RE: Google hits

["Dubin, David" <David -dot- Dubin -at- sage -dot- com>]

Yes, I agree that relevancy is important, but you get relevancy by
entering a search criteria string that encompasses all that you want to
know about the topic. 

As an example, I entered "fuchsia, plant" into dogpile, Yahoo, and
Google. In dogpile, I got 99 hits. The first ten did not discuss the
plant, but were shopping sites about nurseries, seeds and even an eBay
ad. To make matters worse, the tenth hit was about world pinhole day! 

Yahoo gave me about 97300 hits, with the first ten being about the plant
and its care. 

Google gave me 110000 hits with the first ten also being about the plant
and its care.

Had I enhanced my selection criteria to "fuchsia, plant, care," I
received 86 hits on dogpile, of the first ten, only four dealt with care
for a fuchsia, one dealt with cactus, one dealt with general plant care,
two were where to buy fuchsia (one on eBay) and the other two were
questions about how to care for them.

On the other hand, Google gave me about 44000 hits and of the first ten,
seven gave plant care information, one asked about caring for a fuchsia,
one was for that cactus again and the last dealt with baskets to hold
your fuchsia.

Therefore, if the same percentage of positive hits vs. negative hits are
returned, wouldn't you rather have the option of having 110000 hits that
are (at best) 60-70 percent relevant than 10 percent (if that) of 99
hits?


David B. Dubin
Senior Curriculum Developer 
Sage Software 
727-579-1111 x 3356
david -dot- dubin -at- sage -dot- com
Your business in mind.

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