You might have noticed that several Google AdWords were taken out to ensure newspapers and the Government got top listing for the budget. In other words, Google's index for this term is pretty useless and the only way to get noticed is to pay. Do you suspect a link there? Could Google's index be "second best", forcing people to advertise to get what they want? Gosh, how cynical...!

That's a thought...but I don't think it's true. The Google system acts independently of people for indexing things, so there's no interference. It's just that the system is not as intelligent as humans and not as clever as many businesses expect it to be.

How disingenuous can you get?

You began your article citing "Alistair Darling's first budget" because you realized that starting an article with "The budget" wouldn't give your readers enough information about what "budget" you meant and yet you fault Google for not providing you with the proper articles when you search for "budget". As if they should know any more than a reader would.

Had you searched for "Alistair Darling's budget" low and behold guess what pop's up.

The vast majority of people who search for "budget" are most likely searching for the car rental company and Google has got it right. Anyone searching for a government budget would know to add the particular government in question and those who don't would realize their mistake the minute they saw the results for using a keyword that is too general.

It would be far more damaging for Google if Darling's budget showed up if I used the term "budget." I would expect to find info on the rental company.

You said,

"In other words, humans already know where to go for the information; they don't need Google."

Please, humans would use Google and they do all the time but they use the "right" keywords.

Garbage in = garbage out.

I refuse to believe you didn't know enough to use the correct keywords so I have to ask why you would create such a false impression of Google's capabilities. You are only harming yourself as this article shows you to be either incompetent or deceitful.

Thanks for taking the time to comment. I of course disagree...! I actually asked several people what words or phrases they would use to search for the UK budget before I wrote the article. They all told me they would simply search for "budget" or "the budget". Besides which, Wordtracker is reporting zero searches for the phrase "Alistair Darling's budget", which kind of suggests it's not what people would type in. As my mini survey shows and Wordtracker suggests, people would search for "budget". The Google search results for "Alistair Darling's budget" are spot on - exactly what we would want to read. However, this kind of makes my point for me. Google is presenting brilliant results for terms people are not looking for. The terms they are looking for, such as "budget", appear to be weaker.

What is clear is that people rarely use the "right" keywords. The frustration that many people find online using search engines is that they have to keep repeating searches with different keywords and phrases until they find what they want. In other words, Google usually fails to provide what people want. You can say they are not using the "right" keywords if you like. But in suggesting that you are asking people to fall in line with Google, rather than asking Google to fall in line with people.

I'm neither being deceitful or incompetent; I'm merely saying that the capabilities of Google are yet to catch up with the abilities of the human mind.