Offline Monday, April 25th | Main | Do Search Engine Penalize for Dead Links?

April 22, 2005

Google Directories Sources: The Hub

Max, a dedicated reader, wrote me an email reporting a new occurrence at Google Web Search. Query Google for the term real estate directories and you should see "Real Estate Directories: 511":

google-directory-sources.gif

The first link takes you to Linkelse but not the referral URL http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&start=1&oi=answers&q=http://www.linkelse.com/Dir-Real_Estate.htm. and the second takes you to more directory resources. I wonder what makes a directory a "resource", the "hub" concept maybe? See where I am going with this?

As far as I am aware, no forums are chatting about this as of yet.

Update: Both Gary Price (SEW Blog/Resource Shelf) and Shawn Hogan (Digital Point) feel that it is a "weird" Q&A results. Basically, it is a "poor choice" through Google's automation, "it's just a Google Answers thing gone bad."



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posted rustybrick in Google Search Engine at April 22, 2005 3:14 PM Comments (5)

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Comments

Very interesting.

I tried "finance directories" and got nothing...same with "web directories" and "internet directories" and some others.

I did get the same 511 results with "insurance directories".

Time to play some more.

 

Posted by stuntdubl at April 22, 2005 15:21

Also notice that the 511 is not showing the results found by that site, that linkelse.com site shows 528 results.

 

Posted by Barry Schwartz at April 22, 2005 15:32

works for rental directory too.

i noticed too that sometimes when you refresh or retry the query it disappears - perhaps its a new feature they are rolling out?

 

Posted by rob at April 22, 2005 18:40

website directories works. Also noted that google.ca doesn't show anything, it's just google.com

 

Posted by Terry at April 23, 2005 09:31

DaveN also saw similar weird sources recently
http://www.davidnaylor.co.uk/archives/2005/04/26/google-password/
GoogleGuy replied "Thanks for pointing that out. It is a bad answer. We roughed the answer-robot up a little bit, and it’s more careful now."

 

Posted by aaron wall at May 12, 2005 06:02

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