ce Editor, SearchEngineWatch.com
Dec. 4, 2000
In November 2000, moderator Detlev Johnson of the I-Search mailing list asked his readers what were their biggest problems with search engines and directories. The results from 75 responses received are below.
Most readers of the I-Search mailing list are webmasters or web marketers concerned with how search engines list their web sites. Consequently, the survey asked readers to respond from both the "webmaster" and "searcher" perspective.
The Webmaster Questions
The main specific webmaster gripe with human-powered directories was that editors altered submitted descriptions, which can cause a site not to be found for particular terms.
| What I dislike most about directories as a webmaster is... | |
| Editors remove my keywords from submissions | 33% |
| Yahoo Business Express is not widely available | 8% |
| Difficulty becoming a volunteer editor (or to stay an active one) | 8% |
| Other (see below) | 51% |
"Other" was also an allowable response, and it actually proved more popular than the submission alteration choice. Those choosing "other" were asked to provide an explanation. The explanations generally fell within these wide categories:
- Poor service: Directories provide little to no interaction with editors or are slow to process submissions or changes.
- Editors: Not seen objective or experienced enough, and apply inconsistent standards or seem to lack standards at all.
- Category names: Obtuse and not enough entries available to classify multi-product sites
For crawler-based search engines, the biggest complaint was about page cloaking, where a search engine spider is shown content different than that which a human being sees. Concerns were raised that cloaking let either poor sites rank well or allowed stolen pages to be used undetected ("pagejacking").
| What I dislike most about spider-based search engines as a webmaster is... | |
| Cloaking enables poor sites to attain top 10 and or page jacking | 27% |
| Too much spam to compete on real site merits | 22% |
| Index refreshing and or dumping is seriously problematic | 21% |
| Other (see below) | 30% |
Again, "other" was the most popular response. Explanations received were classified as follows:
- Lead time (Takes too long to get listed)
- Slow respidering
- Dead links
- Spam goes undetected
Respondents were also asked the open ended question, "My biggest gripe as a webmaster trying to get listed is...." Below is a summary of responses:
- Lead time (Takes too long to get listed)
- Cat-and-mouse game is time intensive
- Competing with spam artists
The Searcher Questions
The complaints about human-powered directories were much more broadly distributed, as follows:
| What I dislike most about directories for search is... | |
| Drilling down the hyperlinks is not intuitive about the ultimate sites found | 32% |
| Listings too small a sample of the site to match my search properly | 25% |
| Category names don't use good search terms | 22% |
| Other (see below) | 21% |
Here's the summary of "other" explanations:
- [Poor” relevancy
- Stale content
- Alphabetical listings
As for crawler-based search engines, by far the most popular response was about having to try multiple search engines or multiple searches as the same search engine to find the best web sites.
| What I dislike most about spider-based search engines for search is... | |
| I have to try multiple search result listings to find the most accurate sites | 42% |
| Algorithm changes sometimes appear to be for the worse | 29% |
| Sites are not likely to be as good as those found in directories | 12% |
| Other (see below) | 17% |
Here's the summary of "other" explanations:
- Dead links, stale content
- Commercial insertion
- Spam causes irrelevancy
Respondents were also asked the open ended question, "My biggest gripe as a searcher trying to find sites is...." Below is a summary of responses:
- Junk, spam, cloaking and stale sites or dead links
- Relevancy
- Digging through listings
I-Search
http://www.audettemedia.com/lists/isearch/summary.html
A must read, this is a moderated mailing list run by AudetteMedia, which operates other well-regarded lists such as I-Sales. Topics include those of interest to marketers and to general search engine users. To subscribe, follow the link above, which also leads to archives.
I-Search Search Satisfaction Survey Responses
The responses provider further details about frustration with search engine, directly from those who participated in the survey.
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