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, 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.
> 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, 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.
You might try Copernic Agent, free from http://www.copernic.com/ This combines the results of several search engines and has other features like saving your searches. I admit I haven't used it for a while, as I never got a round toit to reinstall it when my PC was replaced. However, I've just done so and tried it with "Growden family Growdon" and the results look promising.
> 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, > 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 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 know, and aren't interested in knowing, what the alternatives could be. People who clearly have not used any search engine before, which is deducible from the fact that they asked a question which could be answered in a fraction of a second if they had used the search engine they already have installed and it is reachable through the same keyboard as they just used to ask the question. People who don't seem to have twigged that the core technology in genealogy is searching!
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.
It'll probably be a year or two, after they have learned fairly sophisticated searching, that they get fed up with the irrelevant crap and advertisements, and start wondering whether there is something better. By that time they'll be sophisticated enough searchers to find it. There will be a big fall out during that learning time because many people will be unable to learn or decide that learning is not worth the bother. That doesn't matter. Genealogy is not a compulsory subject but an optional extra. If they can't or won't do the work then they have every right to go an play tiddlywinks or any other time filler which does not involve searching.
Don Moody wrote: > What I am addressing is the reality. The vast majority of PCs in the > UK come with Google installed.
That doesn't make sense. Google is a web-site, not a software program. (Although Google does offer a few programs, we're talking about search engines here.)
The "vast majority of PCs in the UK" come with Windows, whose default internet browser, Internet Explorer, has Microsoft's own MSN Search set as default search engine. If people search Google, it's because they've chosen to ignore MS's search options and type www.google.com/.co.uk into the browser's location bar.
The slightly smarter users install Firefox, which DOES have Google as the default search engine, but that's not normally the default, and isn't usually installed on delivery.
John -- LOOK OUT, SPAM BLOCK AHEAD! If you want to email me, remove ".invalid" from the email address
> Don Moody wrote: >> What I am addressing is the reality. The vast majority of PCs in >> the UK come with Google installed.
> That doesn't make sense. Google is a web-site, not a software > program.
Not to the cognoscenti. But it does make sense to the people to whom the instruction to Google is addressed. They don't distinguish where the software is resident or what does what. They do what was known in the old mechanical days as recognising and buying the badge. They don't look behind the badge. To such people Google is indeed 'on' the computer they handle and many a PC is delivered with it as the home page to which Internet Explorer goes directly. To those people Google is indeed installed on their machine.
It is unfortunate and distressing to the cognoscenti in any field when those not in the field don't understand the detailed workings of what is going on in the equipment for which they lovingly care. But the fact is that most people in areas outside their own expertise neither know nor care about how things are done. They only care that what is supposed to happen, happens. I got the point over to a computer enthusiast some years ago.
He was telling me and others what we 'ought' to know about DOS, setting up the machines, and all sorts of plugging and unplugging. I asked if I could see his car keys. He put them in my hand and I put them in my pocket. Then told him he could have his keys back when he explained in precise molecular detail what went on inside a cylinder immediately after the spark. If he couldn't then he was clearly unfit to have and use a car. His reply? 'Don't be bloody silly. All I do is put petrol in and drive from A to B. I don't want or need to know anything else.' To which my response was 'Exactly. You keep the computers working and my colleagues will drive them. They don't want or need to know more.' To the guy's eternal credit, he got the point. I gather he went on to use it in making a successful business in computer maintenance. He told all his clients NOT to look into the innards or wonder how they worked or try to get clever in any way. They were to do their legal, accountancy or whatever professional work and their sole part in the event of a computer problem was knowing which number to telephone. He also gave them the simplest possible instruction set for doing what had to be done, including making back-ups.
It is a very difficult concept for experts to grasp, except for those of us who have gone into tecdoc often enough to get our fingers burned the first time we wrote as experts for a non-expert readership. Then you learn that writing for fellow professionals in a journal of record is one thing. but writing for the non-expert is quite another.
You may like to read the old Health & Safety at Work etc Act 1974, Section 6 in particular. Therein you will find two insertions of the words 'at work' in connection with instructions for the use of equipment and of substances. They are there because I got them put in. No we will not have tecdoc written by the chief engineer of a manufacturer and only comprehendible by the chief engineer of the user business when those instructions are for action by an apprentice. And we won't have them in a form which sits nicely on the chief's desk and doesn't fit the apprentice's pocket.We will have, and it is an offence if we don't get, instructions in words the apprentice will understand and in a form that apprentice can carry with him or her.
What I wrote originally in this thread was exactly an explanation of why 'Google' is an instruction at the apprentice level. That was the point I was making. The valuable work Steve has done is actionable by the cognoscenti. It is way too far ahead for starters who haven't learned to search, and neither know nor care what happens where when they do start searching.I don't 'like' the situation any more than you do. I am merely addressing the reality of the majority of people 'at the computer'.
And by the way, I could give a detailed molecule-by-molecule account of what happens after the spark. As could any other student of Prof Hey at KCL. He's the bloke who worked it out.
Don Moody wrote: > "John Prentice" <john.prent...@john-prentice.com.invalid> wrote in > message news:If2dnfHsBOofvrHVRVnygwA@bt.com... >> Don Moody wrote: >>> What I am addressing is the reality. The vast majority of PCs in >>> the UK come with Google installed. >> That doesn't make sense. Google is a web-site, not a software >> program.
> Not to the cognoscenti. But it does make sense to the people to whom > the instruction to Google is addressed. (snip rest)
Don, the cognoscenti consist of anyone who knows how to Google!
For someone who was accusing me of "weasel words" because I was being exact with my language, you don't half weasel sometimes!
John -- LOOK OUT, SPAM BLOCK AHEAD! If you want to email me, remove ".invalid" from the email address
On Thu, 15 May 2008 04:38:17 +0200, Steve Hayes <hayesm...@hotmail.com> wrote in soc.genealogy.misc:
>It seems that Altavista is much better than Google for genealogical searches.
Perhaps, the strenght of Google is its weakness ! Google tries to locate as many pages as possible, but not altavista. But at this time, Google seems to focus on some operation to clean spam pages (I say that because I submitted my genealogy site with 30000 URLs, one per family, and Google has indexed less than 200 of those pages). Also, google changes the result depending on your browser settings.
Google finds 85 300 000 results for genealogy
Yahoo has 109 000 000 (the difference can be either the accuracy of extrapolation or because Yahoo has more spamdex pages than Google)
MSN has 83 900 000, very close to Google
Altavista has 111 000 000, so in theory, more spamdex pages.
Perhaps, the spammers are tuning their pages as a function of the Google algorithm to reject spamdex pages and you will find more relevant pages in Altavista where the spammers' algorithm is not finetuned... Quite strange indeed !
Something strange happened in those tests. I ran the first from www.google.fr and my own site was 3rd for genealogy. I rerun it from www.google-dance-tool.com (comparing many google sites) and again, my site was in the top ten on google.com and google.fr (and I was known likely from cookies on those sites), 25 on google.be 23 on google.ca and google.de, 21 on google.it and google.co.uk, something weird because my site is not supposed to be there ! It is like if google detected the language of my web browser and translated the search for the equivalent in French.
I repeated the same search from www.google-dance-tool.com with genealogie (in French). The ranking was different (I was missing from the top 100 of google.fr) but very good ranking every time.
I repeated the same search with genealogy and another computer but same IP and no cookies. The ranking was still very good (around 25) but different, this with genealogy and having French as the preferred language.
I did it a last time, now using English as the preferred language and my site was no more in the list for the 9 google sites I tried.
I didn't run the same tests on the various altavista, yahoo or msn sites but I know yahoo has different results depending on the language in your preferences. Maybe Steve has something like EN-ZA (English, South Africa) as preferred language, which may give something different compared to EN-GB or EN-UK for instances.
The conclusion would be that Google may adapt the search result to yourself, to the language of your browser, to your previous search, etc. In my case, I saw my web site where it was not expected.
I would not be surprised that the result for your search on my computer would not be the same on your computer...
