Why I don't "Google"
Feb. 16th, 2009 03:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nyykiI get asked this from time to time, so I figured I'd explain it once here and then point to this entry when I need to answer the question in the future.
1) Google uses as one of its main search criteria the number of links to a site to establish the ranking. This isn't a very good measurement, especially for simple site names that people just enter directly. I prefer a search that matches the search criteria I use to the site.
2. Google ignores quotes. This drives me nuts, as when I put text in quotes I am looking specifically for the quoted text as a phrase, and violating my wishes is rather annoying.
3. Other search engines have more operators for setting up your search. I like using things like "near" (the ~ key) to find places where two words come within ten words of each other. Also, my preferred search engine allows me to enter a question and get rather intuitive hits off that, like "What fractal and quantum state fluctuations govern Britney Spears' bra size?"
These are the benign reasons. The rest are more malevolent.
4. Google collects info about searches and sells it to spam and telemarketing services. They claim this is so you can get more appropriate contacts from people who might have something you want, but I feel it's not quite ethical for a search engine to do such things.
5. They produce spam, either by proxy or by direct spamming. I detest spam in my inbox. I set my phones to the national do not call list, throw away all ads in the mail without reading them, and delete all spam in my computer. I will not use any product that spams my inbox, and I feel that if everyone would do the same, then we'd lick the spam problem pretty quickly.
Yeah, I know that all the L33t folks and hardcore geeks and nerds (not the same thing by any stretch) swear by Google. They can keep on swearing for all I care, as I'm not l33t and I gave up my geek card when I lost my sight. I'll stick with Alta Vista and dogpile. Alta Vista does the job I want to quite nicely, with nice options, and doesn't spam me, and Dogpile has some rather interesting features that really find obscure things when nothing else will work, and so it's great when other things won't work.
1) Google uses as one of its main search criteria the number of links to a site to establish the ranking. This isn't a very good measurement, especially for simple site names that people just enter directly. I prefer a search that matches the search criteria I use to the site.
2. Google ignores quotes. This drives me nuts, as when I put text in quotes I am looking specifically for the quoted text as a phrase, and violating my wishes is rather annoying.
3. Other search engines have more operators for setting up your search. I like using things like "near" (the ~ key) to find places where two words come within ten words of each other. Also, my preferred search engine allows me to enter a question and get rather intuitive hits off that, like "What fractal and quantum state fluctuations govern Britney Spears' bra size?"
These are the benign reasons. The rest are more malevolent.
4. Google collects info about searches and sells it to spam and telemarketing services. They claim this is so you can get more appropriate contacts from people who might have something you want, but I feel it's not quite ethical for a search engine to do such things.
5. They produce spam, either by proxy or by direct spamming. I detest spam in my inbox. I set my phones to the national do not call list, throw away all ads in the mail without reading them, and delete all spam in my computer. I will not use any product that spams my inbox, and I feel that if everyone would do the same, then we'd lick the spam problem pretty quickly.
Yeah, I know that all the L33t folks and hardcore geeks and nerds (not the same thing by any stretch) swear by Google. They can keep on swearing for all I care, as I'm not l33t and I gave up my geek card when I lost my sight. I'll stick with Alta Vista and dogpile. Alta Vista does the job I want to quite nicely, with nice options, and doesn't spam me, and Dogpile has some rather interesting features that really find obscure things when nothing else will work, and so it's great when other things won't work.
