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Google Tweaks Algorithm As Concern Over Bing Grows
SharkLaser writes "As Bing gets closer to capturing almost 33% of the market share in the U.S., Google has again made a large tweak to its algorithms to provide more up-to-the-minute search results. The change affects around 35% of queries and is intended to give users more recent news and stories. For breaking news stories the search engine will now weight more heavily the most recent coverage, and not just those sites that are linked the most, and for general terms the search engine values fresh content more than old. Google is hoping that these recent new changes will provide better search experience and stops users from switching over to Bing, which just recently launched its own GroupOn like site."
Who thinks this has anything to do with algorithms, as opposed to things like the "Bing Bar" coming preloaded on Windows 7?
which is totally what she said
I think newer items is a great idea. Now, if the bring back the ability to use pluses and quotes to refine my search term, I might start using them again.
The real Sig captains the Northwestern. This one captains
I wonder what the numbers are in Europe, I don't know a single person who uses Bing and I barely know anyone non-technical who even knows what it is. Google is the standard here in the Netherlands, we we don't like to change things that are good.
Stop listing garbage in the results. Placeholder pages in sites like cnet, link farms, fake review sites and pointless aggregation pages are all contributing to people getting fed up with google and looking at the alternatives. Google ruled the roost on quality, so the masses moved over to it, now it's mostly garbage in searches.
While I agree, I also have to note, google was never one of the companies to not update their frontrunner products and wait for competition to move in. Google's algorithm had changed numerous times for filtering out spam-bots etc.... Long before bing even started resembling a threat. I'm not saying the competition isn't a good thing, and maybe some of the improvements were encouraged by hearing footsteps. But I would say this is far less of a change of pace vs say, facebook adds nothing but random UI changes for 2 years, then rolls out every feature of G+ right after google implements them.
Don't forget all those people trying to find out how to change the search engine back to google. That's about all I've used bing for.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
Perhaps their declining market share is because they are beginning to annoy their users. Things like their auto completion auto deleting things as you type and dropping the Boolean "+" operator. Those definitely piss me off and send me to Bing when it gets too frustrating.
As Bing gets closer to capturing almost 33% of the market share in the US...
I'm sorry, was this actually intended to tell us anything? Other than that the submitter is apparently a marketroid / Bing fanboi?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
http://duckduckgo.com/
I find the quality of results from Bing is still very poor and dominated by link farms, a problem Google seems increasing avoiding.
When I'm searching I don't want Google guessing which words I really care about.
This kinda thing is fine when it's just ignoring "the", "and", "a" or including plural terms but now they're leaving out nouns and adjectives if they're not common enough. It was annoying enough having to stick a + in front of every word, now they've got rid of + and replaced it with quotation marks which don't seem to force search results to contain that word quite so strictly.
I'm constantly searching for rare, obscure films and books and it's annoying as hell getting results that have nothing to do with what I'm really searching for.
Don't get me started on "the following terms only appear in links pointing to this page". When has that ever been useful except to owners of link farms and fake review sites?
Is to search for what I actually ask for. Don't search for what you *thought* I meant. Don't search for all those synonyms unless I ask you to. Just. Search. For. What. I. Typed. In. Dammit.
I shouldn't have to force that by putting quotes around everything - it should be default, or at the very least a cookie.
And also ban boardreader.com and all these other crappy sites that overtake the real discussion search results with their ads and middle man tactics.
And those spam sites that somehow read your query and come back with "searching for {whatever I typed in}? Click here!"
Please and thank you, and I will stop with my increasing habit of resorting to Bing (though that suffers from some of these things too but seems marginally better) to get my work done.
Great, now all eHow has to do is write scripts to update their pages every day, and they will safely stay at the top of EVERY search result.
Here is the line to focus on:
"Google is facing an increasing threat from Microsoft’s Bing search engine, which is close to providing a third of all internet searches, either directly or via partners such as Yahoo."
Without it's partners - Bing has crap:
http://www.netmarketshare.com/
Mobile, Google = 91%, bing =1%
DeskTop Google = 82%, bing = 4%
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-10/google-s-u-s-search-market-share-rises-to-65-3-yahoo-declines.html
US Search : Google = 65% bing = 14%
http://www.karmasnack.com/about/search-engine-market-share/
Global: Google = 84%, bing = 2%
US Google = 83%, bing = 5%
Claiming that bing has 33% of the US market share on search (as in "nearly a third when including business partners such as Yahoo") is generous at best.
-CF
If they don't know why they're slipping, they should take a long hard look at their own front lawn instead of glancing nervously sideways at Bing. Google Search is getting more worthless by the day. Each time they "tweak" the algorithm it gets worse. The quality of the search results themselves isn't even the most problematic issue.
The main problem is that Google refuses to search for the actual terms you entered. They search for things that are sometimes kind of related to what you're looking for and they don't even show you which parts of your search term they ignored! The only way you're getting a real search result out of Google is when you trick it into doing its job by putting quotes around every single word of your search term (and even then it sometimes ignores you). It's mind-boggling to me how they fucked this up so badly, but it sure doesn't look like they're even aware of the problem.
in finding quality information than it used to be. Too many aggregator and link farms returned in the results. Too many paywalled sites. They need a non-commercial flag so you can weed out all that crap; sometimes you want neutral, authoritative information instead of the latest diet craze or gadget BS.
As an example, my family recently started experiencing respiratory distress and we suspected toxic mold because of the exceptionally damp, warm summer we had. Yet after *30* pages of search results in Google it is *impossible* to find any information of any kind that isn't trying to sell you a kit.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
No, Google didn't prove that. Microsoft explained that, with permission from the user, they were using feedback delivered from the Bing Bar for searches made from any source, and Google decided to try to rile up its fans and accuse Microsoft of "copying their results."