Google's new indexing system

[Brian Turner]

Google denies that it's running out of server space - but has declared that it will now prioritise indexing of high PR links, and ignore and reduce indexing of sites that aren't a big part of the social network online.

Personally, I think it sounds like Google is introducing a two-tier web - deciding that only the higher profile sites and pages should be indexed and listed in search results, which I think is a worrying precedent.

Search used to be about innovation - about showing people where to look for information from lots of different sources - but now it seems that Google is going to be more interested in simply showing what people are looking at, and where they have been.

Worrying developments, really, especially for small business.

Anyway, here's the news report I just wrote up on it:
http://www.platinax.co.uk/news/18-05...ortant-enough/

[monaghan]

Oh dear, not a lot of hope for us small UK business then

Looks like Google could end up being a big advertising machine rather than a search engine. The big business can afford to over-bid for the top adverting slots on the sponsored ads, if the small business (or personal interest site) will be excluded from the index, then I guess there'll be a market for a new engine

[Brian Turner]

Else we simply start moving to Yahoo! and MSN.

And nice to see you around Platinax, Monaghan.

[Natkits]

My site has been in googles 'sandbox' for a few months now, and other than occasional blips in rankings where we'll figure well for a few days, we're showing no signs of coming out of it.

So all my (very much novice) efforts thus far have gone into making sure we rank well on msn at least, and there I've succeded. (yahoo refuses to rank me well so far). I'm starting to get a good level of traffic from MSN and a couple of diy sites in particular so for now I'm not too bothered about google.

I'll continue to add good content and gradually build some decent incoming links, this seems to be the best long term strategy. I wonder at what point google will deem me worthy of ranking under this new system?!

[monaghan]

Just checked out Yahoo for one of my "in development" sites (stevenage.org) and found myself half way down the 2nd page

I did have to do a double take as Yahoo's results pages look very similiar to Google

[Steve-H]

I pity new sites with little knowledge of SEO. They don't stand a chance if this new indexing sytem is here to stay.

[TWD-Tony]

I think it's about time that people turned away from Google and gave MSN and Yahoo a chance, I must admit that I have only just started to take an interest in the other SE's and found to my great surprise that I am ranked number 7 (1st page) for "Business Hosting" in Yahoo (UK only search)
I still don't appear anywhere close in Google or MSN though

[monaghan]

I guess as more people venture onto the Internet, then MSN being the default in IE will help get some newbies onto MSN, however the words "Google" and "search" are almost interchangable these days.