When you search for something in
Google, it's not so simple as to how the order of the results is determined. Google has an algorithm which decides the order of the results. Google gives some tips to site owners, stating what will make your site rank higher in the order. Although this does not tell exactly how the algorithm works, it allows owners of sites which a user might not want to appear in the search results to game the algorithm, and make their sites rank higher than some higher quality sites.
Recently, people have been claiming that the Google search results have been getting worse, and putting low quality sights above high quality ones. Google responded to that by changing their algorithm to rank low quality, unwanted sites, lower than high quality sites. Since Google is supplying many of the ads on the sites that are now ranked lower with this new algorithm, and is therefore making a lot money of off them, i.t may seem like a bad business move to change the algorithm
Some sites obviously should be ranked lower than others. For example, there are websites than completely copy popular blogs like
Engadget, but put ads on the side which they get the money for. I personally had this experience with one of my blog posts being copied onto another blog. Websites like this are called content farms.
With other sites, it's not so clear where they should go in the search results. Some websites are completely legit, but many users would not deem them useful, and therefore do not want them in their search results. Such sites include
eHow.
eHow is a website with many how-to questions and answers. People in the technology business do not seem to like eHow, and think that the content there is not useful. I personally have used eHow and like it. Some of the content may seem simple, but a lot of it is useful information.
Before this algorithm change, a search for any how-to question would usually bring an eHow article at the top. Now a search brings in eHow and sites like it after more legit looking sites. Interestingly, the eHow website has a link to a survey.
The eHow survey asked quite a few questions, all of them having to do with whether or not eHow is useful. This seems interesting, and with the recent algorithm change, I wouldn't be surprised if eHow takes the survey results to Google, saying that the results show that internet users believe that eHow is useful, and that it should rank higher in the search results.
The obvious response of Google should be that the users surveyed were eHow users, meaning that the general internet does not necessarily think of eHow as useful, and still doesn't wan't it clogging up the search results.
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There has been recent controversy over whether or not Google's search results have been becoming less reliable, making sites that one would not find valuable coming up at the top. I talked a lot about this in a recent blog post. Google changed it's algorithm to try to bring higher quality sites up in the search results, and whether or not that worked has also been debated. Now Google, although they are keeping the algorithm change, is giving the user control.
