Re: Altavista better than Google for genealogy searches

Don Moody wrote:
> "Steve Hayes" <hayesmstw@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
> news:rm7n241ao77d1j16gc4cp7lpbb8birjat2@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> It seems that Altavista is much better than Google for genealogical 
>> searches.
>>
>> A distant cousin is organising a GROWDEN family reunion, and I have 
>> a GROWDEN
>> family web page, and was trying to see what there was on the family 
>> on the
>> web.
>>
>> I entered "Growden family Growdon" (both spellings are used) in both 
>> Google
>> and Altavista (http://www.altavista.com)
and Altavista returned far 
>> more
>> relevant results on the first page. My page dedicated to Growden 
>> family
>> history did not show up on the first couple of Google pages at all, 

OK. You can probably fix that by putting a few more critical keywords 
into your index page and making sure that your site is linked to be 
accessible to web spiders. Google ranks pages in a very sophisticated 
way so if you are not linked to by enough other pages your ranking will 
be lower than on some other engines. And if the right keywords are not 
all on your main index page the site ranking is lower too.

There are various (free) tools that will show you how your webpage ranks 
when a search with keywords is performed by a selection of engines.

Commercial players all know the basic ranking tricks so if you put a 
place name into Google the first page will often include property in X, 
florists in X, hotels in X and if you are really unlucky lapdancing 
clubs in X (never mind that X may be a hamlet with just 6 houses).

>> but it was
>> the first one on Altavista. It also appeared on the first page on 
>> Dogpile
>> (http://www.dogpile.com).
>>
>> "Google is your friend" has become something of a cliche in 
>> genealogy
>> newsgroups, but it is worth remembering that it is not the only 
>> search engine,
>> and for genealogical purposes it is not even the best.
> 
> As one of those wont to say Google, and not about to change that, I'll 
> explain why.

It is always worth trying different search engines if you don't find 
things or get too much chaff with your favourite. Google and Altavista 
are sometimes complimentary. No one size fits all solution exists for 
what is at best an ambiguous search problem in a vast sea of indexed 
data. Judicious use of "+" and "-" with keywords helps.
> 
> It is nothing to do with whether Google is the best or not, and 
> nothing to do with whether any other search engine could be got and 
> installed, and would prove better. It is most definitely nothing to do 
> with sophisticated searchers who are familiar enough with searching to 
> make value judgements and sufficiently energetic to pursue those 
> judgements until they get the optimum search procedure for themselves.
> 
> What I am addressing is the reality. The vast majority of PCs in the 
> UK come with Google installed. They are sold to people who wouldn't 

They come with Microsofts own brand MSN search installed. You have to 
seek out Google and/or download its toolbar, same for AltaVista. Some 
ISP customised browsers may come with it already installed.

> Such people will go on and on and on asking basic or stupid questions, 
> expecting help from those who have done their homework, and never 
> giving anything back to the readers of the newsgroup. It is no good 
> doing a specific look-up for them. They learn nothing, except where to 
> come back for the next freebie. They'll only ever become useful if 
> they learn the basics, starting with searching as their first response 
> to a problem. And the first place they can start learning about 
> searching is right there in front of them at their fingertips. Go and 
> Google.

You are incredibly bitter and twisted. He made a correct statement about 
the nature of these search engines rankings and you start yet another 
boilerplate rant against newbies daring to try their hand at genealogy.

The guy made the perfectly valid and helpful observation that amateur 
genealogy pages tend not to get very high rankings on Google but are 
more favorably placed on AltaVista. Pointing out that other search 
engines can sometimes give better results is a legitimate thing to do.

Regards,
Martin Brown
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com
**