Google Spamming Their Own Index
I’ve been watching recent changes to Google’s universal search, and the steady increase in the number of Google Books results. I was doing some research for the Fitzwilliam Institute Lecture and found this beaut:
If you aren’t familiar with Google Book results, they are actually not really part of the organic results, but instead injected into the SERP as part of Google’s Universal Search. But I think this is a pretty good example of Universal Search working really badly.
Of course the sceptical folk out there might also mention that each Book Search result pushes another organic result off the page, and potentially forces one more site into paying to appear in Adwords…
Hi Richard,
I’ve been noticing this as well on a lot of various searches. Your screeshot is a perfect example of how bad it actually is and what I’ve been seeing.
Hope all is good with you and thanks for publishing the slide for the Fitzwilliam Institute Lecture, was really good.
Regards,
Gavin.
Comment by Gavin — December 17, 2008 @ 10:45 am
Hey Gavin
Good hearing from!
I really feel that the book results are really poor – the screenshot is one of the worst ones I’ve seen.
Have a good xmas
Rgds
Richard
Comment by Richard Hearne — December 17, 2008 @ 11:01 am