Scoble asks: Why do search engines lie? He writes, after realizing that the number of results never is, in fact, the actual number of results:
Why aren’t there any truth in advertising laws for search engines?
Just wait, Robert. There will be.
Scoble: Just Wait
Scoble asks: Why do search engines lie? He writes, after realizing that the number of results never is, in fact, the actual number of results: Why aren’t there any truth in advertising laws for search engines? Just wait, Robert. There will be….
It he NOT aware that duplicate Listings are pre-filtered by Default on SERPs:
Of course any one could just CLICK the link that states:
repeat the search with the omitted results included
&hl=en&lr=&filter=0
and GET access to all those those duplicates…
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BTW:
An idea for a future topic –
Getting off the record interviews with Google Engineers to reveal just WHAT & HOW different ALGO /Factors/ Variables are chosen for SERPs Updates…
.
…and how is the Effectiveness of that Update Decided/
Calculated —- and for what length of time is it given to “Prove” itself……hmmmm
I think it’s not “misrepresntation” to state the approximate number of search results – it’s more likely that people are looking at the search results differently as search becomes totally mainstream.
What was OK ten years ago when a couple of Grad Students hooked up a Search Engine using spare parts and credit card debt – is now being questioned…along with most everything else.
As people look at Google as a online interpertation of “the truth”, and “the best set of results” – when people go to the bank based on the information they see in the Search Results …..then, the bar has been raised and Robert Scoble now says …. Number of Google Results is inaccurate and a misrepresentation.
But what’s the alternative? Not listing the number of results at all? Counting the actual number of pages where a keyword phrase appeared might be very taxing of Google’s computer resources – where they can “approximate” the answer. It’s not as if they were trying to mislead anyone.