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Google: Hoist By Own Petard John Battelle in his searchblog of 13 December 13, 2009 discussed Google and Search under the heading "Google is Failing More" The article battellemedia.com comments on the failed search for a dishwasher and why the fail I do not think Google has failed rather they have been hoist by their own petard Back in the old days when mainstream businesses were still concentrating on the traditional media with newspaper display ads, TV commercials and back of the telephone book advertising, finding information on the Web to my mind was easier Search engines were not as sophisticated and people posting content on the Web tended to follow rules such as Title Tags and Meta Description Tags tying back to the content. Treat this as a generalisation if you like but as someone who was selling retail on the Web back in 1999 we knew that if we didn't follow these rules, our products were not found Fast forward to 2009 and the businesses who were previously placing display ads in newspapers or producing take me brochures are now inhabiting the Web and few follow the rules but their websites are showing up in the SERPS often to the detriment of sites which provide information the customer requires Remember the Web is not information it is the facilitator of information and if the websites by businesses are clones of offline display ads and brochures, information is not provided The Web is not the traditional media and style of advertising needs to change to take in the needs of the customer, who wants information which is not readily provided online by display ad or brochure type business websites. Pretty pictures and fancy fonts do not answer customer search enquiries In Google's efforts to index all and sundry, their algorithms pick up the business sites which do not perform in their task of assisting the customer. And in this respect Google has been hoist by its own petard Too much content not enough information Can it be solved, of course, the Web is mainstream enough to lay down and enforce some rules "If you want to be indexed do this" Cause the businesses to stop and think and realise the world has changed, and what the ad agency or web designer says is not necessarily so Contact Firstsearch