Is Google getting less Googletastic?

I was reading a couple of blogs about SEO (search engine optimization) and it made me think about Google and how it's awesomeness seems to be failing.

I still remember the days of Yahoo, Ask Jeeves, Alta Vista and the other old school search engines. It wasn't a particularly great age of the internet back then. I had a small search aggregater that would do simultaneous searches on several search engines. That made things better, but it was a bit slow. The nice thing was that you could happily chance upon sites you never would have found on your own. Surfing at it's best.

Then Google started to blossom.

Google became the go-to search portal. All the cool kids were using it. Google left every other search engine in the dust because it did good searches. It was that plain and simple. Sure, there was a certain quality of coolness about it, but it was really the searches that set it apart.

Over the years, Google improved their algorithms and improved the quality of searches. That was a good thing. I still missed some of the old search engines and the fact that you could use them to get slightly different results, but the trade off was acceptable.

There's been a change going on lately though.

It seems that Google searches really aren't that great anymore. Maybe it's just me, but it seems like there are fewer really relevant hits and a lot more current event and commercial hits. Check it out the next time you Google something.

I'm not sure what this means - maybe nothing at all - but it does worry me a bit. When searches become nothing more than advertising, they become essentially worthless. Sometimes you want the Yellow Pages. Sometimes you really do want know how to make a spinning wheel and not buy one, or learn about Abraham Lincoln and not open an account at Lincoln National Savings and Loan.

Well...that's that...back to the Olympics and the new Blackberry.