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Edgar D' Souza [mailto:edgar -dot- b -dot- dsouza -at- gmail -dot- com] said:
> > I can't imagine anyone _not_ wanting their site to be one
> of the first
> > ones found. Otherwise, why make a site?
>
> No, no, you're looking at it from the wrong perspective :-)
> There's THEM... all those people crowding Google to get you to go to
> their sites so they can sell you someone else's product with their
> extra markup... and variants of that theme. And there's US - the
> people doing the searching, who may not really want to find all those
> people who want their sites to be found! :-)
>
> A simple example - you're searching for specs on KVM-over-IP switches,
> and want the manufacturer's pages rather than the thousand and one
> other online stores retailing it - not just because the retailers
> usually have a higher price, but because you want the nitty gritty on
> each device, to make sure it satisfies the criteria you've been
> given.. and the retailer sites usually contain nothing more than a
> short blurb that's practically useless as far as tech specs go.
OK, but I just use the reseller pages as sources for manufacturer names,
and as an informal ranking of manufacturers. The text on the opening
page(s) of the reseller site will usually indicate whether they are
selling to Joe Public (shopping for in-home stuff) or Joe Rackmount,
shopping for heavy-duty industrial versions, either of which might apply
to my particular need, depending on circumstance. Then my second search
looks for the brand, which almost always returns the manufacturer.
However, that said, I probably want a reviewer or comparison site (a la
Tom's Hardware or any of several others) to tell me how the models and
manufacturers compare, and what's considered important to look for.
In any event, if I don't see what I'm looking for on the first two or
three pages, it's rare that I'll continue paging past that point in the
results. Instead, I'll use what I did find (whether positive or negative
result) to guide and refine my next search.
Oh, while I think of it, I guess I can respond to something that Geoff
said.
When I tweak my search terms and hit Search again, I don't think of it
as having acquired a boat-load of wheat-and-chaff and having tossed out
some chaff and now looking through what remains. I think of it as a
completely new search that just happens to be informed by the result of
my previous search.
In my mind, it's similar to buying a lottery ticket. None of your past
activity in that lottery has any effect on your current ticket and its
chances. It's a fresh dive into the sea of numbers (or web pages) each
time. Contrast that with a card game, where the pool shrinks as you
draw cards.
- K
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