Google Blogoscoped

Forum

Please Google, don't drown me with news!

Jérôme Flipo [PersonRank 10]

Wednesday, April 16, 2008
16 years ago2,201 views

I'm quite surprised by the following search results:
http://base.googlehosted.com/base_media?q=hand2721571472357545383&size=1

Jason Beghe is an actor who's recently been interviewed about its (bad) experience with Scientology. The 5th reference of his Wikipedia article directs to an article about this interview
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,23543726-5001021,00.html, which is also the description of the Wikipedia entry in Google result.

If Google considers that it defines well Jason Beghe, why to list the reference itself (http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,23543726-5001021,00.html) as 28th result? Is it because there's a OneBox result for news articles so it would list it twice on the 1rst page?

But, above all, why to prefer a news article to the description of the guy? Almost all the top 20 results are about the "news" (interview about scientology). IMDB has a good bio of J. Beghe and is the 1rst result for the guy but, as usual, the IMDB link in Google result have a pointless text under their title:
"Actor: Thelma & Louise. Visit IMDb for Photos, Filmography, Discussions, Bio, News, Awards, Agent, Fan Sites."

Many of my searches now end like that and I appreciate more and more Mahalo's Guide Note that defines the search entry whatever the results may be. The funniest is that the description in Google for the Mahalo result is the Guide Note itself: "Jason Beghe is an American actor who has appeared in the films Thelma and Louise and GI Jane, and in dozens of television shows, including Cane, CSI: NY, ...". I fear that Google overestimates the buzz and is losing its quality. No more "search in once" to come? Google could display the first sentence of Wikipedia articles as text under the title since Wikipedia tends to dislike recent event... but Google doesn't take profit of that and looks for always fresher information. But isn't it the role of the news Onebox? And don't we Google first for bio and definition?
--
Google definition of the the "text below the title":
This is an excerpt from the results page with your query terms bolded. If we expanded the range of your search using stemming technology, the variations of your search terms that we searched for will also be bolded.

Forum home

Advertisement

 
Blog  |  Forum     more >> Archive | Feed | Google's blogs | About
Advertisement

 

This site unofficially covers Google™ and more with some rights reserved. Join our forum!