Re: (TV) Bands you can't Google

[Joe Hartley <jh@brainiac.com>]

On Wed, 11 Aug 2010 12:12:37 -0700 (PDT)
Phil Obbard <pobbard@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Anyone who's ever looked for Television-related stuff on eBay or Froogle won't 
> be surprised by this:
> 
> http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2010/08/unglued-bands-you-cant-google.html

I was going to say that they left The The off the list, but giving it a try showed 
that Google got it right, and that the first entry was the band's Wikipedia page.

So I started trying the others.

Television: second entry is the Wikipedia page for our friends.
Final Fantasy:  20 entries before you find the band and/or Owen Pallett.
Cinderella: First entry is their website
Health: 6th entry is their MySpace page
The Game: 3rd entry is his Wikipedia page
Love: 2nd entry goes to Wikipedia
The XX: All entries on my screen relate to the band.
Girls: First entry goes to their Myspace
!!!: Total failure.  This isn't just a Google problem, though - how would a
     DJ announce their music on the air?
fun: 3rd entry points to Myspace
The Band: Lots of entries right at the top.

A poorly researched article. I give Google an A- for these results

Let's see how other search engines do:

Bing
----
The The: utter failure, nothing on the first 5 pages
Television: 3rd link
Final Fantasy: halfway down 2nd page
Cinderella: first link
Health: Nothing on first 5 pages
The Game: 2nd link
Love: not on first 5 pages (but links to the awful cartoon "Love is..." make it???)
The XX: all links on first page are relevant
Girls: Page 4 links to a Pitchfork review
!!!: No results
fun: 2nd link
The Band: Most entries on the page are relevant.  Funny note - the 4th entry
          is for The The.

Bing gets a D for complete failure on The The and Love.

Yahoo
-----
The The: all entries on first page are relevant
Television: Nothing until page 16(!) which links to their last.fm page
Final Fantasy: 4th & 6th entries on 1st page
Cinderella: first link
Health: Nothing on first 5 pages
The Game: First link
Love: Last link on first page
The xx: all links on first page
Girls: myspace link on 2nd page
!!!: no results
fun: 2nd link on 2nd page
The Band: most links on 1st page are relevant

Yahoo also gets a D for deep failure on Television.

It's clear to me that Google remains the best search engine, and that MS
is dreaming if they think Bing's engine is anywhere close to Google's.
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