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Google’s Over-Index Creates Noise

Danny Sullivan writes that 89% of users think Search Engines do a good job, but noise is a big problem.  The problem is that Google Indexes every crap site on the Internet.  For 99.9% of the things we search the best answer is found on a top 100k Alexa Rank site.  If you can detect that the search is English this results in about 65k sites to index rather than the millions Google Indexes.

I’m of the opinion that if Google would only index the the top 500k sites on the Web by Language that we’d get far better results.  I’d also throw out every .info, .me, and .biz site.  I can’t ever recall searching for something that had the right answer on one of those.

The problem with this approach is that new sites would have a very hard time getting to the point that they appeared in results.  Yeah well tough.  If they do something worth while that a top 10k site links to them they get a short grace period to prove they belong. I don’t know, if I had all the answers I would own a search engine, not optimize for them.

It is certain that there is way too much spam and crap in the index.  Some of it I may have even created.  Why do I rank for Peyton Manning Divorce, and Greatest Living American?  I mean should I be the authoritative source for either? No.  But through careful wordsmithing  I am.

This open democracy of the web that allows me with some social engineering to rank for anything, is part of what makes the web great, but it also far too easy to game.  I can be the top hit for anything just by throwing together a post and pasting in a YouTube Video into it.  That’s a flaw.  Giving me points because I have a video and a Picture? Come on that is the opposite of sane.  How many things on the web are better with video.  7.  (ok I pulled that number out of my ass) but you get the point, this post wouldn’t be better with a video, and a video doesn’t help with though pieces, or answers to factual questions.  Video ranks because Google wants you to watch YouTube Videos.

Google was better at search before they started to do types of search other than just text.   The new hybrid “Caffeine” search is a lot noisier than the old search was.  It is also easier to manipulate, and more prone to “dance”.  Based on what is happening in the world your rankings can move a lot from day to day, and Geo to Geo, based on if Local results fire, and Video Results, and Twitter results.   The Results page just isn’t as stable as it used to be.

-- Brandon Wirtz

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