Why I Hate Google: My Ranking has Improved

Over the last couple of months there has been a bit of a slow down in traffic to this site. Not particularly surprising as I have been posting far less frequently. Then, yesterday, my web traffic shot up: three times as many visitors as I've been having the last few weeks.

The reason? Seemingly a slight change in Google's algorithm in my favour. The site has gained no new links, there are no new posts worthy of note, Google have just changed the significance of one of their many ranking attributes and it has changed in my favour.

This can be seen most clearly when taking traffic from one of Google's sites in isolation:

It doesn't matter for this blog. Its purpose is not to make money, just provide a place for some of the random thoughts that creep into my mind.

There are, however, many business that rely primarily on search engines driving traffic to their web sites, and such huge variations in traffic can only cause difficulties. Whilst social media is changing how many of us find information, search engines are still very powerful, and Google is too powerful.

Blog on 2009

The choice of January 1st as New Year's day always annoys me, but as virtually no one else in the Western World questions the choice I reluctantly go along with the general concensus (albeit in the most miserable manner possible). It is, therefore, an appropriate time to think about the year ahead and like so many other bloggers make a few predictions/uneducated-guesses/pointless-meanderings about the world of technology. [Basically a long rambling random selection of my current thoughts on technology summed up in a simple list].

The Good News
1. The N97 takes Nokia back to the top of the pile
At the end of this month my N95 contract will finally be over. The problem I have is that there isn't really a better phone on the market:
- The improvements on the N96 are negligible, and are not worth another 12/18-month contract.
- The G1 is missing a decent camera, GPS, and most importantly a large enough user base to create all those extra applications I want.
- The iPhone...well I just don't understand why anyone would get such an over-hyped, locked-down, touchscreen-only phone.
Whilst the N97 is likely to be the best smartphone on the market in 2009 (whenever it emerges) that is no guarantee of success, but hopefully a move to more austere times in 2009 will be a set-back to Apple, the epitome of style over substance.

2. Distributed social networks will shrink Facebook traffic
I am hoping for a distributed future for social networks; one where I am in control of my account, my data, my applications. Be it a desire for photos of breastfeeding mothers, playing games that infringe intellectual copyright, or pretending to be the president of Guyana. Whilst I don't disagree with any of the decisions Facebook has made on these particular issues, there may on occasion be times that I do disagree with Facebook. If you are on Facebook you have to abide by Facebook's arbitrary rules and the rules of your own country; if you are on a distributed social network you only have to abide by the rules of your own country.

3. Project Kangaroo will hit UK desktops
It was back in 2007 that I first heard about the proposed single on-demand player for BBC, ITV, and Channel 4, and whilst it all seems to have been bad news in 2008 with the Competition Commission complaining about a lack of rivalry, I think 2009 will be the year it moves/jumps forwards. The idea that a rivalry between the BBC, ITV, and Channel 4, is driving innovation in video-on-demand in the UK is best described as 'bollocks'. Obviously the organisations will make comparisons with one another, but they are equally concerned about comparing themselves with international competitors (e.g., YouTube). 2009 will either be the year that the Competition Commission realises this, the Competition Commission fails to realise but bows to public demand for a single player, or the BBC freely share the technology in such a way as to circumvent the Competition Commission's ruling.

The Bad News
4. The general public continue to ignore QR codes
It was also back in 2007 that I first discovered QR codes, and the Sun told the masses all about them. During 2008 the masses have continued to ignore them, and I think 2009 will be much the same. Whilst the Pepsi Max campaign will, no-doubt, increase QR code awareness amongst certain sections of the population, there is not yet a killer application for the mass of the population. The question is whether QR codes will be able to carve out a niche before RFID tags become more widespread, if not it may be a technology that just passes the UK by; the moment of truth probably won't come until 2010.

5. No Google alternative will emerge
I have been disliking Google for many years now, and I don't expect 2009 to see a change in my attitude: no single company should have so much control on what people see on the internet. Yahoo will continue to shrink, Live will slow their loss of market share by throwing money at it, but eventually Google will know everything and control everything you know. Alongside this pessimistic view, it is worth noting that if a markedly better search engine does emerge, and spreads virally as an embedded application in a social networking site (the only way to compete against the Google-do-all-portal), then the Google fortunes could fall over night.

nb. I do realise that January 1st would have been a more appropriate day for such meanderings, but yesterday was spent lounging around watching 'family' movies....why I never went to the cinema to watch "The Shaggy Dog" will forever remain a mystery.

Google Insights for Search: Term order is all important!

Unfortunately most poor academics don't have access to the same data as Bill Tancer, instead we generally have to make do with the crumbs from Google and the other search engines. This morning however, I was reminded about how careful we need to be when using the tools the search engines offer us.

Today I was using Google Insights for Search to compare the term cybermetrics and webometrics. Whilst I am part of the Statistical Cybermetrics Research Group, as a group we tend to discuss 'webometrics'. Google Insights for Search clearly shows that whilst there was once a time when cybermetrics ruled supreme, webometrics is now far more popular.

More importantly, however, I also noticed that Iran wasn't highlighted on the map for the term 'webometrics', despite Iran have a (relatively) strong webometrics community.

Basically, because Iran does not appear in the results for 'cybermetrics' (which was my first search term), it is not calculated for 'webometrics'. If I had added the term 'webometrics' first, then the term 'cybermetrics' the map would have looked very different:

The solution would seem to be to include a universal search term first, but those that immediately spring to mind are not necessarily the sort that you would want appearing on a corporate slide-show.

Google Shares Tumbling!

Google is the sort of company you either love or hate. It's therefore not surprising that people keep an eye on it's share price, cheering on its rise or fall depending one's inclination. Personally I cheer on its fall, and it's tumbling again.

In the current volatile market it seems Google is likely to dip to its lowest price for a year. The rallying of the price in April (when Mashable told the naysayers to eat their words) seems to have been a brief reprieve. The next big marker to look out for after today will be the 300 mark.

Chrome: The world's quickest porn browser

It is always a bit of a chore to catch up on RSS feeds after a couple of days away, but the release of Chrome has taken the blogosphere by storm in a way I have never seen before.

Whilst Blogpulse shows that 1.5% of all blog posts were about Chrome, it was probably nearer 25% of all the posts in my RSS reader. Even the most irregular of bloggers were compelled to post an opinion. So, is Chrome any good, and how quickly will it grab market share?

Chrome is amazingly quick, the bloggers are impressed, the press have decided not to take the 'porn' browser line they did with Internet Explorer 8 - Beta 2, and it's promoted on the Google homepage. Whilst it has been suggested that Chrome will take 15-20% of the browser market within 2yrs, I expect to see it grow faster than that.

Not only will Chrome quickly gain market share, they will be getting it primarily from Microsoft, not Firefox. Without extentions the Firefox geeks are unlikely to be swayed in the long term, whilst the simplicity and speed will quickly appeal to the average user. From Microsoft's point of view, it will give Google access to sort of data that they wanted to leverage with their BrowseRank.

Verdict: Unless Microsoft produce something amazingly innovative in the next couple of years, Google will own the web within 10 years.

Waiting for Chrome

When you wake up thinking "I can't wait to try Chrome" [that's Google's new browser if you have been living living under a rock for 24hrs], you realise that you spend too much time working and thinking about the online world. It is, however, an important move that could shake up the way we use the web for years to come.

Chrome is being promoted as the first step in the brave new world without Windows, it will be the web OS. 'Hooray' shout the Google worshippers, professing their love for a service they have not yet tried: "I love Chrome already and I haven’t even tried it yet" says an irrational TechCrunch, presumably shortly before taking a much needed very cold shower.

I have mentioned before that I was waiting for a browser that fundamentally changes our surfing behaviour, but it would be a shame if it came from Google. But there again, for all the noise their launches attract, they haven't been particularly great products in recent times (e.g., Knol, Lively). So maybe there is still time for a new entry into the browser market.

nb. At the time of writing this, I am still waiting for the product to be launched. It's in Google's index, but the link just forwards me to the Google homepage.

But hopefully I will get to try it before the day is out.

A week of Asking not Googling

In response to Google's continued growth in the search engine market, last week I decided to attempt to give up Google Search. For the last week my search engine of choice has been Ask:

Whilst I have regularly used different search engines over the years, a fundamental shift came in my searching behaviour in about 2000. Pre-2000 there was no single search engine that dominated my search activities, I went all over the place: HotBot, Yahoo, Lycos, AltaVista. I even Asked Jeeves on occasion. Since 2000, however, Google has dominated my life, with only occasional visits to those few search engines that continue have their own index. Trying to break eight years of Google dominated search has a number of difficulties.
Habit - You don't have to think about typing in Google, you fingers seemingly hit the keys before you have even decided what you want to search for; this is not an easy habit to break. I quickly remember, however, as soon as I have typed GOOGLE, or after I have typed in my search terms, that I am trying to give up Google Search, and force myself to go to Ask and type in the queries again (however tempting the Google results may look). I think Google is a habit that can be broken, but it isn't easy.
Trust - After using Google for eight years, I find that I trust them to do their job as a search engine. Whilst I understand the limitations of any single search engine (i.e., that Google's search engine is not exhaustive, and that other search engines will have different pages indexed), tens of thousands of queries have taught me what to expect from the Google index. When I don't get the results I need from Google I make a judgement as to whether I need to try somewhere else or adjust my search terms; if I don't find what I want on Ask my first reaction is to question the quality of the search engine. Trust is something that can only come with time.
The Google Package - Google now offers more than just web search: blogs, emails, news, image search, blog search, scholar. No other search engine provides such a variety of products that are of the same quality (the UK version of Ask News is currently rubbish); you can't help but return to a certain extent. Vigilance is constantly necessary if we are to stop falling back into our old Google habits.
The Gold Standard - Despite trying to break away from Google search, I still care how it ranks my pages. Most people use Google. Most of my traffic comes from Google. It means more to have a high Google rank than a high Ask rank, and you can't help but check.

Whilst it was always going to be difficult to move away from Google, Ask's search compares favourably, you just have to make an effort to break the Google habit, and give Ask enough time to build up a level of trust. For all Google's growth, there are two things I prefer about Ask: The Skins (the polka dot background always cheers me up); and the URL is 3 keystrokes shorter. How many man hours would have been saved if Google had called themselves Goo?

Giving up Google

Whilst the Olympics has been drawing my attention away from the world of technology, one Hitwise finding did catch my attention: Google's share of US search hits 70%.

Whilst I have often lamented at the state of the search engine market, specifically the Google monopoly, like most other users I have made no effort to change my behaviour. However, as the Google machine marches forward, and another landmark is passed, we realise that unless we do start changing our behaviour we could end up in a world where Google is the only search engine. Or even the only powerful online presence.

Google has spread throughout my online activities, far beyond the initial search:
-I blog with Blogger.
-I track my web site's use with Google Analytics.
-My blog contains AdSense Ads.
-I keep notes in Google Docs.
-I find articles with Google Scholar.

As there is only so long I can comfort myself with the fact I managed to resist using Google's RSS reader (nb. Newsgator is brilliant), I have decided to stop using the Google Search Engine. Giving up Google Search requires the least initial effort, although will probably require greater effort in total; I often find myself typing 'www.google.com' without even thinking. The only way will be to give up Google Search 'cold turkey'.

Most of us use Google Search out of habit these days, rather than there being any real difference in the quality of the results; the competitive advantage of PageRank has long since been caught up. Hopefully new search engines will give me a whole new perspective on the web.

Google Insights for Search: What next?

In addition to Google Trends, Google are now offering Google Insights for Search (http://google.com/insights/search/#)(via TechCrunch). Not only can you filter the terms by category, for example helping to distinguish between Apple (Computers & Electronics) and apple (Food & Drink), but it will also give a nice visual representation of the geographic data.

We can now quickly see that the Iran is the country most interested in webometrics:

The maps also offer a whole new type of vanity searching. The "David Stuart" brand has yet to make major inroads in Africa, Asia or South America. I was grateful, however, to find that my own vanity searches had not overly effected the results (at a city level London is the hub rather than Wolverhampton).

Some bloke called Barack Obama, on the other hand, seems to have made inroads all over, with the exception of the Middle East.

The obvious question, based on the directory structure of the Insights for Search URL (http://google.com/insights/search/#), is what other insight services are Google going to offer? Insights for Maps? Insights for Shopping? Insights for News?

Cuil: You can't out Google Google

Cuil.com is the new search engine that, as ReadWriteWeb point out, got rather a lot of publicity for its launch. Its publicity seems to be based on the fact that it is run by some ex-Googlers, and that it makes some big claims about the size of the index. However, I seem to be missing the feature that will make it a Google killer.

Whilst wanting to be part of the next generation of search engines, it seems to be playing a rather old fashioned game by going for the simple interface and bragging about the size of their index.

Most search engines gave up index-bragging years ago. Beyond a certain number of pages the size of an index becomes quite meaningless for all but the most obscure of queries. If anything a larger index may hamper the results as more low quality pages will be included. It is best to focus on a quality crawl rather than the biggest possible crawl.

Whilst the public love a simple interface (they are simple creatures), it brings nothing new to the market. Whatever way you try to rank the data, whether PageRank or BrowseRank, there is only so much you can do with a simple keyword search: people will continue to use homographs and fail to use appropriate search terms.

Whilst you can only really tell how good or bad a ranking algorithm is by using it regularly, first impressions of Cuil are not good. A simple search for webometrics fails to find any of the three main webometrics blogs, whilst the Statistical Cybermetrics Research Group at the University of Wolverhampton is coupled with a photo of a guy in a turban. No one in the group wheres a turban.

Cuil is definitely no Google killer. These days there are a million and one reasons to go to the Google site besides search, and any new entrant into the market needs to offer something outstanding to break the monopoly. Cuil has nothing.

Do you have the Knol?

Finally Google's Knol is launched (after months of waiting). It's basically all about putting the author back into the publishing process, something that has been lost in the Wiki-verse.

You can never tell how these things are going to pan out until the uneducated marauding masses get involved and try to make some money out of it, so it is far too early to tell whether Knol is going to be a serious content provider or not. However, I am sure it won't be long before academics are comparing Wikipedia and Knol pages. In fact as I type this someone out there is probably comparing two pages and hoping to make a bit of a media splash. Unfortunately I will have to wait for Knol's 'Webometrics' page to appear before I can make a comparison with any sort of authority.

One last point. As Danny Sullivan emphasises, this time Google's product is known as 'Knol' not 'Google's Knol'. Is this an attempt to hide the Google brand as we begin to suffer Google fatigue?

Microsoft concedes more ground to Google

Microsoft announced on Friday that they are ending their Live Search Books and their Live Search Academic projects. Whilst you can't blame them, you can't help but feel slightly disappointed at the increasing dominance of Google on the web. If Microsoft can't give Google a run for their money, who can?

The first comment in response to Microsoft's blog announcement pretty much explains why Live Search Books and Live Search Academic are closing down "...this is first time i hear about book search...". After the initial buzz around the launch of the services, they quickly dropped into the background with few people using them. It wasn't just about monetizing the service, it was about getting people to use them. Personally I found them very un-user-friendly, and at one stage I seem to remember having to access Live Search Academic with Firefox as is it wasn't compatible with the latest version of Microsoft's own Internet Explorer. Whilst there have been numerous academic papers investigating Google Scholar, I can't recollect one investigating Live Search Academic. Most people just didn't like the services.

However, whilst I can't mourn the passing of the poor Live Search Books and Live Search Academic, I can't help but worry about the unstoppable Google behemoth. One of the first questions I ask of any new innovative service is: "Can this break Google's domination?". Unfortunately, all too often, the answer is no.

Google Me: The Movie

As well as the arrival of my Wii Fit (hopefully), tomorrow will also see the launch of Google Me: The Movie on YouTube. Jim Killeen Google's his own name, then travels the world meeting other Jim Killeens...sound familiar? Obviously Killeen is a massive Dave Gorman fan, mixing up Gorman's Googlewhack adventures and Are you Dave Gorman? into one YouTube film.

What is of interest is that the film will be shown for free on YouTube ('for a limited time only'). Which, if Andrew Keen's figures are anything to go by, is unlikely to make Killeen a fortune. It will however provide a documentary that doesn't seem to be particularly original a lot more publicity than it would otherwise have got.

Maybe we will see more films publicising themselves like this in the future: show for a couple of days for free, then let word of mouth drive traffic to the cinemas/DVDs. How much does a Hollywood blockbuster spend on publicity? How much would they lose by making it available on YouTube for a day or two? Obviously Killeen has nothing to lose in comparison to the millions a big studio would be risking, but it would be interesting to see one give it a try.

So, will I take a break from sculpting my body on the Wii fit to watch Google Me The Movie? Possibly, but it will have to be better than the rather annoying web site that goes with it.

The Google Monopoly

Every day I seem to come across some story that reminds me how much I hate the Google monopoly. Today that story was at Search Engine Roundtable: Google advice on linking out from your web site.

The original advice was provided in a Google Groups thread, where someone was concerned about linking to their own sites in case it incurred the wrath of google:

I understand that GOOGLE does not like the exchange of links solely for the purpose of increasing page rank. Can it accurately determine which sites are abusing their guidelines? I have a number of websites that deal with similar products and services and I am reluctant to exchange links because these sites might run the risk of being penalised. I know that I can include rel="nofollow" to overcome this problem but am I being over cautious?

The advice provided was not particularly offensive or restrictive, but what bothers me is that so many people have to be concerned about what one search engine thinks. If Google started penalising links to affiliated web sites, people would take down those links; if Google promoted sites that were covered in leprechauns, people would cover their sites in leprechauns. In a healthy search engine marketplace we would not have the need to be overly concerned about the criteria of any single search engine.

Personally, about 80-90% of my traffic comes from Google. Luckily, as my income is not derived from my web activities and I don't need to be overly concerned about Google's ranking and happily link to my allotment blog which has absolutely nothing to do with the world of technology (except for the fact that it is a blog).

Everybody is Google Crazy!

It would seem as though nobody knows what Google is worth, how else do you explain a 20% increase in their share price in one day? This is not a time for naysayers to eat their words (as Mashable would have us believe), but rather for us to enjoy the spectacle of the total market confusion!

Over the last few months Google's share price has reached the dizzying heights of $747.24, and fallen as low as $412.11. Is there anything left in the market? Probably, but it is not the sort of company you will want to place your life savings in. Volatile share price? Probably haven't seen anything yet.

Google is biased towards geeks?

We are all aware that Google are constantly tweaking their ranking algorithm, and we all Google ourselves occasionally to see where we are coming. Today John Battelle reports that he is top 'John' on Google, proof if it were ever needed that Google is far from perfect. Whilst the introduction of PageRank revolutionised the search industry, John Battelle's rise up the search ranking shows what happens if we confuse those who publish on the web and those who search the web.

Personally, with a rather popular (or is that common??) name, I am just pleased to find Webometric Thoughts makes it on the front page for 'David Stuart', currently number six, but occasionally falling onto the third or fourth page of results.

My Google Shame

A four point manifesto was published on Read Write Web yesterday about how to avoid a Google media monoculture. The manifesto is aimed squarely at the advertising side of the Google behemoth. In truth we are in need of a far wider ranging manifesto, even those who dislike the extent of Google's power find it creeping into their lives.

My own (daily) Google shame includes:
-Google Search Engine (approximately 50% of my searches)
-Blogger
-Google Analytics
-Google Ads
-Google Scholar

Google infects my online life due to a combination of habit, ease, and lack of alternatives. Whilst I can try to wean myself off of search, I have no idea how easy it would be to change the blogging software (without losing everything), whilst once you have started one analytics program you are loathed to change to another which calculates the numbers differently. At least I can hold my head up when emailing (Hotmail), reading my RSS feeds (Newsgator), reading the news (BBC), or doing a bit of social networking (anything but Orkut).

Regarding the 4-point manifesto, in addition to wishing for a wider ranging manifesto there is one point I do disagree with: a push towards cost per action (CPA). Whilst I understand that steps are necessary in preventing people clicking on their own links purely for the ad-revenue, CPA would tip the balance too far in the advertisers favour. Why should I have ads on my site that earn nothing because the advertisers product isn't wanted on closer inspection? It also doesn't bear thinking about how long I would have to wait for someone to not only click on one of the ads, but to actually do something on the advertiser's site. After almost three weeks of Google ads, and 1,438 page impressions, I have only had 2 ads clicked on!

Giga-blast from the past

It is all too easy to forget about some of the alternative search engines out there, and I must admit that I can't remember the last time I used Gigablast. It was therefore good to read on ResearchBuzz that Gigablast are now offering site search, which I have now added to the right-hand frame of my blog (too often people overlook the blog search in the blogger toolbar/banner).

Gigablast seems to have had a bit of make-over since I last visited (when it looked something like THIS), and now it even has a very limited API. Personally I would like to see the API extended and a few advanced operators, surely that's an easy way of getting a competitive advantage over the other search engines.

Personally I hate the growth of Google search, and love any opportunity to support other search engines.

Google shares about to fall below $400

The Google share price is now the lowest it has been since October 2006, with some analysts predicting that it has another 20% to go! In the same way no-one knew how quickly the price would rise, no-one has a clue about how far it would fall. Even my own, rather negative, opinion now seems extremely optimistic.Today is likely to see the price fall below $400, and all this before the impact of a Microsoft buyout of Yahoo and a downturn in the US economy has yet to hit.

Whilst I find it hard to believe the price will fall much lower than $300 nothing would shock me now, I am just pleased that Google is losing a bit of its shine and look forward to their having a rocky ride in the future.

A response to Google's latest logo!

Boo, hiss.

Really obvious anniversary logos are just getting on my nerves these days.
I want less of this:

And more of this (or this):

In fact the frog is such an annoying logo I will probably be forced to use more alternative search engines than usual today.