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Google Gripes Google is a Search Engine

The Rich Get Richer: Google Needs Some Ad Sense By Robert X. Cringely May 25, 2006. Bad documentation at Google. Quoting: "The result of this secrecy and Google's "almighty algorithm" mentality is that the company makes changes -- and mistakes -- without informing its customers or even doing all that much to correct the problems. It's all just beta code, after all. But the business part is real, as is the money that some people have lost because of Google's poor communication skills combined, frankly, with poor follow-through." 

Google Pack gripes added January 9, 2006. 

History

January 20, 2006. Google is not the Wayback Machine. Yet, it still includes a page from my web site in its index, even though the page was removed seven months ago. I know this, because I'm notified of Page Not Found errors. 
  

Google Cookies

December 1, 2005.  What Google Should Roll Out Next: A Privacy Upgrade By Adam Cohen in the New York Times. November 28, 2005. Quoting: "At a North Carolina strangulation-murder trial this month, prosecutors announced an unusual piece of evidence: Google searches allegedly done by the defendant that included the words 'neck' and 'snap.' The data were taken from the defendant's computer, prosecutors say. But it might have come directly from Google, which - unbeknownst to many users - keeps records of every search on its site, in ways that can be traced back to individuals." 

Below are instructions to remove existing Google cookies and prevent the creation of new ones in the future. Note however, that Gmail users that prevent new Google cookies can no longer use the Gmail web site. Gmail users may instead want to simply remove the Google cookie(s) every now and then. Also, if you use Google local or Google maps and probably many other Google features, removing the Google cookie(s) will erase saved preferences. For more see Anonymizing Google's Cookie which has instructions for setting Bookmarks/Favorites that display and/or delete the cookies for any given web page. 

To Remove and Prevent Google Cookies in Firefox 1.0.7:

1. Tools -> Options -> Privacy -> Cookies -> View Cookies Button
2. In the Stored Cookies window, check the box at the bottom "Don't allow sites that set removed cookies to set future cookies. 
3. The list of web sites that placed Cookies on your computer is in alphabetical sequence
4. Scroll down to Google.com, there may be a handful of entries for Google 
5. Highlight each cookie, then click the Remove Cookie button  
6. You can verify that the web site, Google in this case, is blocked from using Cookies in the future, by closing the Options window (OK button, OK button) and then opening it again (Tools -> Options). Return to the Cookies section (Privacy -> Cookies) and click on the Exceptions button. 

To Remove and Prevent Google Cookies in Firefox 1.5:

1. Tools -> Options -> Privacy -> Cookies -> View Cookies Button
2. In the Stored Cookies window, check the box at the bottom "Don't allow sites that set removed cookies to set future cookies." 
3. The list of web sites that placed Cookies on your computer is in alphabetical sequence. Scroll down to Google.com, there may be a handful of entries for Google. 
4. Highlight each cookie, then click the Remove Cookie button
5. You can verify that the web site, Google in this case, is blocked from using Cookies in the future, by closing the Options window (OK button, OK button) and then opening it again (Tools -> Options). Return to the Cookies section (Privacy -> Cookies) and click on the Exceptions button. 

To Remove and Prevent Google Cookies in Internet Explorer 6:

1. Tools -> Internet Options -> Settings Button -> View Files button 
2. This should open Windows Explorer and display the folder 
     C:\Documents and Settings\youruseridl\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files
   where youruserid is the current Windows user ID. 
3. Sort the display by the Internet Address column 
4. Scroll down to the Google Cookies 
5. Highlight the Google Cookies and press the Delete key on the keyboard. This removes the already existing Cookies. 
6. To prevent new Google Cookies in the future, go to the Privacy tab in the Internet Options Window 
   (Tools -> Internet Options -> Privacy tab). 
7. In Windows XP SP2, click on the Sites button. In earlier versions of Windows, click on the Edit button. Enter "google.com" without the quotes and click on the Block button. 

Low Search Ranking and Google Bug

November 14, 2005. In early October 2005, I created a new web site for someone that I will refer to as "firstname lastname". This person's name is plastered all over the web site, in the page titles and in the Meta tags. The name however, is not part of the domain name. I submitted the site to the MSN, Yahoo and Google search engines. 

Not long thereafter, a search on MSN for "firstname lastname" returned the web site at the top of the search results. A search on Yahoo, now returns it as the 5th search result. But Google continues to return it very low in the search results. As of today, it is on page 2, the 12th result. It used to be even lower.

The new web site is linked to by at least four other web sites. In each case the text of the link is "firstname lastname". Google lets you search for web pages that link to a page. Every time when I've done this, Google reports that no pages link to the web site home page. This is wrong. On two levels. I found the pages that link to the web site in the Google cache and they are recent enough to include the link. One part of Google knows about the links to the web site in question, another part does not. The links have been in the cached web pages for weeks.  

Adding insult to injury is that a Google search today on "firstname lastname" returned a newly created web page as 3rd in the list. According to Google, this page also has no other web pages that link to it.  

On November 18th, I filled in a Google web page telling them of this seeming bug - the inconsistency between web pages in their cache and the results of a "link:" search.  As of December 26, 2005, no reply. 

FYI: Danny Sullivan of SearchEngineWatch.com wrote in July 2005 that "...Google doesn't show all the backlinks it knows about."

Update: December 2, 2005. The web site in question has fallen to page 3. Google still, incorrectly, reports that no web sites link to it. 
Update: June 21, 2006. The web site in question is now the top of the search results. Finally. There have been only minor trivial changes to the site itself in the interim. 
 

Assorted Gripes

August 24, 2005. Relax, Bill Gates; It's Google's Turn as the Villain The New York Times

It started with this: Google balances privacy, reach July 14, 2005 by Elinor Mills at CNET News.com. 
Then came this: Wanted at Google: A few good chefs  August 4, 2005 by Elinor Mills at CNET News.com. 
Then, like the Soup Nazi on Seinfeld, Google decreed, "no information for you" to CNET. 
For a summary of this, see: Google a Googler, pay the price  August 5, 2005 at Good Morning Silicon Valley

Google's Dirty Little Secret by Rob Cheng Chief Executive Officer at pcpitstop.com. February 2005. The Google generated ads on their educational Spyware web pages were, in fact, for Spyware. Yes, Google is helping to spread Spyware. PC Pitstop wanted to prevent ads for Spyware from appearing on their web site, but the Google ad service does not offer tools to do this. 

Search Engines Succeed at Stoking Frustration By David Coursey in eWeek. February 24, 2005. Quoting: "What Google needs is a rebalancing. It ought to be possible to filter out results that are merely offers to sell a particular item while leaving real content behind. While there is certainly a need to find products and prices on the Internet, those results can also clutter up search results to the point of making them useless."

Google is dying Death by a billion cuts by Daniel Brandt of google-watch.org. August 29, 2004. On sites with more than a few thousand pages, Google is not indexing anywhere from ten percent to seventy percent of the pages it knows about.  

Study questions Google's long-term dominance  CNET News.com May 25, 2004. A survey found that Google's results vary little from those found on other search sites. 

News flash: Google not perfect by Brian Cooley of CNET. April 23, 2004. Quoting: "I have a bone to pick with Google. Go there and search doubletree club las vegas. You'd expect to get a result up high that links to that hotel's site. But no. In fact, nowhere on the first page of results is there a link to any site run by the Doubletree hotel chain--just a bunch of junky travel reservation aggregators you've never heard of, emanating from long, hyphenated domains." I agree with this completely, businesses have figured out how to tweak Google to get listed higher than they should be. 

Google's chastity belt too tight By Declan McCullagh  CNET News.com April 23, 2004. Despite claims of "advanced proprietary technology," Google's opt-in porn filter proves no better than the tools of the last decade, blocking many harmless sites, a CNET News.com investigation shows. For example, an  electronics retailer in Ohio called PartsExpress.com sells audio, video and speaker components. However, because their domain name contains the letters s-e-x in succession, Google blocks it. 

Google and anti-semitism. If you search Google for the word "jew" the first returned web site is one dedicated to hating jews. 

• Anti-Semitic 'Jew' site top of Google search April 2, 2004 By Michael Mylrea in the Jerusalem Post 
• Google caught in anti-Semitism flap April 7, 2004 By David Becker of CNET News.com
• Google accused of being anti-semitic  The INQUIRER April 7, 2004. Search engine gives Nazi results 
• Google Says Anti-Semitic Site Offends, But to Stay April 13, 2004 Reuters 

SPECIAL REPORT: What's really going on with Google By Brian Livingston April 8, 2004

Merchants Find Problems With Google By Anick Jesdanun,  AP Internet Writer March 27, 2004

Readers say Google is losing its relevance By Brian Livingston February 26, 2004 

Google Grumbles By Brian Livingston in eWeek magazine. February 18, 2004.  Google is having a relevance problem in its search engine results. 
 

I Am Not Dell

April 20, 2003. I had a web page with Gripes about Dell computer since December 2001. From its inception until late in 2002, no one commented on it. In December 2002, I added gripes to the page about the warranty on a Dell monitor. Soon thereafter people started writing me with the Dell problems, thinking they were writing to Dell rather than the web site of a griper. 

Now, I think I know why. A recent article in Fast Company magazine mentioned that people unfamiliar with how the Internet works, type web addresses into Google rather than directly into their web browser. My Dell Gripes page now included a reference to the www.dellcustomercare.com web site. Could it be that people are looking for the Dell Customer Care site, find this Gripes web web site instead and mistake it for Dell? I think so. 
Update: I confirmed this myself when I sat down with a PC novice whose browser home page was set to EarthLinks Start page. This person was told that you go to web sites by typing the name into the Google search box that is prominently displayed by EarthLink. October 21, 2003. 

If you search for "dellcustomercare" on Google, my Dell Gripes page is listed first. But no one would search for "dellcustomercare". Instead they would search for either "www.dellcustomercare.com" or "dellcustomercare.com". Doing so, however, results in nothing found on Google. The exact results are shown below. This probably why people searched for just plain "dellcustomercare" and found instead, this Gripes web site. 

Needless to say, searches for either "www.dellcustomercare.com" or "dellcustomercare.com" or "dellcustomercare" should all return the Dell Customer Care web site as the first, most relevant, search result. 

As a side note, a search for "dell customer care" on Google returns a list of Dell web sites. None of them, however, is the home page of www.dellcustomercare.com. No wonder people complain to me about the difficulty of getting answers from Dell.

The article in Fast Company mentioned that Google reads and responds to email from their users. So I wrote to them. How many people complain about being the top ranked page for a given search? I did. After all, Dell is generating a fair share of gripes from their customers and they should have to deal with it, not me. This is what I wrote to Google:   

As shown below, Google suggested that I change my web page so it would not be ranked so high. They ignored the point that searches for the Dell customer care URL turned up nothing. 

After pondering this overnight, the solution was obvious. Simply add the web site www.dellcustomercare.com to Google. On April 19, 2003 I did Dell, Google and myself a favor and added the Dell Customer Care web site to the Google index/database. 

Time will tell how this plays out. . . 

Search Google for dellcustomercare  or www.dellcustomercare.com (each opens in a new window) 

Update: May 5, 2003. The dell web site is still not listed in Google. A search for "dellcustomercare" now returns THIS page as the first hit.
Update: May 26, 2003. The Dell web site is now listed by Google. Finally. A search for "dellcustomercare" now returns the Dell web site as the first hit. A search for "www.dellcustomercare.com" now returns the Dell web site as the only hit. Problem solved.  
Update: June 22, 2003. Now that the Dell web site is listed by Google, no one emails me by mistake thinking I am Dell. 
Update: March 8, 2004. I'm back. A Google search for "dellcustomercare" now returns this web page as the first hit. My Dell gripes page is the second listing.  :-(  The Dell web site does not even appear on the first page.  A search for "dellcustomercare.com" returns no hits at all.  A search for "www.dellcustomercare.com" also returns no hits at all. 
Update: May 17, 2004. Searching for "www.dellcustomercare.com" still returns no hits on Google. If you type this URL into a web browser, you end up at support.dell.com/index.aspx. I can only assume that Google is not smart enough to understand the redirection technology being used by Dell to send people to the new URL. Searching for "www.dellcustomercare.com" on Teoma returns the Dell web site as the first hit. Yahoo returns this page as the first hit. 
Update: April 8, 2005. I no longer get questions from people thinking I am Dell Computers. Now I know why: 

• Searching for "www.dellcustomercare.com" on Google returns the Dell web site. Finally! Interestingly, it only returns the Dell web site, not this site or any other web pages at all. It seems they now treat searches for "www.anyname.com" a bit differently and recognize it as a search for a web site rather than a general search. 
• On Yahoo, searching for  "www.dellcustomercare.com" returns the Dell site first and this web page fifth. 
• Teoma returns the Dell web site first and this page fourth. 
• At MSN, the search returns two Dell web sites (dell.com and dellcustomercare.com) and nothing else. It's not clear, but the first one seems to be an advertisement (judging from the link). This is interesting, because MSN has this web page in its index. In fact, if you search for "dell gripes", this page comes up first, yet, it does not appear in the results when searching for "www.dellcustomercare.com". 

April 19, 2003. In contrast to Google, a search on Teoma.com for "dellcustomercare" returns the www.dellcustomercare.com web site as the first result. Searching for "www.dellcustomercare.com" also returns the Dell web site as the first result. Neither search returns my Dell Gripes page despite the fact that this web site is included in the Teoma database/index. Searching for "dell and gripes" on Teoma returns my Dell Gripes page first. This seems right to me. 

FYI 

The Big Google Search Tools Collection is indeed big

10 Things You Might Not Know About Google by Philipp Lenssen May 15, 2006

The unofficial google weblog Who Watches the Watchmen?

Even back in March 2002 people had figured out how to cheat Google and get a higher rank than they otherwise would have. Google hit by link bombers. March 13, 2004. BBC News. 

From the Wall Street Journal  August 18, 2003.  RIVALS RATTLE GOOGLE WITH SEARCH INNOVATIONS New technologies introduced by other search engines are aimed at shaking up the market. Teoma does not rely on a page ranking algorithm to determine how to list search results. Instead its algorithm reveals Web "communities" around a particular topic and what they're currently discussing. For example, if you searched on "power blackout" on Friday, Teoma's "refinements" section included "electrical surge" and "cost of downtime." AltaVista has something similar on its Web site. Google can not do this. You must subscribe to read the WSJ web site.