Why is google different?

[mist]

How does it come that I get fewer hits from google.com compared from google in other languages, like google.ca, .fr, .pt etc. Does it not use the same base or search algorithm for the whole google?

Can someone explain how this works for me?

[urb]

I was looking at some stats today and noticed quite an increase in traffic from foreign instances of Google.

But getting more traffic from foreign Google domains than Google.com is not what I would call a usual senario.

How long has your site been listed on Google for?

Are there any words which may be attracting foreign surfers?

[Surfn]

mist

I experience the same thing. Normally because each google has it own update schedule and some keywords "I use" are more prevalent among Europeans, or Asians.

[DangerDave]

I am not sure of the exact reason.. but speed/time of updates would be my educated guess... google.com updates far more often than it's foreign partners..

Will see if I can find a definitive answer

DD

[xxxjay]

I found this over on GYF. I don't believe it, but it's worth a laugh.

From IndyMedia
10-13-3

Google-Watch.org - a site looking into the worry implications of
Google's near monopoly of web search engines.

Take a look at this...
<http://google-watch.org/>
1. Google's immortal cookie:

Google was the first search engine to use a cookie that expires in 2038. This was at a time when federal websites were prohibited from using persistent cookies altogether. Now it's years later, and immortal cookies are commonplace among search engines; Google set the standard because no one bothered to challenge them. This cookie places a unique ID number on your hard disk. Anytime you land on a Google page, you get a Google cookie if you don't already have one. If you have one, they read and record your unique ID number.

2. Google records everything they can:

For all searches they record the cookie ID, your Internet IP address, the time and date, your search terms, and your browser configuration. Increasingly, Google is customizing results based on your IP number. This is referred to in the industry as "IP delivery based on geolocation."

3. Google retains all data indefinitely:

Google has no data retention policies. There is evidence that they are able to easily access all the user information they collect and save.

4. Google won't say why they need this data:

Inquiries to Google about their privacy policies are ignored. When the New York Times (2002-11-28) asked Sergey Brin about whether Google ever gets subpoenaed for this information, he had no comment.

5. Google hires spooks:

Matt Cutts, a key Google engineer, used to work for the National Security Agency. Google wants to hire more people with security clearances, so that they can peddle their corporate assets to the spooks in Washington.

6. Google's toolbar is spyware:

With the advanced features enabled, Google's free toolbar for Explorer phones home with every page you surf, and yes, it reads your cookie too. Their privacy policy confesses this, but that's only because Alexa lost a class-action lawsuit when their toolbar did the same thing, and their privacy policy failed to explain this. Worse yet, Google's toolbar updates to new versions quietly, and without asking. This means that if you have the toolbar installed, Google essentially has complete access to your hard disk every time you connect to Google (which is many times a day). Most software vendors, and even Microsoft, ask if you'd like an updated version. But not Google. Any software that updates automatically presents a massive security risk.

7. Google's cache copy is illegal:

Judging from Ninth Circuit precedent on the application of U.S. copyright laws to the Internet, Google's cache copy appears to be illegal. The only way a webmaster can avoid having his site cached on Google is to put a "noarchive" meta in the header of every page on his site. Surfers like the cache, but webmasters don't. Many webmasters have deleted questionable material from their sites, only to discover later that the problem pages live merrily on in Google's cache. The cache copy should be "opt-in" for webmasters, not "opt-out."

8. Google is not your friend:

Young, stupid script kiddies and many bloggers still think Google is "way kool," so by now Google enjoys a 75 percent monopoly for all external referrals to most websites. No webmaster can avoid seeking Google's approval these days, assuming he wants to increase traffic to his site. If he tries to take advantage of some of the known weaknesses in Google's semi-secret algorithms, he may find himself penalized by Google, and his traffic disappears. There are no detailed, published standards issued by Google, and there is no appeal process for penalized sites. Google is completely unaccountable. Most of the time they don't even answer email from webmasters.

9. Google is a privacy time bomb:

With 200 million searches per day, most from outside the U.S., Google amounts to a privacy disaster waiting to happen. Those newly-commissioned data-mining bureaucrats in Washington can only dream about the sort of slick efficiency that Google has already achieved.

http://google-watch.org
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2003/10/278746.html

[RawAlex]

Jay, I suspect that was written by the same people that wrote the Clinton Death List (the one with all the people Clinton supposedly knocked off). It is based on taking a little fact and a boat load of "possibles" to craft a good story. Most importantly, the "facts" they create are used to support one another.

#8 makes me laugh. Read it the right way: There are some flaws and hooks in the way Google ranks pages. If you take advantage of those hooks and then they change them, well, your fucked.

Cookie durations that long are often a programming thing. I think 2038 is the longest date out there you can put a cookie for (basically a forever cookie). 2038 is, from what I understand, the second y2k.

Basically, you can go through it all and find minor faults on the basic premise of each point. Once you start, you can easily see that much of this is "presumed" or "implied" stuff, preying on you not knowing about programming, browsers, and such. The info in point #2, as an example, is readily available to any webserver, as it is part of your http request. Almost everyone of those points is recorded by your own log files on your server.

Just one of those things...

Alex

[xxxjay]

I didn't say I believed it. I just read it.