>Why does google allow pure CPM hacking garbage websites to win the top spots?
Something bothered me about this question, and I think it's the way it frames Google's role as being a passive participant.
Google doesn't "allow" anything. Google writes the rules and picks the winners.
When you search for "chocolate chip cookie recipe," Google's search algorithm goes "Here's a nice webpage with Grandma Betty's life story and a paragraph about how to make chocolate chip cookies at the bottom. This is what you were looking for."
Recipe sites look like they do because Google forces them to look like that if they want Google to send them any search traffic.
Is there a different algorithm that would give more useful results? Is there a way to rank the sites on how well they present the information you were searching for? Is there a way to factor in whether a site has good recipes or terrible ones? I don't know, but I don't have a giant advertising money fountain and teams of very well paid engineers.
Like you hinted at, I think it's reasonable to suspect Google for not having an incentive to fix this. They get their ad money either way, and they probably get more of it from worse sites. As long as it's good enough to keep people from switching to other search engines en masse, they're not losing anything.
Long time ago having your site in a high quality curated directory like DMOZ boosted your search ranks a lot.
I was an editor for a few categories at DMOZ. Not only I allowed only good content in our categories, but I checked older approvals from time to time to see if they behave. I had to delist some websites who thought they can trick us.
Something bothered me about this question, and I think it's the way it frames Google's role as being a passive participant.
Google doesn't "allow" anything. Google writes the rules and picks the winners.
When you search for "chocolate chip cookie recipe," Google's search algorithm goes "Here's a nice webpage with Grandma Betty's life story and a paragraph about how to make chocolate chip cookies at the bottom. This is what you were looking for."
Recipe sites look like they do because Google forces them to look like that if they want Google to send them any search traffic.
Is there a different algorithm that would give more useful results? Is there a way to rank the sites on how well they present the information you were searching for? Is there a way to factor in whether a site has good recipes or terrible ones? I don't know, but I don't have a giant advertising money fountain and teams of very well paid engineers.
Like you hinted at, I think it's reasonable to suspect Google for not having an incentive to fix this. They get their ad money either way, and they probably get more of it from worse sites. As long as it's good enough to keep people from switching to other search engines en masse, they're not losing anything.