Re: Is Google bad for pagan websites?

__/ [The List Man] on Wednesday 01 February 2006 23:25 \__

Is Google bad for pagan websites?

Are pagan Web sites bad for Google?

We have been live on the net for nine months and have just compleated our
first search engine assessment. Here are the results of our first
assesement based on factual information. We decided to post this free of
copyright so that other pagan webmasters can use it to conduct their own
assesments on what is the best search engine for pagan or occult related
research.

Expect pagan enthusiasts to choose paganic search engines, but not effective
search engines.


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Google Vs. Yahoo and MSN (The 2006 Assessment)

This is a side by side comparison of how Search Engines were treating
Esoteric Wonders as of January 23rd, 2006. Please note, that search results
can change over time, because, search indexes are constantly changing on a
day to day basis. We will reassess our standing on the top three rated
search engines in January of 2007.

At Yahoo: Our website appeared as the first two hits in a direct search for
"Esoteric Wonders" which is the exact phrase of the website. Yahoo reported
392,000 hits on pages containing the keyword. Four hits in the first Five
were related to my topic.

At MSN: Our website appeared as the first hit which is normal for doing a
direct search for "Esoteric Wonders." MSN reported 102,165 hits on pages
containing the phrase "Esoteric Wonders." Five hits of the first Five were
related to my topic. Though the search engine had the least amount of Hits,
it provided the most relevant search results.

According to yourself? Hits are often an indication of relevance? Good search
engines have richer results and better level of relevance; thus they attract
traffic and not detract users from valuable information.

At Google: We still do not appear in the top five hits for a direct search
for "Esoteric Wonders." We were indexed in Google at the time of this
search but appear very low in the results. Google reported 321,000 hits on
pages containing the phrase "Esoteric Wonders," which is about 71,000 hits
less than Yahoo. Only one of the top five hits were even remotely related
to the subject of the Esoteric, and that was the hit for Madam Blavatsky.
Google provided two links for Buddhism and Jewish Mysticism in the top
five, however, they are only related to monotheist belief systems.

The purpose of having a reliable search engine for our research.

Our conclusion based on this search engine report is that Yahoo and MSN
seem to treat our new website much more favorably than Google.

This depends on the site in question and the domain (not the technical term).
One site is too small a sample to infer any conclusions from.

We have also
noticed that other websites about the Esoteric dominated the top five hits
on both Yahoo and MSN. On the other hand, at Google, nothing even came
close to being related to the Esoteric, Mysticism, or the Occult except for
only a hit on Madam Blavatsky. To this effect, we find that the indexes of
both Yahoo and MSN provide for far better search results relating to our
topic of research. Therefore, we now prefer to use Yahoo and MSN for all of
our research and information gathering whenever it concerns the Occult or
Esoteric.

My mom says she loves me, so I say she's the most insightful person in the
world. Choose what serves you better, not what serves your agenda or
flatters you. If you think that there is reciprocity, think again. Google,
MSN, and Yahoo could not care less which SE you favour. You will not get
more traffic, but maybe a falsified ego-boost from spotting your site at top
placements.

To advance our research on the internet and in books as well, we need to
utilize the most reliable online search engine as reasonably possible. A
search engine and its ability to produce both relevant and reliable results
is the centerpiece of obtaining and gathering quality information for our
readers. We need a search engine that can produce results quickly. ...

In most (if not merely all) parts of the world, Google is probably the
quickest. Quickest to crawl and to deliver search results.

... We
cannot miss out on websites that may be boxed away in Google's alleged
Sandbox Program or otherwise suppressed. ...

In that case, begin to embrace sites that are filled with spam. Sandboxes (if
existent) may be controversial, but they are here to defend you from noise.

...We also need one that provides
relevant hits in the first five hits to accelerate the research process and
to avoid having to examine hundreds upon hundreds of search result pages to
find something related to our research topic.

Exactly. Yahoo tends to have this terrible system of ranking results. If you
want quality results or need persuasion or further convicing, run some toy
queries that do not involve your site and a few related search strings.

deletia /

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We have taken screen shots of the search result pages as extra material for
those who wish to reproduce this article. For more information please send
me a private e-mail at listhunter (AT) esotericwonders (DOT) com. I am unable to post
them here because this is not a binary newsgroup.

deletia /

Why screen shots? Treat text as text. This habit leads to poor SEO traps,
which also annoy users (and not only the blind).

With kind regards,

Roy