I am with gcarswell on this one. +1 to her! I don't think search is an easy problem. And (where it is not conflicted by self promotional interests) Google does

I am with gcarswell on this one. +1 to her! I don't think search is an easy problem. And (where it is not conflicted by self promotional interests) Google does an amazing job of indexing, filtering & scoring. It is nearly unbelievable how good Google is in many areas. But that is also the problem...Google set the bar for itself rather high through its own performance. A gold medal sprinter doesn't get a pat on the back for running a 23 second 100-meter dash. When most companies put out a product they have to make it better than existing products to win marketshare. They can't put out something sort of average and then just arbitrarily promote it in the results through bundling (the way Google has with things like Checkout, places, product search, flight search, and +) In the past Google did a much better job at search when it wasn't actively subverting itself. If I searched on Google 3 or 5 years ago I didn't see Avis-rent-a-car ranking near the top of the search results for "Las Vegas hotels" ... it was only after Google decided to displace & monetize the organic results that Avis started ranking on hotel searches. http://www.seobook.com/images/hotel-price-ads.jpg http://www.seobook.com/images/hotel-price-ads.jpg And who's fault is that? Google's. If the monetary incentive wasn't there, I am sure Google wouldn't be polluting their own search results, especially as they have put thousands of man-years in trying to do the opposite. ~~~ I also think the suggestion that a person should switch their default search engine is a bit inauthentic for 2 reasons: 1.) Google is spending BILLIONS of Dollars per year buying search & browser distribution + buying default search rights on 3rd party browsers 2.) even if I change my default search engine that personal choice wouldn't impact how other users search & for those other users the copy of copyright content hosted on Google.com will often still outrank the original source.