You know some times you just have to let your frustration take hold of your emotions and see where that takes you.

I used to think, naively as it now turns out, that the birth of the Internet was a breath of fresh air, something to liberate the masses from the domination of the conglomerates.

A chance to slip out from under that all pervading influence of the powerful.

So if you are still with me to here and haven't clicked to something more exciting or sexy on the web, you may be starting to form the view that this is just one of the those rants from disgruntled individuals, born of envy or jealous or some such other negative vice that pervade the bowels of the human spirit and is manifested by those who bemoan the fate, dished out to them by the universe.

But I like to think that not me, I have just got something to say about our Internet and where is it headed and how this is symbolized to me by Google

  Posted 2005

Reviewed:
  April 2006
 August 2015

This is about my experiences with the new WWW and how quickly it has succumbed to the domination of the powerful.

You may like to read the background to my story, it gives you the lead up behind why I finally needed to make this site.

Search engines - just what do some of them deliver?

You don't have to be rocket scientist, you don't even have to be bicycle mechanic really, to soon realize that with 6,000, 000, 000 people and some 300,000,000 web sites in the world, (2005) both growing at the rate of knots (Tsunami aside) that search engines are considered by most as the only way of finding your way through the maze of technological information and operational web sites.

I suspect founders of all the search engines were on to this concept sometime ago and are now in hot pursuit of this holy grail (don't know what the Moslem equivalent is, but no doubt some one will let me know)

So when I though that I had cracked the code of what a good domain name was and what it would mean to getting access to the masses I though I had struck gold.

Now Google is counted as one of the best search engines on the web,- right!!??

Okay, now do you own a small web site running off an appropriate domain name? - Some thing you pride yourself on being forward thinking enough to have captured!!??

Well, if like me you do, then you have probably already done this experiment.

Insert some pertinent content of your site on a Google search and see how you fare.

My bet is that unless you have paid good money (and probable lots of) to some one to stack your site near the top of the pile or paid the search engine itself, then you site is probably languishing at about page 1,625,458 or worse.

Well you might ask. What your point! There are a lot of sites out there, no one is going to find you just on content or relevancy - after all what do you expect, rationality?

But what if your site was say - "makingshirts.com" [there really was such a site and by the way and fundly enuf, it is about- dah dar! - "making shirts".[Well it was when this was written]

Now you would think that if I put a query in Google say "how do I make a shirt" then surely www.makingshirts.com would have to be at least on the front page of the search, if not No.1 listing.

I mean this is a site with a domain name that is relevant to the content relevant to your search inquiry.

You would think that with these 2 seemingly powerful advantages i.e.

• relevant domain name; and

• related content,

this site would have to be a winner for its owner.

Well there were 19,000,000 pages in response to "how do I make a shirt" and I gave up looking for www.makingshirts.com at page 10.

That 9 pages more than you your average web surfer would tolerate.

At least No1 is something about a shirt

If you have continued to read this far, you too are something of a britten yourself [no offence to the pommies- (that Oz slang for someone that is to stupid to know when to stop)] and you are definitely not the archetypal web surfer.

On ALL of the 10 pages were the site "garmentdistrict.com". So guess they brought their position [On my review in April 2006 this site had folded and I commented] (but alas no more - guess thier budget must have run out of money - now nowhere in sight) and on page 9 was a site called " azcentral.com " a web site about something - still not sure exactly what, but it has an article promoting a site where you can make your own shirt (take a look). [Now it is a local site in Arizona, which highlights state's largest newspaper, most-watched television station- KPNX-TV Channel 12; and a Spanish-language publication, La Voz.]

In any event here is a web site that has an article (I suspect a paid promo) about a site you can go to make a shirt and is certainly a long way ahead of "makingshirts.com".

So who is No.1 for the search using the terms "how do I make a shirt" - well its www.pixeltees.com [Well least it was when I wrote this article (20/4/05)] [It seems it has continued to languash since then]

Now I don't know about you but if I was picking domain name for a web site about 'making a shirt', the term "pixeltees" would not have been the first thing that sprung right out and grabbed me. (I still don't know what "pixeltees" means) it would have come in some where about 16,000,001 in line, if relevant domain names meant anything.

And what do you get when you click on this Google No.1 you get this (It is now gone as well)

Compare this to www.makingshirts.com and tell me this, for the genuine person looking for the best outcome from a searching engine, does Google delivers the best outcome for you the searcher?

Let now take a look at another example of the stuff that ticks me off.

I am told by Google that missing link effect your ranking with their search engine- Well take a look at this:-

As you can see when searching for the terms "irrigated recycled waste effluent public health" Google delivers these sites on page 1 - Their premier location in the search

Note position No 2 is for a page on the site melbournewater.com.au but click on the link and this is what you get

Now there are 20,100 pages that responds to the search parameters and the 2nd Highest doesn't exist- howzat?

If missing link as were such a crucial killer to ranking how does a missing page get No 2 on Page 1???

Talk about Goofy Google !!-

However put the same in Yahoo and this is what you get

This is another thing that has me stumped about Google.

Type in "goofy google" (two words in parenthesis) in Google and this is what you get:-

Well, I ask you (Ms. Google) what does one have to do, to have a sophisticated search engine program like Google, quoted as the best in the world, pick up a simple name of the index page - besides giving you bucket of money.

Warren

30 December 2005

Google arrived -Finally-2008

The End