I haven’t run one of these tests for a while (for eight months), to track how the occidental search engines were doing with the claimed number of pages for a cross-section of websites. Mojeek and, last time I checked, Bing were actually truthful about these numbers. Bing had missed the mark on this for some […]
Read More… from Testing the occidental search engines with site:, June 2024 edition
Jon Henshaw shared his ‘Small matters’ post recently, and it makes for good reading. One highlight: While the Small Web still exists, most people spend increasingly more time on the Big Web [sites controlled by mega-corporations], and that’s a problem because the walled gardens and algorithms keep us from seeing and experiencing the many extraordinary […]
It was about time I had a look at the occidental search engines again, using a site:jackyan.com search to see how they fared. The previous test for this site was in May 2023. I knew Google was still terrible, and I knew Bing had improved since the days of having 10 results for the domain. […]
Read More… from Testing occidental search engines on site: again: Mojeek, Bing more normal
One very interesting development in the whole fight against misinformation using my name is that Google won’t give me a right of reply through this blog. You’d logically think that an authoritative site would appear higher, all things being fair, but my posts about the spammy keywords don’t appear in the results. Misinformation, […]
Leigh Harrison sent me this blog post by Evan Boehs, which reflects my earlier ones about the web being rendered useless by Google et al. I never intended this blog to be about tech, but there’s so much to chart, and so much dishonesty to get on the record, lest someone else finds themselves in […]
A number of people did the right thing when they learned about the misinformation with my name in connection with Google and SEO. Urbanitek was one. They clarified who I was, and noted, ‘While his credentials are impressive, it’s noteworthy that Google rarely associates updates with specific individuals in their SEO guides. Google hasn’t officially […]
Read More… from Semrush allegedly glitched, misinformation followed
Skry being right on the money: Still those web pages about me being a Google SEO expert or having an algorithm named for me are being indexed and prioritized by Google, all because Semrush hallucinated (or was there a malicious hand in this?), told a bunch of people (in south Asia, predominantly) about […]
Understandably, I was bemused but then frustrated with the fake articles out there about the new Google algorithm update being created by me and named for me. (Even Perplexity has picked up this misinformation.) Of all those I found and reached out to, only one author—Shahid Jafar—had the decency to remove his article and apologize. […]
Read More… from Google fails to downrank junk sites; Bing and Mojeek fare better
A great quote from Penn Jillette in Cracked: Einstein comes up with this idea E = mc² — a profound, powerful, mind-blowing idea — and he has to work forever to make people understand that and to share that reality. Woodward and Bernstein are pretty sure the president of the United States committed crimes, and […]
Read More… from Tech musings from a non-tech: search engines and the nightmare of AWS
They may no longer be relevant, but most (all?) of our sites still have meta keyword tags. When we redevelop a site, we tend to take the header tags in full from the previous incarnation, so unlike the old joke about George Washington’s axe (‘This is the original. I’ve only had the handle and blade […]