They Know EVERYTHING That You Don't Want Them To Know: Google
Written: Jul 06 '01 (Updated Jul 07 '01)
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The Bottom Line
The consumers of search engines are divided into two groups. Depending on which group you are in, the evaluation on Google will completely change.
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| Full Review |
It is quite surprising to see more than 99% of the reviewers are recommending Google with very high evaluation points.
You can see the statistics at the URL:
http://nyscramble.epinions.com/webs-Web_Services-All-Google_Search
As of 7/5/2001, 271 members have submitted the reviews, and only 2 members evaluated negatively. Both of these two negative reviews haven't been rated very highly.
As you might guess, this review will be the third negative one on Google. I personally use Google for the research purpose. But I do have some reasons I don't strongly recommend Google to some types of people.
When you use search engines, you are either a researcher or a web designer. Consequently, there are two points of views in evaluating search engines. Let me explain one by one.
FOR RESEARCHERS
Consumer reports on search engines usually focus on the web site finders, who are looking for the web site to find some information.
For the researchers, the important keys are the coverage over the web sites, the unbiasedness, the reliability, the search speed, and the quality of advanced search features.
Google doesn't have any problems in terms of the web site coverage, the unbiasedness, and the search speed. Their database search technology is excellent, and Google robots are working 30 hours a day to collect the web site information. Moreover, the robot-based database building and the out-sourced directory database construction ensure the unbiasedness of the search results to the good extent.
Please note. Their robot-based database construction doesn't include any human intervention. Thus, by nature, the database is unbiased. The directory service at http://directory.google.com/ is supported by Open Directory Project (ODP). ODP is organized by the group of volunteers to construct the truly unbiased informative web directory database.
My review on ODP is located at:
http://nyscramble.epinions.com/content_1742512260
Probably, This Is the Most Unbiased Reliable Search Engine: Open Directory Project
The advanced search at Google is also decently organized. Even though you can't run the direct multi-media search like at Lycos Advanced Search, the search options at Google are good enough to find whatever you want to find.
(If you know how to use the commands at Google, the search results will be refined by large. The list of commands is located at: http://www.google.com/help/operators.html )
The minor problem is regarding with the reliability of their search results. Since Google robots collect the link structure first, and then move to the contents, you will see a lot of links where you have no idea on what is written at the web site. Google includes those links based only on the words included in the URLs.
Notice that Google stocks the collected files in their cache space. This service is great for the researchers. They don't have to visit the original page that might have the very slow download time. Plus, if they want, they can compare the old information (at Google's cache) and the new information (at the original site). Simply speaking, the cache service gives the options to the researchers.
This is almost the win-win situation. The technology is excellent, the database is unbiased, and the coverage over the internet is versatile. Though you need to use your own intellectual part regarding with the reliability of the search results, The benefits overweighs.
FOR WEB DESIGNERS
Compared to researchers, web designers receive very small merits. As the matter of fact, the demerits often overweigh the merits from Google.
There are two major demerits. One is their file cache service. The other is the text-type advertisement that guarantees the number of impression.
At the official FAQ, they insist the cache features are helping the researchers to reach the temporarily unavailable pages. This sounds okay. But the problem is they keep the cached files for the fairly long time period.
The problem gets serious when the web contents are time-sensitive. You update your web contents very frequently, but the people who see your page from Google's cache will not see any change for a couple of months.
Google realizes this problem. On the official FAQ page, they explain how to avoid this type of problem.
http://www.google.com/remove.html
Basically, what they recommend for time-sensitive web sites are: (1) modification of robots.txt, and (2) inclusion of meta tags for blocking robots.
However, it seems these methods are not well observed by Google robots themselves. A lot of web pages are indexed, even if the robots.txt prohibits the listing of the pages. Moreover, the serious problem is that once you block their robots, your page will never be crawled again, even if you re-submit the page information. (See their FAQ page for details. http://www.google.com/remove.html )
Another demerit is the capabilities for the internet marketing via Google.
Google doesn't accept the banner ads on their main search pages. Instead, they accept text-based advertisements. There are two types of text-based advertisements. One is called Premium Sponsorships, and the other is self-serve AdWords.
The Premium Sponsorships is for those with large budgets (over $10.000 over three months), and the contracts vary case by case. So, let me focus on their self-serve AdWords service.
AdWords was implemented in Fall, 2000. With this service, you create a little text box, and buy the number of impression of your text box advertisement. Your text box is exposed to the search engines users when they run searches with specific words of your choice. The cost of advertisements varies from $8 to $15 per 1000 impression, depending on the locations where your text box are placed.
The cost range is very attractive. Even the small personal sites can afford them. However, the issue is that they charge based on the impression. As you might know, the text advertisements don't generate much attention. It sounds very strange to charge the text ads based on the impression.
Note that AdWords marketing is effective only at Google's original sites. Also, note that the unique reach of Google is 17th, which is lower than GoTo.com's ranking. (See Nielsen's data for details.)
Nielsen //NetRatings
http://www.nielsen-netratings.com/
FINAL REMARKS
Google is a very unique search engine. From the researcher's point of view, Google is great, because their search technology is superb, and because they keep the files in the cache space.
However, from the web designer's point of view, Google is a very tricky place. Considering the fact that Google provides the search technology and the contents to other major search engines/directories, we don't want to skip Google. But especially when we are constructing the time-sensitive contents, we need to pay the good attention to Google.
(Note: Some people might argue about the copyright issues on the cached files, because they cache 100% of the text file parts.)
In my case, the focus is more on the internet marketing. The benefit from Google as the research source is less than the demerits from their unfriendly policy against the web designers.
Recommended:
No
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About the Author
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Trusted by: 136 members
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