in search results for the better in August and again September 1st but its going to take a while to finally get it cleaned up.

If you want to help (and I strongly suggest it) next time you see one of those sites click the link above or below the ads that says "Ads By Google" or "Ads By Gooooooogle" and give them your feedback about the site and how you think its ruining their search results.

 

Thanks for the info Ken, -as always! I will report those when I find them.

I adopted Google early on when it started up but comparing the quality of results from then and now is discouraging. I never trusted Yahoo much because of all the scams they ran when they started so I avoid the company whenever possible.

Many of my searches are technical in nature so I only get maybe 1 good link per 10 pages of garbage. The limitations on the number of keywords also makes it difficult to use. I use all of the advanced search features.

I use a lot of specialized engineering (software&hardware) search engines also but most of them are heavily loaded towards junk also or do not have valid links to follow. Many of them are paid services like paid advertising or the yellow pages so even if I find a company there is only a name and address because they have not paid an advertising fee.

Making matters worse last night was the fact that my MS mouse died suddenly... At least it did not suffer and went quickly and it has a lifetime warranty. Unfortunately the junk MS mouse I am using is a pitiful replacement and the MS support site is worse than pitiful.

 

I'm a "Yahoo" man myself......Ever since those two yuppie billionaires got on TV announcing that they won't assist the feds in their investigaton of pedophiles to "protect" their customers...............THEN, they turned around and had no problem giving the Chinese government all kinds of much-more intrusive access to google (to look for comments against the government, religious discussion, etc.) so that they could enter China and make a couple of more billion......I got turned off by those self-serving, hypocritical horses-asses and refuse to give them one more dime to add to their personal coffers.

 

The difference is in China its the law and they had to comply. In the USA it was a request and they didn't have to comply.

 

OK....they had to comply in China because it's the law......They only HAD to comply if they wanted to do business in China, and their "we are not agents of the government" in the U.S. didn't seem to bother them in China.......China is USING them to catch more and more subversives....You can call it a symbiotic relationsip.....Google gets to open up a huge new customer base and make them a couple of more billions, and the ChiCom government gets another tool to toss a couple of millions more of their people in jail for making an anti-Mao statement, or for trying to get a few of their friends together for a Christian meeting.

They could easily have told the ChiComs to "F" off, but I guess the mighty green has spoken....

 

I use google without to much problem. but I prefer to use www.dogpile.com for what seems like a broader search.