Maybe it’s Time for Another Search Engine? Google is Not Playing Fair

Once upon a time there was a popular, little search engine called WebCrawler. You simply created a website and WebCrawler would have it indexed in no time at all. Then AltaVista came along with search results that walked circles around those of WebCrawler. Thus AltaVista became the search engine of choice. Then, on September 4, 1988, a search engine named Google came on the scene. The name was so strange that EVERYone was soon talking about it.

Fast forward to 2014, and Google has pretty much “cleaned up” on the search engine marketplace. Most other search engines now use Google’s database from which to pull their search engine results. Their reason has been said to be that the internet has become so populated that for them it is now too big a task to index.

Up until this year, Google truly has done a superb job of removing “garbage” sites (well, for the most part) from search results; I will definitely give them credit for that. However, I feel that Google has now moved into mastering so many other market places that it has become questionable as to whether, as a search engine, Google has become self-serving or is truly servicing their users as they claim.

Punishment for duplicate content, though initially a great idea, applies to EVERY website EXCEPT Wikipedia-type websites.

For an example, my hobby website, which has been online since 1997, has suffered being scrapped by wiki-type sites. Now, when a Google search result is offered for this information, the wiki-sites rank higher than my hobby site by offering content originally published (and still is) from my hobby site. Obviously, not ALL websites are being treated equally by Google when it comes to punishment for duplicate content as they state here: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66359?hl=en. How is this fair to all of those whose websites provided the content originally, and in many cases, still do?

Perhaps you have seen your own website content unfairly being used on wiki-type websites too.

WebProNews brought another troubling news issue to “the light” regarding Google search results. You can find the full details posted here: https://www.webpronews.com/heres-some-potentially-troubling-news-about-google-search-2014-10. As far as I am concerned, these issues prove that Google now sometimes, though inadvertently, offers up false information to their users who may be too busy (or in some cases too lazy) to visit any of the websites offered in their search results. How is this servicing their users?

Google has made it really clear to most highly competitive business owners with properly formatted websites (example: website designers), that the best way to insure your site gets ranked high in Google search results is to advertise with them ...or else face having your site being shown on page 10 (or worse). So, how is THAT servicing their users? Wouldn’t you say Google is not playing fair?

These issues have now made me hesitant to believe Google’s top-ranking search results for popular items or information that I am seeking. Lately, I have made it a habit NOT to click on the first few search results offered. Rather, now I scroll down (on occasion, I have even visited page 2 results) just to see what I’ve been missing. I have been VERY surprised at the gems I have found by doing this!

Maybe it’s time for another search engine, one that focuses on indexing the internet ONLY, instead of trying to be all things to all people.

Ever heard of the saying, “absolute power corrupts absolutely”? True competition might also serve to prevent the possibility of financial corruption that now seems to be a highly potential issue. This would be a perfect project for a university again, don’t you think?

What is your take on this issue?