Sites Freak About A Feature Google Has Had For Years
from the deep-breath dept
Websites are wringing their hands about the fact that Google is adding a "search within a search" feature that makes it easier to use Google's search engine to search a particular website. So, for example, if you want to find something at the New York Times, you can search for "nytimes.com," and then Google will display a search box that will let you search for content on just the New York Times website. Apparently a lot of websites are up in arms because this will divert traffic away from their own search engines and give Google, rather than the target site, opportunities to serve up ads to those users. The question I was left with after reading the article is: am I the only one who's been doing this for years with Google's "site:" syntax? I assumed that anyone who uses Google on a regular basis already knew about this feature. If the ability to search within a particular site is problematic, these sites should have objected years ago, when Google added this functionality.
Anyway, there are two things to say about this. One is that sites should take this as a wake-up call to improve the search functionality on their own sites. For a company whose business is increasingly centered on the Internet, having a decent search engine should be a high priority. Furthermore, although few companies will be able to develop search algorithms as sophisticated as Google's, they have the big advantage that they've got access to a lot of metadata that Google doesn't. For example, news sites should be able to offer searches by date, author, category, and other criteria that Google might not be able to extract easily from a mere scrape of its pages. They might also be able to use information like the number of page views, the number of times a page has been emailed, etc to decide which pages to list first. With all that extra information, it shouldn't be that hard to develop (or license) a search engine that will give performance that's at least roughly comparable to Google for one's own site. Secondly, if you don't have a good search engine, isn't better to have Google helping users find the pages they want on your site than for those users not to find your content at all?
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Filed Under: search, site search
Companies: google
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Besides, if you're looking for something on a particular site, don't you want the answer from that site? Even if you do see an ad for a competitor's page? The case the article describes, a search for job ads - well, yes, I'd probably look on the other sites too, but ALSO, and probably FIRST, look at the Post's site since that's where I intended to go anyway.
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ATO Search
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Re: ATO Search
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Why don't these people deal with Google then? Google could provide them with better search tools for their websites and get a part of the ad revenue.
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Does it breech walled gardens?
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Re: Does it breech walled gardens?
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Actually they should be doing better than google
Also, the algorithms google uses are insanely asymptotically brilliant etc., but we are not talking about springfieldtimes.com going head-to-head on exabyte sized indexes. All they need to do is be useful to the people that go to their sites and we will get out of the habit of site: searches.
Everybody who enjoys this stuff should check out Toby Segaran's incredible book "Programming Collective Intelligence"; all examples in Python and available here: http://blog.kiwitobes.com/?p=44
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site:
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why complain so much over a trivial problem
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Search within Search that then brings up additional paid advertising links (to competitors) is now offered to the non savvy searcher. (not just the techie SITE: users) The whole basis of the argument is that it has the potential to take business elsewhere, and to line Googles pockets even more with clickthroughs. Its a perfectly valid argument. If you can imagine this feature enabled for loads of sites, even more traffic will be directed to those that pay Google. Thats the argument, which has a valid point, PPC Adwords are gettign more expensive by the day. The only person that wins is Google, not the searcher, the non savvy searcher is directed through Ads that are not organic and so less likely to have what they are looking for.
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Re:
You're right, Google profits. But as it's a for-profit company, that should be neither shocking nor troubling.
The "non savvy" search does win. Read post #21. The search can find more stuff via Google's "site:" command than you can find via Amazon's internal search engine.
And not only does this help the person searching, it helps Amazon to sell more stuff.
And one last thing, I've never been "directed through Ads" via Google. "Directed through" means that you have to click through the ads to get to the search results. That's complete BS and you know it.
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I see complicated sites...
This is the typical Big Business attitude. Someone does something better than you, whine. How about, if you don't like what Google is doing, then make your site more user-friendly so that we don't need nor want to use a third-party service.
Compete, not complain!
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I can understand the concern over lost revenue, but I think it's just fine for Google to offer this.
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Get the Robots involved...
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Its irrelvant if your site has a great on-site search or not, as the customer would never get there with this tool at their disposal, and they miss all the extra marketing opportunities you may have on your site.
Belive me, Google are not doing this for the benefit of the searcher, the longer they can keep eyeballs on the PPC ads the better for them, thats their one and only reasoning behind it. But as long as they only do it to the big guys, which means more eyeballs to my PPC ads, i'm not going to worry yet.
As for competing with Google, get real, theres not one company on this planet that can compete at their web presence level. This is by no means the only 'tool' they have brought out lately, SEO's and those in the internet business will know exactly what i mean. How long before they start forcing subscription to Google Maps, or Google Local Listings, or start putting top 5 or 10 paid Ads at the top of organic listings etc, then we'll see how many more website owners start crying foul at this 'unbiased' search engine.
Google is the De facto engine and holds an incredible amount of power, too much to even comprehend sometimes. E-commerce sales in the US ALONE for 2007 was over 137 Billion USD, with an estimated 'Web influenced store sales' of 470 Billion USD. (Emarketer figures). With Google holding a 60% search engine usage rate, thats a heck of a lot of power they have. To much, without regulation, some would argue. Think about it..
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The same syntax works on yahoo, live, ask, and even dogpile.
I've been using live a lot more lately. Especially at work, since I now work for a Microsoft partner and they like to live a Microsoft culture :). The live maps are a lot better than google maps in my area, I'm glad I looked into it.
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I decided to try google with the site:amazon.com command. I.e., "batman double trouble scholastic site:amazon.com" without the quotes, and sure enough the book was found.
Can someone explain to me why Amazon makes it so hard to find stuff? I have to wonder what other merchandise Amazon offers for sale that is hidden from the public!
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look, its very simple, if you dont want your content found in search engines, dont put it on the web - thats the deal. you are free to put it in a binder on a dusty shelf somewhere and no one will bother you. Or you could robot.txt it but why go to all that trouble if you hate your customers (or potential customers) that much
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HAHAHA
As for Google exposing users to more ads, that is nothing more than a positive side effect. I cannot live without Google's site search functionality. I welcome the ads since Google offers superior search service. Web sites need to wise up and accept their shortcomings rather than cry foul when someone else comes along and does the work FOR them with more quality.
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old news
Anyway, site-specific search is just a different way of displaying the info Google has already gathered. If someone doesn't want Googlebot indexing their site, they're always free to block it and forgo the traffic.
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