[Daniel.]

Originally Posted by Gnnr

They need to use another method of ranking pages because this SEO crap has made their results totally unusable. I can no longer find relevant pages when searching. I've been using Bing now over the past 24 hours, good-fucking-bye Google. I'm actually finding the pages and things I want with Bing.

Google's interface is also getting annoying. The word completion is annoying, but I dealt with it. The instant results also became annoying, but atleast I could turn it off on the front page. Now they've berried the option to turn it off with multiple steps. The problem is that this is the default, so on every PC I'm on I have to do this. Does Google survey users besides their in house staff? I get the impression that they've surrounded themselves with a bunch of yes-men.



Finding REAL pages is what I want. Not bogus sites. Thats what Google is lacking in. Its turned into freaking Lycos.

Finding pages that you remember something about is a pain. Recent example. I was trying to find a website I had bookmarked on another PC, but all I could remember was what it was about. It had reviews on the current sci-fi/fantasy TV shows that are airing. First I searched for "sci fi" tv shows. Nothing on the first 5 pages and bogus sites throughout. I remember they had a Fall Guide, so I tried science fiction tv shows fall guide. Same deal. Then finally with science fiction tv shows fall guide, it came up on the first page. That is annoying as fuck. I've never had to do so much work to get the results on Google. Going through 5 pages twice!? Geesh. And specifically that website that I was looking for was always on the first page of results, Axiom's Edge.

Another problem is trying to find/discover new websites. I was looking for a good house music blog or news site to keep up with the latest in electronic music. Fuck. Good luck with any key word searches with that. They where all bogus blogs and sites. Annoying.

Also, I'm tired of having search results "tailored" to my search location. Stop localizing my results unless I'm searching in the shopping section. I swear that the same search done in NY and one done in LA yield different search results, and I'm not referring to the ads. Why can't my location just be USA? Or why can't I turn it off? What if I'm using a proxy?

Same goes for results when searching on my smart phone. Totally different results when compared to those done on a PC, even for the same search. Ugh. I've just had it with Google and their crap. I love Gmail, and thats all I'm going to be using from them.

That's good feedback. Have you considered that instant search, auto correction and other new features which are defaulted to "on" wouldn't be used half as much if it was just "off" all the time?

Other than internal Dogfooding Google does do extensive external surveys and polling.

(Devil's advocate) As for your anecdotal story regarding searching for Axiom's Edge, have you considered that the page you were looking for was not as relevant to the original search as all the prior results?

I agree that Google can do a better job. Getting the correct information to users, in the way that users want them, is Google's problem. Not the user's. If you're looking for Axiom's Edge, but you don't know what search terms to use, or only have a partial name, Google should be able to fill in the blanks for you. Finding a way to innovate and to continue to improve Google Search algorithms is the only way to do this.

As for the location based searches, I've personally found that they're useful to me. Just turn it off if you don't like it. Follow the instructions here. http://www.google.com/support/websea...?answer=179386