Google supplemental screw up

So Peter sent me a somewhat frantic e-mail, after noticing the newer Google results have supplemental’ed his forums - and Platinax, too.

Apparently, 3 of the key UK business forums had been hit, so I posted about it.

Google results are pretty appalling in the Longtail - home of the supplemental index - at present.

While researching dropshipping options for an upcoming ecommerce site, I thought to use sauron dropshipping as a search term, for Lord of the Rings products.

Of the current Top 10 results, 6 URLs aren’t even functioning (includes the first 4), 1 is a scraper site, 1 is a parked donain, and only 2 are working - 1 of which is an archived eBay page anyway.

MSN recently boasted they could be more relevant than Google within 6 months. At present, that would hardly be a challenge.

ADDED:

Okay, let’s run a comparison on MSN and Yahoo!

MSN - sauron dropshipping

• 1. Affiliate ID link to eBay
• 2. Poker site
• 3. Dropshipper
• 4. eCommerce site (dropshipper?)
• 5. Scraper site
• 6. Poster affiliate site
• 7. Scraper site
• 8. Poker site
• 9. Scraper site
• 10. Poker site

Well, *only just* better than Google. Handling doorways and redirects better *could* increase relevancy 4 fold.

Yahoo! - sauron dropshipping

• 1. eCommerce site (dropshipper?)
• 2. Sh!te affiliate site
• 3. An irrelevant eBay page
• 4. Another irrelevant eBay page
• 5. Posters site
• 6. Posters site
• 7. Another irrelevant eBay page
• 8. Another irrelevant eBay page
• 9. Another irrelevant eBay page
• 10. Another irrelevant eBay page

Ouch. Those results are pretty poor - maybe related to the new Yahoo! algo update - doesn’t seem to have done anything for relevancy in this longtail.

And now back to Google - sauron dropshipping

• 1. 404
• 2. 404
• 3. 404
• 4. 404
• 5. Dropshipper
• 6. Parked domain
• 7. Scraper site
• 8. 404
• 9. Out-of-date eBay page
• 10. Custom 404: “Item no longer exists”

Looks like Google is so busy trying to bloat it’s index size with out of date URLs. Not helpful for the user.

OVERALL:

MSN wins, by way or ranking a dropshipper 3rd, compared to Google’s 5th. Yahoo! get’s a booby prize - but don’t worry, it redirects to a poker site. ;)