What changed?
Just an asumption here. But could it be the fault of the web rather than Google's?
Could it be that the web itself is being so flooded with SEO-ed crap content that even Google can't sort through it all?
Just an asumption here. But could it be the fault of the web rather than Google's?
Could it be that the web itself is being so flooded with SEO-ed crap content that even Google can't sort through it all?
I'm starting to believe that some sort of Yahoo model is the best solution because you want a lot of source material to search through, but it needs to be context-aware so that searches are meaningful. I am vastly more effective in my job when search results return reference information rather than blog articles about somebody's weekend hobby project that only explores the most basic parts of a problem I'm working on. And this extends to other categories in my searching as well.
I'm also personally wondering if Google has realized (even implicitly) that because of all of this, it no longer has to do deep searching anymore and can save tons of money by regurgitating cached copies of "related" garbage because people will give up before any expensive operations take place. It makes me wonder if Google's internal resource accounting has anything to do with it but that's just pure speculation on my part.
Here's something to try: think of a really obscure TV show you watched when you were young, even better a specific quote. In my experience Google was pretty good at finding sources on where it came from. But now it's incredibly rare.