Is Google search getting flaky lately?

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I searched for some information a month ago and found it no problem. It was on the first page of results. Just tried to find the same page again and can't find it. I'm sure I'm using the same search terms. Those results appearing on the first page now look more suitable for page 20 of the results they are so irrelevant. I'm even getting some search items results linking to online meds and other dodgy sites. Not had this trouble with Google before.

A couple of times I've been convinced that Google doesn't find any more what it found earlier. Every time it was my own memory doing tricks.

Variate your search terms. Rearrange the terms. Try advanced search. You'll find it, not necessarily on the first page.

Also note that Google search results are not static. Results will depend upon other people's interests.

Recently I saw something about Google search results for any individual being tailored to be relevant to content in that person's emails. One would assume that doing a search without being logged into Google would avoid this, but I'm not clear exactly how they are doing this. The news item that mentioned this kept reiterating that people's emails were NOT read by real people but only scanned by machines. I'm not sure if that is reassuring or not.

In the time that has passed between the beginning of the commonly understood "internet" and today, I find that "search engines" are more and more giving you the results THEY want you to have, and not what you are asking for.

Many sites I knew of have vanished and cannot be found in Google...even if I list them by name.

In the end, if you don't know the IP address of the site you want to go to, eventually the domain name will mean nothing. They'll just redirect you to where THEY want you to surf.

I've found that since google started to take payments for companies to be listed on google shopping, there has been a tendency for commercial results to be at the top of the search list more than ever. Even if I specifically search for a review of a product, I'm having to wade through 3-4 pages of shop based results before I find an actual review. It was never like this before, and I'm sure its all down to google putting commerce before actual search results. Its getting really hard to do good research on the net now because the search results are so unreliable.

I concur. I must have spent more than an hour trying different ways of expressing my query and still haven't found what I'm looking for. One of the attempts included the word 'donate' and the results were massively skewed with adverts from charities wanting donations. I gave up searching in the end. I was trying to find a letter template for something specific in French that I'd used a month ago - some official letters have a specific format that needs to be followed. Just can't find it now so I'll have to wing it and hope for the best.

I have the problem of finding more obscure stuff lately from specialist areas of knowledge. I can find information on something usually but all the sites in the top 100 are not very in-depth sites or they repeat material with eachother. I use a search engine called ixquick that pulls pages from other search engines but sometimes I am just looking for a popular site or page that I know of already so google is the one for that.

Yeah, Google sucks, since they became an advertising company. I miss the days when you could get the search results you wanted, rather then the ones Google wants you to have.

Me: Search for "mars".

Google: Search results for "mars candy bar".

Me: Search for "planet mars".

Google: Did you mean "mars candy bar"?

Me: No you stupid s**t for brains. If I wanted to search for a candy bar, I would have typed "candy bar". I am searching for "planet mars".

Google: Google doesn't have any advertisements to offer with a search for "planet mars". Would you like to search for "mars candy bar"?

Me: No f**ktards, I want to search "planet mars".

Google: 900,000,000 results for "planet mars".

I just tried Ixquick. That is very good. Maybe the best search engine I've have seen in the last few years.

On the down side I just searched my name with it, and got a little more information then I'd like to find about me on the internet.

Google has ceased to be a search engine. It spits out more paid advertisement and paid-for-being-on-top search results than actual matches to your query.