Try putting “search engine” into Google, and you are hard-pressed to come up with a decent one, like Ask.com. Even Google itself is down the page.

Is it just us, or do other people agree with Matthew and me that Google is getting more and more useless? A friend pointed out the other day that if he put the name of a hotel into Google, he got back anything but the hotel’s own webpage, even though that would be the most useful for checking out the rooms and getting a feel for what it was like. It’s harder and harder to find what you are really after.

Google still relies a fair bit on the hand-vetted sites in Open Directory Project, upon which it bases its own directory. After all the technological progress since 1999 or thereabouts, it still takes human eyes to sort out the spam sites and convince Google that you are completely legit. You can submit a site to the directory and NEVER hear back from them. You will never know if they have even looked at your submission. It’s worse that sending a book to publisher. Your whole livelihood depends on the whim of one person, and whether they can be bothered to look at your site. If they don’t like it, that’s it. Getting to the top of Google will be that much harder, no matter how good or relevant your site is.

Google, I think, has got some problems. They won’t come home to roost for some time yet, but they need to work harder at being the best search engine, and perhaps put some other projects on hold.