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Google's Share of Searches Falling? Or Increasing?
prostoalex writes "Get two research companies in the room, and you'll likely end up with three opinions. Bear Sterns quotes ComScore Networks data, which says that Google's share of searches is slipping, down to 36.9% in June 2005. WebSideStory, a Web research company, on the other hand, claims that in June 2005 Google hit a new record as far as share of searches, hitting 52%, and leaving rivals far behind."
Statistics only benefit those who pay for them.
Google's share of searches is slipping, down to 3*3*41/(2*2*2*5*5*5)? In June 5*401? or hitting 13/(5*5)?
...while I google for the answer...
This actually happens far more than most people realize. Close to 37% of comparative statistics are in opposition to each other, while nigh on 79.3% of all statistics continue to be made up. There's also a a roughly 100% chance of this getting modded redundant if I don't hit "submit" in the next 9.3 seconds. We'll all know whether I made or not shortly...
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
I hope this doesn't mean something's going to happen to that extra gig gift they gave us in gmail.
XaNk: now I remember why I hated the girls in high school
XaNk: because none of them would talk to me
IT's far more important _which_ searches they're getting. In my online advertising efforts, the quality of traffic coming from Google is FAR superior to what we're getting out of MSN, AOL, etc.
Well if the amount of searches google is getting is going down -- you have to account for where they are going.
Are the lost searches going to elsewhere to altavista, ask jeeves, dogpile?
How can you conduct research if you can't account for where the "lost searches" have gone to? How can they tell it's not an error in their study?
Let's make our own survey. I use Google - it's even my homepage. What about you guys?
How could anyone get conclusive results without operating inside of google, and inside of yahoo? It seems to me like the *best* you can do is have a bunch of websites log what URL's they're coming from, but that's inconclusive; some users will use one search engine repeatedly just to find an article, while other's will search for the same thing across a lot of search engines.
I just don't see how anyone could come to a result that's completely objective.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
Have Google searches replaced DNS for web name lookup? Not yet, you say? Then they aren't the most popular search engine yet!
Do you like Japanese imports?
Well, that's kind of silly. If one is legitimate and another backed by, say, Google or MSN, clearly they don't cancel each other out.
Studies can't really cancel each other out. If, in the presence of both studies, neither of them count, then they were probably both wrong to begin with.
And it is possible for both to be right, if they use different methods for sampling or measurement.
... so who "sponsored" (either with advertising, money, partner-deals, whatever) each of the reports.
If the one that says Google is increasing is sponsored by Google in any way, shape, or form, it has zero useful information content. Similarly, if the other is sponsored by any of Google's competitors, it has zero useful information content. At least, IMHO.
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
I find it interesting that MSN has 15.7%, which is entirely due to new installations of Windows setting IE's homepage to msn.com. Without that I'd bank their percentage would hover somewhere around the minus. IMO Google has no competitors in terms simplicity and results.
"Simplify, simplify, simplify!" Thoreau
The bombers in london are clones of a jesus elvis hybrid borne in the utero sacks of a obese ronald reagan transexual behometh that weighs more than everyone in Washington DC. Here I have a chart.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
The numbers -- for those interested.
Google's market share of US searches for June 2005 was at 36.9% compared with 37.5% in May 2005. Yahoo! had a 30.4% share, and MSN had a share of 15.7%. Bear Stearns noted that Google's query volume rose 36% YTY versus a 28% increase for the industry, outpacing Yahoo!'s 32% increase but trailing MSN's 42% increase. Month-to-month, Google's query volume declined 6%, which compares with a 4% decline for Yahoo!, a 1% decline for MSN, a 4% decline for AOL, and a 7% decline for Ask Jeeves. In Q2 2005 unique searchers versus Q2 2004 increased 31% for Google, 21% for Yahoo, and 14% for the industry, while the number of searches in Q2 2005 increased 38% for Google, 42% for Yahoo, and 31% for the industry.
Reading these comments here all I can say is you guys are so brainwashed by the Google hype machine.
First, Google is NOT an innovator. Why not? Everything they do is a slight improvement on existing services:
- Search: Sure, it's the best search around, but it is simply an improvement over existing search services. And by now Yahoo's search is comparable. Soon there will be many equivalent search engines.
- Maps: Looks pretty, but it's just an incremental improvement over existing services. Trivial for Yahoo or anyone else to catch up.
- GMail: Nothing to see here except very good marketing. Who ever uses 1 GB of email? Nobody.
A lot of Google's services actually suck if you think about it. Froogle? Google Images? Those are a joke. And thanks for breaking Google Groups to make it unusable.
If you think Google is the greatest thing since sliced bread, take a deep breath and realize that it's just a company that is very good at marketing, and making lots of money.
Google is an advertising company, they are not a technology company. They are not true innovators like, say, Apple or Oracle. Just look at the reasons I outlined above to understand why. A true innovator ushers in a new age. Like Apple with the iPod and digital music. Or Oracle with database systems. Google hasn't ushered in a new age of anything.
Stop the hype.
Slashdotter observes that ComScore Networks gets a lot of its data from a piece of software called "Marketscore", which sure sounds like a form of spyware.
Slashdotter hypothesizes that the people who prefer Google (over MSN, Yahoo, AOL, and the various "search engines" that are installed by spyware companies) are less likely to tolerate the presence of crap like "Marketscore" on their boxen.
Slashdotter suggests that analyst from Bear Stearns ought to look closely at the source of his data and ask pointed questions as to whether or not there are variables that cannot be measured by ComScore Networks, and whether or not these variables are skewing the data he's paying for.
I still wonder why some people insist on using these so called 'research companies' for their information, when they could have just set up a slashdot poll.
Also, with Google continuing to push into just about every market, customer loyalty will just keep increasing. I think that's something that Microsoft undervalues - people will continue to shop in the same store or search from the same people if the service is good and they really like the shop, even if they can get the same thing elsewhere, even marginally cheaper.
Of course, I have no statistics to back that up, but neither (apparently) do the claims of these companies - so why should I worry about it either?
Physicist, consultant, science communicator
There are lies, damn lies and statistics. Personally I can't remember the last time I used something other than Google for a search and what other search engine has had it's name verbed in common usage? Even back in the day when AltaVista was the search engine of choice I never heard anyone say "AltaVista it".
wtf!? people still use Yahoo! who are these retards... don't they ever read the friggin news?
Where's my free iPod!? Until then, I'll settle for a kiss...
Spoken like someone who has had no decent science education. The methodology of the study is critical. For example, one of the studies might have a very small sample size, in which case it's probably inaccurate.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
"Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. 14% of people know that."
In the end, both numbers are probably correct according to the methodology that was used. The disparity is likely due to using vastly different methodologies.
Perhaps they used user surveys of on-line behavior. Perhaps they used traffic reports from popular sites to see where search hits came from. There's countless ways to figure it, but seeing as I can't remember the last time I used anything but google to do a search, I'd tend to favor the larger number.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Really? I go to google.com, i type in my search, results come up. No real clutter in my face.
Way too much crap that's wormed its way to the top of each search, but I don't know an engine without that problem.
(If you know of one, I'd be willing to try someone other than google.)
I tried that Who Links to Me thing and got -1 links to my site.
XaNk: now I remember why I hated the girls in high school
XaNk: because none of them would talk to me
"There are three types of lies - lies, damn lies, and statistics." - Variously attributed to Benjamin Disraeli, Alfred Marshall, Mark Twain and many other dead people.
here's another that says gooogle has 48% http://searchenginewatch.com/reports/article.php/2 156451
nice graph, with results for many other search engines as well
Um..I don't believe Googles search interface has changed or increased in complexity since it was first introduced. I don't see how the interfaces of Googles other ventures would affect their search service.
Perhaps it's the people that find that for highly esoteric queries, Yahoo! kicks Google's, umm, yahoo.
Yahoo! does an amazing job when you can only remember a sentence or two from what you're looking for. An identical query in Google will often turn up nothing. If more people tried Yahoo! again, they might be pleasantly surprised.
People are still using search engines other than google.
What's compex about the search interface?
Sure, there are tons of other things you can use Google for, but the basic search interface is not complex visually or functionally, and its features are very in line with most users' mental search models.
You don't have to look at Froogle, or Scholar, or Google news to use the plain ol' search engine.
I'll be president.. you can be vice president.
We love google!
Yes, it's really complex. First you have to go to google.com, then you have to type in your search, and (gasp!) click the button. Except for a few images, it's completely text based, and it has one of the cleanest, fastest interfaces anywhere.
Well, I often find myself using a different search enging because I get 'page contains no data' when I try to search.
Also, the quick search tool in Firefox often doesn't work because we are automatically transferred to a Chinese version of Google. You have to select the 'English' link, then search again.
Sometimes it just isn't worth the hassle. More and more, I am using Yahoo!.
Google's new features are cool, no doubt, but perhaps it is losing popularity due to the ever-increasingly complex interface.
Sure it is.
Google on Dec 02, 1998
Google on Jul 21, 2005
-Valiss
More often than not the exact site I was looking for is displayed almost instantly.
Unless, of course, one is right and the other isn't.
CC Licensed Serialized Story and Podcast: Ingenioustries
Gartner, IDC and WhatHaveYa..
What is the actual value of these companies?
For the last 10 years I've occasionally watched some figures they spit out or some predictions they've made. For the first category, these figures are based on common knowledge (ordinary public statistics) to anyone in the industry, with a twist. The take a very vague number and from that try making it exact. For example, if statistics say there were about 1 million HDTVs sold last year, 0.5 the year before and 0.25 sold the year before that, Gartner will report 1,023,791 HDTVs sold last year and a "prediction" of 2 million sold next year.
As for the latter, I'd wager 90% of their their stats for new tech is complete bogus, missing the mark either totally or by light years. So what the heck is the force keeping them in business? What gullible people buys their trash?
As for their "report" on searches, again.. How the heck do they measure that? How did they come up with 36.9%?
An what's the importance of that information? None at all as far as I can tell, other than for advertisers (who should get fired anyway if they listen to junk reports like this).
In a society that believes in nothing, fear becomes the only agenda ~ Bill Durodié
Who has entered the search business recently?
Are you surpriesed to begin to see sponsored
research and bought FUD?
Google should step past the google bar and release it's own OS, Linux based free software, named Go or something else cute that starts with a 'G'
With a dual boot as the default, the Google OS should then allow you the option to migrate your data and delete windows.
It should also have the option to download Open Office and Gimp, etc. and have automatic updates.
From what we have seen from Googles level of service, they most likely could beat microsoft at their own game.
And all the other search engines? I left it when they started sucking... My search results are starting to suck with Google, since everyone is trying to 'game' it.
Google seems positively ancient compared to things like del.icio.us. They better start acquiring fast, or their going to be out of the loop.
Both, in fact. It is all part of the Sith's evil plan to sow confusion to bring down the Republic.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
What?
I'm dead serious, I've used google for 100% of my searching since a few years. I used to use Yahoo quite a bit but Google is just faster and for the most part more relevent.
Who are these people who use msn search, yahoo, altavisa, etc???
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Dude, you've got to be kidding. The front page is almost exactly the same as it's always been. Now, let's contrast that with Yahoo. I always liked Yahoo's sleek interface back in the 90's. Now, gah! What a mess!
http://www.google.co.nz/search?q=google+"market+sh are" and you will get 651000 answers!
At least until Google spiders this comment, in which case you will get 651001.
But you can always trust the 1st answer, this is Google you know. :-)
The announcements mean that ComScore has managed to score marketing dollars that WebSideStory hasn't (yet?). Bear Stearns promoting obviously flawed stats means they're involved, too, at one end or the other. (Did they buy the stats from CS, or did CS or its patron buy the promotion from BS?) Now we know in the future to ignore ComScore and Bear Stearns announcements, and suspect anybody they are seen to associate with.
WebSideStory's case is more complicated. Are they promoting their measurement service, or are they trying to provoke Yahoo and MS to pay them to pipe down or (for just a little more) change their tune? The PR business is more scummy than people like us can even imagine.
Can someone say for sure how long did it take to Google get out of beta? I have to set up the fireworks for Gmail you know...
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
And by the way, you just adverbed (-ly) a compound adjective (ever-increasing), or compounded (ever-) and adverb (increasingly), depending on how you look at it, which strikes me as filled with mega-wrongness and generally over-clumbsified.
I use Google around 100% of the time. The main reason isn't because I'm some Google freak, but, because Safari and FireFox (the two browsers I use) have that handy search box in the upper left hand corner. It's easier to hit CMD+L, TAB, and type in my search terms, instead of CMD+L, typing Google.com, waiting for the site to load, and then hitting Tab, and THEN typing in my search terms...
Occasionally, I'll hit Yahoo up, but...that's mainly for nostalgia. Or maybe Hotbot...or Lycos? Altavista! Damn, that just brought back some memories!
Heck, I think I'll visit turbo10.com, just for the heck of it.
...but liars always figure.
When I think of something - anything, image, information whatever. I just pop up my browser (it is instant on during my computer session) - and type in "g {my interest}" and it gives me ideas. Or if not I try to reconsider my search. Come on. GOOGLE IS MY SIXTH SENSE (seroiusly). Nothing can beat that - and yes, I've tried other search engines. They simply do not work.
How many people are using Windows 2000?
What percentage of all active computer users in the United States are on Macs?
What percentage of "non-technical" computer users have installed Linux and use it as their primary OS?
These are the sorts of questions that can be of vital importance to companies when they are trying to determine which markets they should be in, how they should orient their marketing, what improvements they need to make to their products, and so on. The problem is that this information is extremely difficult to pin down, which is why these analysts proliferate.
If it's tough to get reliable data you can base decisions on, it's even more difficult to determine whether a given market analysis is worth a damn.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
When I first read the report on the 19th (Google - 36.9%, Yahoo! - 30.4%, MSN - 15.7%), I called BS. Here's my reasoning. Just before Star Wars was released, I held the number one search spot for "Star Wars Trailer" (no quotes) on ALL three mentioned search engines for a week. I got a million hits in about 2 days. 69% were Google, 14% from Yahoo and 2% from MSN.
I later moved down to 4th in Google but held my place in Y!/MSN. The scores shifted very slightly but remained in favor of Google. Unless this proves that Star Wars geeks are primarily Google users, it proves the surveys innaccurate in favor of MSN and Yahoo!.
That's my 0.02.
Movie News - "Entertainment news, bitch!"
To me a search engine is like a "real" relationship.
One catches you eye, you try it out, it gives you what you want, and life is good!
But after a while you start to see faults, you no longer click on "I feel Lucky" but browse on down a few links.
Then you start to question you partners honesty and start to click on "Cached"
Your blue eyed, blonde goddess has developed a few defects!
Your eye starts to wonder, and you may feel like playing away from home once in a while, but you soon realise that despite her faults
she still is the best girl in town.
So ther you are, still waiting for something better comes along!
__
Sigs are like arse-holes, everybody has one
You have to look at others too...
....
:)
It is summertime so sales are down by 80% in some cases.......
so yes searches and traffic is down very badly
I live from online sales and work and summertime shows on my wallet
Any reason why you put the web archived Google link into tinyurl?
This is here so you don't ignore the last two lines of my posts.
The right one is... "What percentage of first page results are not related at all, fake search engine bait, paid for, or otherwise completely irrelivant?"
Answer: 95% and increasing fast.
Google is becoming useless, as I have to use some very complicated queries to find even simple data. Rememeber the good old days when AltaVista was at 100%?
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
http://search.yahoo.com/ is probably what you're looking for.
That's if you're trying to be honest and open about what you find... Of course, no scientist or pollster has ever lied to benefit their cause, have they?!
http://web.archive.org/web/19981202230410/http://w ww.google.com/
Wow. That really takes me back.
And it is possible for both to be right, if they use different methods for sampling or measurement.
No it isn't. One or both of them has to be wrong. What this means is that one or both of their methods are wrong, not that both are right because they used different methods.
Again, it is not possible for Google's search market share to be both 36.9% and 52% simultaneously.
Thinkin' Lincoln - a web comic of presidential proportions
Well if the amount of searches google is getting is going down -- you have to account for where they are going.
Lately I've become increasingly frustrated with Google's searches. Too many businesses and "magnet sites" (sites designed only to match your query and lure you to their page to then slam you with advertising and paid links, e.g. about.com) have been messing up Google's query system. It's been much more difficult to sift through the relevant pages and the junk ones, plus the number of junk pages continues to grow by the day, flooding my searches with more useless junk. And another thing that got to me yesterday (though I suppose I can't exactly blame Google for this) was seeing a quote that said "Google has blocked 1 webpage because it contains information violating the DMCA."
And yet, I've been trying to scout out other search engines to see if there's anything better, but I haven't found anything that still comes close to Google, even when there's so many people who are cheating Google's system. Altavista's too inconsistant, Dogpile seems to shovel 'piles' of pages at me that just match whatever word I've typed in, and the few times I've used Ask Jeeves, I can get simple information and answers, but any search that I need in depth will still only give me simple information and answers. Google's algoritm seems to be the only one to tell me what information's closest to what I'm trying to find, despite all the artificial relevance inflation that its engine takes.
" If more people tried Yahoo! again, they might be pleasantly surprised."
Did they finally clear all that junk off their homepage? What I want is a search engine, nothing more, nothing less. I don't want:
* Autos (Already have a truck)
* Chat (Already use teamspeak)
* Finance (Already have a bank account)
* Games (Already have WINE)
* GeoCities (Already have a colocated server)
* Groups (I could always hit groups.yahoo.com)
* Health (Already have gym membership)
* Horoscopes (Waste of time?)
* HotJobs (Already have job)
* Kids (Don't have kids)
* Mail (Already have GMAIL)
* Maps (Already use maps.google.com)
* Messenger (Already have Y! IM on gaim)
* Mobile (Don't need or want a cell)
* Movies (If I want a movie I'll look at fandango) * Music (Don't buy music online)
* News (Already go to news for nerds, stuff that matters)
* People (Don't ened to find ugly people)
* Search (AH HA! THIS IS WHAT I WANT!)
* Personals (Don't need homely or lonely women)
* Photos (Already have a gallery on my website)
* Real Estate (Don't need swamp land)
* Shopping (Pricegrabber.com does this for me)
* Sports (Hate sports)
* Travel (I know where I want to go for vacation, lest a website tell me where to go)
* TV (I own one, unfortunately)
* Yellow Pages (Google has reverse number lookup, and I can find nearly anyone with their search box)
Why do they give me all this USELESS crap on their homepage. What ever happened to a simple small interface like googles where they don't fit everything in the world on their homepage. Thank god they redesigned their layout -- it was even worse before.
Just give TEXT FIELD, and I can type those terms in the field. If I want to buy a car, I don't need to click on "AUTOS" on the homepage, I can type "USED CAR SALES" In the search box. Thats what a search engine should be -- not a table of contents/category listing -- but a SEARCH engine that SEARCHES content!
You mean like search.yahoo.com?
zOMFG!!1 d00dz! Yahoo's toolbar is so much better; it comes with like fourteen free programs and it's got games and a sweet chat thing. YAHOO IS TOTALLY K-RAD. HEY, I CANT USE HIGH ASCII ON THIS THING. ONLY LAMERZ USE GOOGLE DOOD.
p.s. if you find the new Y4H4X v4.7 Turbo-phisher for yahoo pager PLZ!!1 email it to me. kgr8thx.
Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters - www.slashdot.org
WhoLinksToMe.com has found 3,822 links to this site.
Blogrolling.com has found 1266 blogrolls that contain this link.
Google has found 229,000 links to this site.
Yahoo! has found 1,900,000 links to this site.
Thats not a disparity is it?
Free Google Secrets
Anyone who's used Yahoo's Mindset beta search engine will quickly agree that google could use improvement. Often i find that when i can't find something in google, i do find it using Yahoo's mindset. Come on google, where is your answer to mindset? DISCLAIMER: I don't like yahoo...hell I HATE yahoo.
"You mean like search.yahoo.com?"
Why can't they make that their homepage?
Anyways, never knew about that. Thanks.
Everywhere you go, someone wants to sell you something. It's next to impossible to find just INFORMATION anymore.
...that Google's search share could fall. I've been using Yahoo and Teoma for comparative searches, and I find some of the stuffs I'm looking for do not appear in Google but pops up in Teoma. Even though slightly surprised, I believed Google's results still retains its quality.
I mean, isn't that what we all do at work? ;P
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
Studies like this are useless without detailed information about exactly what's being measured. For example, I'd really like any of these sources to define what they mean by "search". Searching using Google could mean the use of Google Answers, Google Directory, Google Groups, Google Images, Google Maps, Google News, Google Scholar, or..... Google Web. This doesn't even include other services such as Gmail and desktop searches, where people mostly search their own content using Google.
A few years ago, people who currently use any of those services might well have tried to do the same thing with Google Web. Google has diversified its service hugely, though, as have several other search engines. The result's usually work out very positively. Unless these market share surveys are very specific and detailed about what they're measuring and comparing, as well as why it's actually important, they're not doing either side justice and the results are meaningless.
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details? &range=2y&size=medium&compare_sites=&y=t&url=googl e.com#top
Tracked by alexa spyware anyways: seems their total traffic is up 6-10% in the last 3 months ;) just change google.com in the url to whatever domain you want to check traffic on (the only useful thing spyware has ever done!) oh and the 230k reach per million surfers means insanely 23% of all traffic tracked by alexa goes thru google!
I'm like http://www.alltheweb.com/ Especially their Opera integration. Actually, that's the reason I'm using it. Opera is great. :-) And that makes AllTheWeb awsome. I'm thinkin' this is what makes Google lose search results. Lots of different engines satisfying various different niche's requirements. So all of these put together, can steal quite a bit. But then again, I have no idea what research is most correct. ;-)
Nobody's gay for Mole-Man.
Does anybody know any decent alternatives to Google? What they're doing in China has been giving me second thoughts about using them and I'd like to find a search engine that still isn't evil.
If the stock price is any indicator, one couldn't come up with an answer either.
Google stock (GOOG) ended the trading day up (by 6 tenths of a percent I think), but after trading sank greatly. We'll have to see how it opens tomorrow to know for sure.
Either way, it's tough to say. Even if the stock is doing well, it doesn't necessarily mean that the company as a whole is.
Personally, I'm on the fence just as much. I love the company, but I just can't believe how it's trading/valued at the corner of Wall and Broad St. Google seems like it's own 'one-company-tech-bubble', IMHO.
IANAFC (I am not a financial consultant), H (however).
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
On that subject, I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone reporting on the new tests for their main homepage with the line and buttons for:
"Show Me: [Search Box Only] [Everything]"
Clicking on the search box only button removes all the extras via javascript and it remembers the setting in a cookie so next time the other stuff never loads.
People can use statistics to prove anything... 37% of people know that.
Finance (Already have a bank account)
You're in idiot.
When someone clicks an ad on Google, it's usually deliberate: The ad is clearly marked, so people probably won't click on it unless they're actually interested in buying something.
With many search engines, the ads aren't so clear: What appears to be a search result is actually an ad, so the people who click on it aren't as likely to be looking for a specific product.
89% of statistics are made up on the spot.
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details? &range=2y&size=medium&compare_sites=&y=t&url=googl e.com#top
Tracked by alexa spyware anyways: seems their total traffic is up 6-10% in the last 3 months ;) just change google.com in the url to whatever url you want to check traffic on (the only useful thing spyware has ever done!) oh and the 230k reach per million surfers means insanely 23% of all traffic tracked by alexa goes thru google!
Having said that, multiple groups have studied Wikipedia's error rate and found it on average to be similar to other encyclopedias, with heavily viewed and edited articles tending to be of higher quality than more obscure ones.
I used to believe in Google religiously, but it seems that almost 5/10 times i do a search on google i get links that appear valid, but are just links to yet-another-search-engine. This wastes my time :/
The princpal reason google's share of searches is going down (if it is actually going down) would be malware. PCs I've seen infested with ad/spyware crap usually have the browser's default search hijacked and a search"helper" installed, going who knows where (though AskJeeves seems to be hanging out in some pretty shady company these days)
Regards, Sidhu Nobody dies virgin, Life screws everybody
How is the grandparent flamebait and my reply redundant?
Obviously some member doesn't agree with either of us and wants to use his new mod points to silence a point of view.
The moderation is utterly ridiculous. I'm not new here, but it's not any less insane to see it personally.
a9.com
Try it and see if you agree.
MOD PARRENT TROLL
I haven't been keeping an eye on different types of search engines so I might've just missed it but is there no search like the one they used in The Da Vinci Code? As in, 'abc' within # words of 'xyz'.
I often want to find my search words in the same sentence but with e.g. google they are sometimes in totally different paragraphs.
Also, why no partial matches? Are these things just too complicated for the DB's to deal with or what?
- caff0d
Actually, I think Wikipedia is getting quite a share of searches. A year ago, when I was looking for "standard information" - like the atom-weigth of an element or the capital of a country - I used Google, but now I use Wikipedia. Of course I still use a search engine for a lot of other things and will probably continue to do so. However Yahoo has become a lot better lately, so who knows what will be in 10 years?
This is outrageous, why is slashdot legitimizing the use of data collected with spyware?
Almost as troubling is how could a respected firm use such data. BearStearns should be ashamed of themselves.
Use their contact form to let them know that using spyware data in their studies comprimisizes not only the study's results but the reputation of the company. In a business where reputation is everything (just look at how no one who use to be employed by the corrupt AutherAnderson can get a job), they should be a lot more careful.
That Google's searches are becoming of a lesser value. Since the 20th century I haven't used another search engine for any reason....until about 4 months ago when I went through 10 pages of Google results and got absolutely NO results. All I got were spam sites that had google ads links. If you run into those, don't click them...please. Don't make what they do valuable to them so they'll stop.
I decided to try yahoo again to find an answer to my question. 4th link down...bingo. I tried altavista, same page 8th link down. I went back to the google search to look specifically for that site result...it was on the 23rd page and the second to last link.
If finding a solution to your query is so hard on Google, people ARE going to go elsewhere. It's that simple. Since then, I've started using Altavista and Yahoo more often simply because I'm getting results from them within the first 2 pages. More often than not google does still give me a result within the first 2 pages, but if not. Yahoo and altavista do.
Google NEEDS to do something about it's ever increasing spam problem or they are going to start losing the brass ring. I've been considering pulling my google ads simply due to the fact that I've seen less click throughs and even less sales from them than other engines. While other engine click through and sales are going up.
...are you a former AltaVista employee or something?
- Maps: Looks pretty, but it's just an incremental improvement over existing services. Trivial for Yahoo or anyone else to catch up.
Considering it is very new an it already makes Mapquest suck in comparison I'd say they deserve a lot of kudos. And I hardly think the interactive sattelite-map view is a "trivial" improvement. It took TWO YEARS for Mapquest to realise my house even existed. I put my street address into Google and I got an ACTUAL SATTELITE PHOTO of the top of my house. I could literally see the lawnmower I left out in the back yard the day the pic was taken. Maybe they didn't invent the concept but they certainly used innovation to improve upon the concept.
- GMail: Nothing to see here except very good marketing. Who ever uses 1 GB of email? Nobody.
Hi, my name is Nobody...please to meet you AC. I do not use GMail but I have my own email server (established long before GMail was even established, precisely because webmail and ISPs at the time were too restrictive with attachment and mailbox sizes). I cannot comment on how innovative GMail is but I CAN say there are many people who could make use of 1 gig...it is a handy place to keep those daily 30MB emails (the limit I set on my mailbox of my server is 4 Gigs)
Google is an advertising company, they are not a technology company. They are not true innovators like, say, Apple or Oracle.
Ummm...MSN is the advertising company. Google was founded by academics ahd has probably among the smartest staff of any company in the world. I'm also puzzled as to why by your logic Apple and Oracle are innovators but Google is not. Neither of them INVENTED the products they are known for either--they both offred mere "improvements on existing services".
Oracle did NOT invent the relation database--IBM did. IBM started their database research before Oracle and had complete, fully operational test systems installed with their customers a full year before Oracle was released. Oracle just "improved" it and beat them to market with a commercial release.
Also, everyone knows Apple did not invent the GUI. A researcher named Douglas Engelbart and his team invented the GUI in the 1960s (and executed "the mother of all demos" to explain his concept). Xerox was the first to create a functional GUI implementation. The GUI was already an established technology when Apple started working on the LISA and MAC at the end of the 70s.
And sorry, MP3.com existed before iTunes and there were a lot of MP3 digital music players before the iPod came into being. And if you are talking about digital music in general then Apple is a REAL late-comer to the game. The NHK Institute in Japan was the first to make a digital music recorder/player--nearly 10 years before Apple even EXISTED. Sony was the first to offer a commercial digital audio player--in 1969 (using the same tape media as its video recorders). A Dutch scientist invented the CD and the standard co-developed by Philips and Sony came into being in 1980. Portable digital CD players came out many years before the iPod too.
So I guess that means we're all "brainwashed" by the Apple and Oracle "hype machines" too, becasue all their products are merely slight improvements of existing ones. Boy is THAT ever a load of crap!
Google is successful for exactly the same reasons as Oracle and Apple. None of them INVENTED what they are doing, but they are among the BEST at what they do and the innovations they apply to their products and concepts have a provound impact on their respective industries.
In short--they "don't suck".
I guess people modded my shit redundant because its a redundant opinion. Everyone on slashdot must agree and already understand that it's a flaming peice of junk search engine, so on that note my opinion redundant.
Shit its a peice of shit search engine and everyone knows it.