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I've noticed that Google search results prioritize reputation above search matching. If you search for something, even if there's a blog out there with the exa

I've noticed that Google search results prioritize reputation above search matching. If you search for something, even if there's a blog out there with the exact thing your searching for, it won't show up, even in the top 100 search results, unless the site has a high enough page rank/ or some other generic metric google is looking for. This is unfortunate because there's a lot of great information out there that never sees the light of day due to this problem. Google still has a long way to go before they solve the search problem.

duxup 7y ago
Yeah that seems to give rise to sites like Medium where folks post because they know they'll get seen. Even people who are fairly high profile for the given topic. Considering the risk of that data getting locked away behind paywalls that doesn't seem good.
new_guy 7y ago
> Google still has a long way to go before they solve the search problem For any search query, there's only two results: 1, what you're actually looking for 2, what Google wants you to see Unfortunately Google has 'solved' the search problem by always optimising for 2, and most times it's never what you want to see. That's not just health results either, for most anything outside of 'pop culture' Google is garbage.
- thorwasdfasdf 7y ago
  Sounds like we need a new search engine, a better search engine. One that returns the things you're actually searching for.
  - zentiggr 7y ago
    Duckduckgo?
    - abugheratwork 7y ago
      Isn't that just a wrapper for the same search engines?
      - limejuice 7y ago
        I believe duckduckgo uses bing for search results. (See https://help.duckduckgo.com/results/sources/?redir=1 https://help.duckduckgo.com/results/sources/?redir=1). If you compare searches on bing and duckduckgo, they are very similar. The main advantage of duckduckgo is that they aren't tracking you and the ads they show are just based on the search keywords not based on a digital profile they have compiled like google and facebook.
    - joe_the_user 7y ago
      I just checked duckduckgo and examine doesn't appear to be censored there. I then switched my default search engine. I hope that this means duckduckgo is indeed not going to censoring. I'd like keep websites for adult who can judge for themselves alive.
- michaelmrose 7y ago
  For any given query there are thousands of people giving that same query with slightly or largely different intent and a universe of results that suit different portions of the users better or worse. Reducing this to a singular desired result and "what google wants you to see" is absurd. Google still provides pretty good results for most things for most people. Pretending otherwise is a waste of breath. Statistical matching results in platforms helping con artists find victims and helping crazy people spread their poisonous crazy. If you try to avoid noxious end results you will be accused of interfering. If you don't you will be declared complicit. Where does the appropriate middle ground lie?
- core-questions 7y ago
  Never mind the bad search results, consider the narrative-shaping power they wield.
nisa 7y ago
For technical queries it's gotten even worse in the past years. It flat out ignores string matches or decides that I wanted something else. What's even stranger is that there are sites that match these strings 1:1 and they are helpful but they don't show up. I discovered that while scrabbling through Stackoverflow answers and then trying to find a site I knew had all the specific keywords. It's also not robots.txt or something like that, most of these were just regular blogposts on either github oder blogger. They probably drank too much AI kool-aid.
- tr3ndyBEAR 7y ago
  At this point, I'm starting to use duckduckgo not for privacy concerns but because they literally work better for stuff like this
  - joveian 7y ago
    Unfortunately, it isn't reliable and DDG is much more willing than Google to say "I've got nothing". I default to DDG but often it is this type of situation (searching for error messages) where Google works when DDG didn't.
Scoundreller 7y ago
Agreed. I used to run a very tiny phone number directory, where I provided big company’s actual phone numbers, unlike their websites that provided everything but. For a while, I would rank on the first page, and provided clear and quick results. Then around 2012, they really dropped, and your search result just became 10 different pages on the domain of the corporation.
- usaphp 7y ago
  Well it kind of makes sense. I would not trust some third party website with a phone number of my bank for example. You don’t want to call someone if that number is not listed on the official website
  - Scoundreller 7y ago
    Then you end up in a no-man’s land where the official website makes it hard for you to find their support number too. Though to your point, one Canadian ISP changed its support number. And my website even recommended people print it out in case their internet goes out and they can’t look up phone numbers...
AhmedF 7y ago
Our reputation is pretty damn solid - that's what makes this even more perplexing.
- krisroadruck 7y ago
  High profile edge-case where Google is clearly getting it wrong? Just talked to the partners at the search firm I work for and assuming you'd let us make a case study out of it, we'd be willing to take a look and potentially offer our services gratis for the prestige and referral business alone that a recovery of this magnitude is likely to drum up for us. Let me know if you are interested.
  - dannyw 7y ago
    How can you help? It sounds like this is something that needs Google’s direct attention.
- theartfuldodger 7y ago
  I am just noticing that you own/manage this site and are getting a lot of grief about subjective design opinions from many random developer types that do not consume content in the same manner as your audience or live in reality, so can see the frustration. The May to present drop in positioning is catastrophic. The content is fantastic for your space and design aligns more with journal websites than health/nutrition space. That may not be beneficial to keeping users more accustomed to image heavy,popular health space. Contrast/Accessibility is poor - What standards were you following in a redesign? After the redesign and as your organic positioning started plummeting - did you identify any increase in 404's and/or do visitor recordings of the traffic you do have? Most of the titles being identified as "clickbaity" should be your OG titles and it is true that there is a weakness in on page optimization decisions and general architecture across the site. The backlink profile IS problematic! but with on page and general architecture concerns that could be improved that would be the first order of business if I was trying to restore this to former glory. Seeing the WEB Md and drugs.com / health.com that appear in positions that your site and content are much better qualified for is concerning. You are being screwed. Just looking at your "white kidney bean extract" article from your profile and then seeing the Livestrong article and other crap that is better positioned points out the terrible weaknesses in the last 4-5 years of Google's improved positioning for bigger brands and move away from exact matching. Livestrong hides their references in a dropdown and sticks an adblock there. I point that out because in the end - the white hat quality guidelines are garbage and propaganda and rarely reflect reality in the enterprise/brand space . Make the site more accessible to the average reader and those who are first researching supplements and improve your social channel. Google is not reacting logically in your positioning in comparison to the structure,positioning and quality of your competitors. But the site could be much better composed and structured.
buboard 7y ago
i think all of us should start promoting alternative search engines. Google has indeed become impenetrable , and gamed by seos , and with amp they are becoming outright evil. Does DDG offer website search box?
- roryokane 7y ago
  Yes, it does: https://duckduckgo.com/search_box https://duckduckgo.com/search_box.

duxup 7y ago

Yeah that seems to give rise to sites like Medium where folks post because they know they'll get seen. Even people who are fairly high profile for the given topic. Considering the risk of that data getting locked away behind paywalls that doesn't seem good.

new_guy 7y ago

> Google still has a long way to go before they solve the search problem For any search query, there's only two results: 1, what you're actually looking for 2, what Google wants you to see Unfortunately Google has 'solved' the search problem by always optimising for 2, and most times it's never what you want to see. That's not just health results either, for most anything outside of 'pop culture' Google is garbage.

thorwasdfasdf 7y ago
Sounds like we need a new search engine, a better search engine. One that returns the things you're actually searching for.
- zentiggr 7y ago
  Duckduckgo?
  - abugheratwork 7y ago
    Isn't that just a wrapper for the same search engines?
    - limejuice 7y ago
      I believe duckduckgo uses bing for search results. (See https://help.duckduckgo.com/results/sources/?redir=1 https://help.duckduckgo.com/results/sources/?redir=1). If you compare searches on bing and duckduckgo, they are very similar. The main advantage of duckduckgo is that they aren't tracking you and the ads they show are just based on the search keywords not based on a digital profile they have compiled like google and facebook.
  - joe_the_user 7y ago
    I just checked duckduckgo and examine doesn't appear to be censored there. I then switched my default search engine. I hope that this means duckduckgo is indeed not going to censoring. I'd like keep websites for adult who can judge for themselves alive.
michaelmrose 7y ago
For any given query there are thousands of people giving that same query with slightly or largely different intent and a universe of results that suit different portions of the users better or worse. Reducing this to a singular desired result and "what google wants you to see" is absurd. Google still provides pretty good results for most things for most people. Pretending otherwise is a waste of breath. Statistical matching results in platforms helping con artists find victims and helping crazy people spread their poisonous crazy. If you try to avoid noxious end results you will be accused of interfering. If you don't you will be declared complicit. Where does the appropriate middle ground lie?
core-questions 7y ago
Never mind the bad search results, consider the narrative-shaping power they wield.

nisa 7y ago

For technical queries it's gotten even worse in the past years. It flat out ignores string matches or decides that I wanted something else. What's even stranger is that there are sites that match these strings 1:1 and they are helpful but they don't show up. I discovered that while scrabbling through Stackoverflow answers and then trying to find a site I knew had all the specific keywords. It's also not robots.txt or something like that, most of these were just regular blogposts on either github oder blogger. They probably drank too much AI kool-aid.

tr3ndyBEAR 7y ago
At this point, I'm starting to use duckduckgo not for privacy concerns but because they literally work better for stuff like this
- joveian 7y ago
  Unfortunately, it isn't reliable and DDG is much more willing than Google to say "I've got nothing". I default to DDG but often it is this type of situation (searching for error messages) where Google works when DDG didn't.

Scoundreller 7y ago

Agreed. I used to run a very tiny phone number directory, where I provided big company’s actual phone numbers, unlike their websites that provided everything but. For a while, I would rank on the first page, and provided clear and quick results. Then around 2012, they really dropped, and your search result just became 10 different pages on the domain of the corporation.

usaphp 7y ago
Well it kind of makes sense. I would not trust some third party website with a phone number of my bank for example. You don’t want to call someone if that number is not listed on the official website
- Scoundreller 7y ago
  Then you end up in a no-man’s land where the official website makes it hard for you to find their support number too. Though to your point, one Canadian ISP changed its support number. And my website even recommended people print it out in case their internet goes out and they can’t look up phone numbers...

AhmedF 7y ago

Our reputation is pretty damn solid - that's what makes this even more perplexing.

krisroadruck 7y ago
High profile edge-case where Google is clearly getting it wrong? Just talked to the partners at the search firm I work for and assuming you'd let us make a case study out of it, we'd be willing to take a look and potentially offer our services gratis for the prestige and referral business alone that a recovery of this magnitude is likely to drum up for us. Let me know if you are interested.
- dannyw 7y ago
  How can you help? It sounds like this is something that needs Google’s direct attention.
theartfuldodger 7y ago
I am just noticing that you own/manage this site and are getting a lot of grief about subjective design opinions from many random developer types that do not consume content in the same manner as your audience or live in reality, so can see the frustration. The May to present drop in positioning is catastrophic. The content is fantastic for your space and design aligns more with journal websites than health/nutrition space. That may not be beneficial to keeping users more accustomed to image heavy,popular health space. Contrast/Accessibility is poor - What standards were you following in a redesign? After the redesign and as your organic positioning started plummeting - did you identify any increase in 404's and/or do visitor recordings of the traffic you do have? Most of the titles being identified as "clickbaity" should be your OG titles and it is true that there is a weakness in on page optimization decisions and general architecture across the site. The backlink profile IS problematic! but with on page and general architecture concerns that could be improved that would be the first order of business if I was trying to restore this to former glory. Seeing the WEB Md and drugs.com / health.com that appear in positions that your site and content are much better qualified for is concerning. You are being screwed. Just looking at your "white kidney bean extract" article from your profile and then seeing the Livestrong article and other crap that is better positioned points out the terrible weaknesses in the last 4-5 years of Google's improved positioning for bigger brands and move away from exact matching. Livestrong hides their references in a dropdown and sticks an adblock there. I point that out because in the end - the white hat quality guidelines are garbage and propaganda and rarely reflect reality in the enterprise/brand space . Make the site more accessible to the average reader and those who are first researching supplements and improve your social channel. Google is not reacting logically in your positioning in comparison to the structure,positioning and quality of your competitors. But the site could be much better composed and structured.

buboard 7y ago

i think all of us should start promoting alternative search engines. Google has indeed become impenetrable , and gamed by seos , and with amp they are becoming outright evil. Does DDG offer website search box?

roryokane 7y ago
Yes, it does: https://duckduckgo.com/search_box https://duckduckgo.com/search_box.