http://thenoisychannel.com/2009/03/23/those-luddite-publishers-have-a-point/

http://thenoisychannel.com/2009/02/14/yes-virginia-google-does-devalue-everything-it-touches/

Answer: “No we don’t, we just changed something so that brands might now be appearing higher up on the list”

- Well isn’t that what the woman was asking?

Re: customising search
I’m surprised you don’t think this is possible, have you tried any of the searchwiki, custom search engine & ad preferences?

Well, first of all, adblocker helps with customizing my ad preferences

But the other two things you mention fall well short of what I’m talking about. SearchWiki, for example, basically lets you memorize preferred results. It doesn’t actually help you re-rank new results. So for example if I am a skiier, and prefer the Northstar Ski Resort over the Heavenly Ski Resort, SearchWiki helps me guarantee that the former always gets ranked at the top whenever I type the query “ski”.

And Google custom search engine lets you memorize or pre-select certain web sites, and craft a search engine that only searches a filtered portion of the web.

But neither of those are what I want. I want a search engine that works on queries that I’ve never done before (SearchWiki fails on those, by construction) and also works when I haven’t explicitly told it which sites to restrict the search to. In fact, the whole point isn’t to restrict my search to any sites (ala google custom search engine).

The whole point is for me to be able to say, without having to know every single site, “Ok, Google, run this query, and show me mainstream news at the top”. And then, a minute later, for me to be able to say, “Ok, Google, run this exact same query, but this time put all the mainstream news sites at the bottom and show me what the most relevant non-mainstream news sources are saying about this exact same topic.”

That way, I gain the ability to compare what the mainstream is saying against what the alternative press is saying.

I want Google to give me the ability to run the search both ways, to find both the most relevant mainstream news and the most relevant non-mainstream news.

I’m sure google could do it, if they wanted to. They’ve got the pagerank information to do machine learning/classification of mainstream and non-mainstream. It’s just a matter of giving me the interface ability to make this selection.

Nothing about SearchWiki or Google Custom Search does this, imma. So you shouldn’t be so surprised. I stand by my earlier words, which is that this is about the users, not about Google or Big Media. To the extend that Google does not serve the users, it needs to change.

Leverage their relationship with Google to help improve their Google listings makes sense but only to a certain point.

If they are wearing Google blinders they need to remove those blinders.

Who decided that the results were more relevant – well, the users of Google, i.e. all those millions of users.

If the Google index continues to show websites that are relevant, then there is no problem.

Relevance has always been subjective – there are always vested interests , but the voice of the many (mostly) triumph over the voice of the few.

Of course, Big Business wants special treatment. I know I almost sound a little nutty, but I am anti-corporation– and this is just another reason.

I’ve actually come to respect Google over the years. In many ways that few other online giants have done, it is always focused on the individual– the little guy.

Big corporations don’t like that? Hmmm. Maybe that’s their whole trouble.

Marige O’Brien

I don’t fault Google for not featuring premium media content more prominently. I fault Google for not giving the users the choice and ability to explicitly personalize and customize their searching preferences, so as to choose whether or not the customer themselves wants that content featured prominently.

If Google would only do that, then this issue would go away. It would no longer be Google vs. Big Media, but Big Media engaged directly with their customers, and Google truly as a neutral intermediary. Right now, however, Google is not neutral, because everything is ranked Google’s way, not the user’s way.

Double pfft.