[SOLVED] Are search engines geting stupid?

[allamerican1776]

About 10 years ago I saw the headlines on one of the local propaganda rags, "Google removes 500,000 pages from its search engine." I didn't read the article because I have been expecting it. Since then I have been noticing some of the missing information, but what I have really been noticing is how completely inaccurate the search queries are becoming. Google is getting frustratingly worse but ebay. I have been selling on ebay since 2002 and the search use to find things by using similar words phrases etc. Now they have this "no exact match found". If it is not an exact match the item you are looking for might be a few pages down or maybe not. Just today as I was searching on google for a certain brand of pressure cooker I guess I was rerouted because every page was obviously asian, so I shruggedthat off, the next search was not asian, and after about the first two or three queries it wasn't even close. Does anybody experience this too?

 

[4745454b]

Pages get removed for legal reasons. Not because the search engine is getting stupid. As for your problem, I can't make any sense of your post after you start talking about ebay.

 

[Ralston18]

And I will offer a more cynical view:

The main purpose is to "get hits" and thus gain leverage to charge more for ads, etc..

If you search for any given subject you are likely to get endless websites that may not even have anything to do with your search criteria beyond maybe just a word or two.

For example, you search for "pressure cooker" any website using "pressure" or "cooker" as key words or so indexed will be presented. Some sites toss in anything they can think of as keywords so site will be found during a google search. Relevant or not.

As a result pressure valves and deep fry turkey cookers,etc. show up. Along with all the ads the website can cram into the resulting page(s).

Most of those ads not even related to the search criteria and many are just standard "yellow journalism".

Also, quite common that those websites do not provide a "back" arrow and dead end you into closing the web page and starting over.

Narrowing/focusing the search criteria simply leaves out some sites that could be relevant.

Remember the objective is to shove ads in your face - not really provide useful information which can and does happen.

Google may simply be becoming aware that such website abuses and tactics are reducing the use of their search engine.

Removing such sites, especially if dead, unmaintained, useless, inappropriate, wrong, or too ad packed, makes for a better Google "customer experience".

Google wants you to see "their" ads and not be diverted into websites that are useless and filled with other people's ads.

 

[hotaru.hino]

Supposedly Google's search engine runs on what Google considers "relevant", which basically means how much engagement something is getting. If something is getting more attention, whether through actual means or improper means, then it's likely going to show up on the first page.

However I haven't really had a problem when being "redirected" to another brand if I search for something specific, unless the brand is familiar sounding to a more popular brand.

 

[punkncat]

There are aspects of this that are the fault of the (lack of) net neutrality. Basically, company A doesn't want to show you the relevant search results that are based in subsidiaries of company B, company C and vice versa.