This is the text of a message i just posted to google's feedback form
regarding satisfaction with search results.

-------------------------------

Searching for Dog Food i no longer find Alpo (a national brand of dog
food) in the top 100 seacrh results -- but it used to be on the first
page of results.

Likewse, in searching for Cat Food, i no longer find the web site for
Friskies (one of the top-selling brands in the USA) on the top page of
results, and it used to be there.

I am not in any way ***ociated with Alpo or Friskies.

People say you have changed the algorithm to eliminate "spam" but these
are national pet food brands that are not spamming. They used to be on
the top page, and now they are not even in the top 100 results. Their
web sites have good reason to come up in searches. Why are you
penalizing them?

--------------------------------------

I don't expect a reply -- but i recommed that others ask these and
similar questions.

cat yronwode

catherine yronwode wrote:
> This is the text of a message i just posted to google's feedback form
> regarding satisfaction with search results.
>
> -------------------------------
>
> Searching for Dog Food i no longer find Alpo (a national brand of dog
> food) in the top 100 seacrh results -- but it used to be on the first
> page of results.
>
> Likewse, in searching for Cat Food, i no longer find the web site for
> Friskies (one of the top-selling brands in the USA) on the top page of
> results, and it used to be there.
>
> I am not in any way ***ociated with Alpo or Friskies.
>
> People say you have changed the algorithm to eliminate "spam" but
> these are national pet food brands that are not spamming. They used
> to be on the top page, and now they are not even in the top 100
> results. Their web sites have good reason to come up in searches.
> Why are you penalizing them?

National = America? Maybe there's more to dog food than you think.

--
William T***o - http://WilliamT***o.com

William T***o wrote:
> catherine yronwode wrote:
>> This is the text of a message i just posted to google's feedback form
>> regarding satisfaction with search results.
>>
>> -------------------------------
>>
>> Searching for Dog Food i no longer find Alpo (a national brand of dog
>> food) in the top 100 seacrh results -- but it used to be on the first
>> page of results.
>>
>> Likewse, in searching for Cat Food, i no longer find the web site for
>> Friskies (one of the top-selling brands in the USA) on the top page
>> of results, and it used to be there.
>>
>> I am not in any way ***ociated with Alpo or Friskies.
>>
>> People say you have changed the algorithm to eliminate "spam" but
>> these are national pet food brands that are not spamming. They used
>> to be on the top page, and now they are not even in the top 100
>> results. Their web sites have good reason to come up in searches.
>> Why are you penalizing them?
>
> National = America? Maybe there's more to dog food than you think.

And, there are LOTS of different US cat and dog food brands. More
than 10 of each. All can't be on page 1. And, some sites on page 1 sell
lots of different pet food brands, so that limits specific brands on
page 1 even more.

Were you blind when you ran the search? I just did a search for alpo by
itself, and the first 2 hits were legitimate websites using alpo as an
acronym, and www.alpo.com was the third hit. A search for Friskies by itself
brought their url up as the first hit.

Did google change things inbetween the time you posted this and now? I doubt
it.


"rfgdxm/Robert F. Golaszewski" <EMAIL REMOVED> wrote in
message news:3fca859f$0$18194$EMAIL REMOVED enews.net...
> William T***o wrote:
> > catherine yronwode wrote:
> >> This is the text of a message i just posted to google's feedback form
> >> regarding satisfaction with search results.
> >>
> >> -------------------------------
> >>
> >> Searching for Dog Food i no longer find Alpo (a national brand of dog
> >> food) in the top 100 seacrh results -- but it used to be on the first
> >> page of results.
> >>
> >> Likewse, in searching for Cat Food, i no longer find the web site for
> >> Friskies (one of the top-selling brands in the USA) on the top page
> >> of results, and it used to be there.
> >>
> >> I am not in any way ***ociated with Alpo or Friskies.
> >>
> >> People say you have changed the algorithm to eliminate "spam" but
> >> these are national pet food brands that are not spamming. They used
> >> to be on the top page, and now they are not even in the top 100
> >> results. Their web sites have good reason to come up in searches.
> >> Why are you penalizing them?
> >
> > National = America? Maybe there's more to dog food than you think.
>
> And, there are LOTS of different US cat and dog food brands. More
> than 10 of each. All can't be on page 1. And, some sites on page 1 sell
> lots of different pet food brands, so that limits specific brands on
> page 1 even more.
>
>
>
>

Brian wrote:
> Were you blind when you ran the search? I just did a search for alpo
> by itself, and the first 2 hits were legitimate websites using alpo
> as an acronym, and www.alpo.com was the third hit. A search for
> Friskies by itself brought their url up as the first hit.
>
> Did google change things inbetween the time you posted this and now?
> I doubt it.

Read the OP. The search terms mentioned were "dog food" and "cat
food."

"rfgdxm/Robert F. Golaszewski" <EMAIL REMOVED> wrote in
message news:3fca9c10$0$18198$EMAIL REMOVED enews.net...
> Brian wrote:
> > Were you blind when you ran the search? I just did a search for alpo
> > by itself, and the first 2 hits were legitimate websites using alpo
> > as an acronym, and www.alpo.com was the third hit. A search for
> > Friskies by itself brought their url up as the first hit.
> >
> > Did google change things inbetween the time you posted this and now?
> > I doubt it.
>
> Read the OP. The search terms mentioned were "dog food" and "cat
> food."
>
>

Well I was curious about the Alpo site. It does seem to me that they should
be listed in the top 100 for pet food. They are a popular brand of dog
food. What I found was that the company who manufactures Alpo is Purina
which is owned by Nestle. Purina comes up at number 7 and 12 and 40 when I
used the words "dog food" on a google search this evening. I didn't bother
to look much deeper.

So I scratched my head and though hummm....So I decided to look at what
might make the Alpo site different. What I found was that the Purina sites
all had meta tags for descriptions and keywords and the Alpo site did not.
There may be other obvious differences to a more trained eye, and the
inclusion of meta tags may not have anything to do with the plummet of the
Alpo site, but I thought it was interesting all the same.

lisajane wrote:

> Well I was curious about the Alpo site. It does seem to me that they
> should be listed in the top 100 for pet food. They are a popular
> brand of dog food. What I found was that the company who manufactures
> Alpo is Purina which is owned by Nestle. Purina comes up at number 7
> and 12 and 40 when I used the words "dog food" on a google search
> this evening. I didn't bother to look much deeper.
>
> So I scratched my head and though hummm....So I decided to look at
> what might make the Alpo site different. What I found was that the
> Purina sites all had meta tags for descriptions and keywords and the
> Alpo site did not. There may be other obvious differences to a more
> trained eye, and the inclusion of meta tags may not have anything to
> do with the plummet of the Alpo site, but I thought it was
> interesting all the same.

Take a look at the Alpo site. A measly PR5. And, the home page is a
flash trash splash page. Nowhere on the visible page, or the page title,
is "dog food" mentioned. This site is so poorly optimized for that
search term it deserves to be buried in the SERPs.

On Sun, 30 Nov 2003 20:41:39 -0500, rfgdxm/Robert F. Golaszewski <EMAIL REMOVED> wrote:
>
>
> Brian wrote:
>> Were you blind when you ran the search? I just did a search for alpo
>> by itself, and the first 2 hits were legitimate websites using alpo
>> as an acronym, and www.alpo.com was the third hit. A search for
>> Friskies by itself brought their url up as the first hit.
>>
>> Did google change things inbetween the time you posted this and now?
>> I doubt it.
>
> Read the OP. The search terms mentioned were "dog food" and "cat
> food."
>
>

It's pretty obvious that Goog is going commercial. So it isn't surprising
that those that pony up the dough are the ones that get top biiling.

There's even talk of a GNU search engine going around.

AC

Brian wrote:
>
> Were you blind when you ran the search? I just did a search for alpo by
> itself, and the first 2 hits were legitimate websites using alpo as an
> acronym, and www.alpo.com was the third hit. A search for Friskies by
> itself brought their url up as the first hit.
>
> Did google change things inbetween the time you posted this and now? I
> doubt it.

I did not make that up. Google is still dancing on some of
my pages, and freshbot is running, so things are in flux.

> "rfgdxm/Robert F. Golaszewski" <EMAIL REMOVED> wrote

> > And, there are LOTS of different US cat and dog food brands. More
> > than 10 of each. All can't be on page 1. And, some sites on page 1
> > sell lots of different pet food brands, so that limits specific brands
> > on page 1 even more.

The results i got when i ran the dog food search contained
only five sites selling dog food, but did contain two horror
pages about "what's really in pet food" and other
non-commercial and politically motivated oddities.

cat yronwode

Brian wrote:
>
> Were you blind when you ran the search? I just did a search for alpo by
> itself, and the first 2 hits were legitimate websites using alpo as an
> acronym, and www.alpo.com was the third hit. A search for Friskies by
> itself brought their url up as the first hit.
>
> Did google change things inbetween the time you posted this and now? I
> doubt it.

Ah, thanks to Robert for noticing that you did not replicate
my search. The search was not for Alpo, but for dog food.

According to Scroogle, the Alpo site was formerly in the top
10 despite the fact that it had no meta tags and a PR of 5.
According to Lisajane and Robert, it is poorly optimized and
contains flash. Still, it dropped like a stone -- and if
Florida was meant to eliminate over-optimization, then the
Alpo site should have stayed up top. Was it the flash or
mediocre PR or lack of meta tags that did it in? We'll never
know until someone figures out the new algo.

cat yronwode