Todd Walton wrote:
Apparently not even SDSU can index class websites either. The search box there didn't find you either, and it should simple for sdsu.edu to provide a first pass list of search results.
Well, given that SDSU uses Google, this is unsurprising.
I've seen this argument before, mostly on Slashdot, that goes "Website used to be top result, they didn't change anything, now they're number 300. Google sucks." Who says your website should stay indexed? Who says you're still a relevant search result?
I do. And I'm the *user*, dammit. If I can't find what I'm looking for, I'm a ripe customer for another search engine.
This isn't a "I'm in the bottom 300". This isn't a "I used to be higher". This is "relevant web page isn't indexed *at all*".
When I can't type in a course number and a professor's name and get the web page that exists, I have to start asking--what *else* is Google missing. And why?
And, just so you know, this isn't about my website, specifically. I'm just using it as a convenient example that I know is static. The thing that kicked this off was that I was trying to see what books the CS100 and CS107 classes used at SDSU, and I couldn't find the websites.
I haven't yet seen a compelling case where something is definitely wrong.
You're right. Google has the discretion not to index me. It's much more profitable to index 5 trillion sites for herbal drugs.
However, search engines have to convince people of two things: relevancy *and* completeness. As of now, I have to start wondering about Google's completeness. Sure, you probably get to hear about that neat new algorithm discovered by that professor from MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, etc. But what about the even better one from the professor at Oregon State or Lehigh University? Will Google index that one? How do I find that one?
For now, I don't have a choice. However, what this suggests is that Microsoft could displace Google simply by throwing money at the problem and indexing more than Google.
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