Last month, Google rolled out a major update to its failed Panda algorithm. The original Panda algorithm rolled out in February and penalized such pernicious web spammers as The British Medical Journal, Merck Manuals, AskTheBuilder, and the Math Forum at Drexel University. This caused significant embarrassment for the search giant, but Google refused to admit it’s errors or apologize to those affected. Sites that were damaged by Google’s uncaring ineptitude are referred to as having been “Pandalized”, with Google’s Panda being the webmaster equivalent of pedobear.
The April algorithmic update incorrectly identified a large number of tech sites as spammers, including this site and many of our esteemed competitors, including RegHardware, Computing.net, ComputerWeekly, TechRadar, TechWatch, TechEye, PCAdvisor, TechWorld, IT Pro Portal, Electric Pig, Pocket Lint, and PC World Business. I like TheRegister quite a lot and their RegHardware site is definitely not web spam — nor are any of the other competitors which I have listed here. Google has clearly lost touch with what web searchers — it’s true customers — are looking for on the web.
Instead of these fine web sites, I now see search filled with AdWords, Google Places, Google Maps, YouTube, and irrelevant results from large companies such as Microsoft. These are definitely not what I am looking for in my search results. If I wanted to go to those sites, I would simply go to those sites. I don’t need Google directing me to YouTube.
Google is making itself increasingly irrelevant as a search engine. The non-technical crowd is slowly migrating to Microsoft Bing, while the technical crowd is discovering Blekko. Change happens very fast on the Internet; If Google doesn’t move quickly to clean up its search results it could soon find itself as irrelevant as Altavista.
The April algorithmic update incorrectly identified a large number of tech sites as spammers, including this site and many of our esteemed competitors, including RegHardware, Computing.net, ComputerWeekly, TechRadar, TechWatch, TechEye, PCAdvisor, TechWorld, IT Pro Portal, Electric Pig, Pocket Lint, and PC World Business. I like TheRegister quite a lot and their RegHardware site is definitely not web spam — nor are any of the other competitors which I have listed here. Google has clearly lost touch with what web searchers — it’s true customers — are looking for on the web.
Instead of these fine web sites, I now see search filled with AdWords, Google Places, Google Maps, YouTube, and irrelevant results from large companies such as Microsoft. These are definitely not what I am looking for in my search results. If I wanted to go to those sites, I would simply go to those sites. I don’t need Google directing me to YouTube.
Google is making itself increasingly irrelevant as a search engine. The non-technical crowd is slowly migrating to Microsoft Bing, while the technical crowd is discovering Blekko. Change happens very fast on the Internet; If Google doesn’t move quickly to clean up its search results it could soon find itself as irrelevant as Altavista.
