Recently, a colleague posted a celebrity lookalike photo of her kids on Facebook. Needing a break, I thought I’d try it too, especially since people are always telling my daughter that she looks like Rachel from Glee.
Since there was no clear link to where the celebrity mashups had come from, I went to Google and searched for ‘my celeb lookalike’ – the exact name that was used in her posts on Facebook.
The most promising result (in position #5) was findmycelebritylookalike.com, so I clicked on that and somehow ended up in AOL search results. So…. from the Google SERPs to the AOL SERPs.
Searching. Again.
From the top AOL search results, believe it or not, the most promising result looked to be a paid listing from Ask.com. That takes me to the SERPs from Ask.com, which gave me a bunch of results that were even further from what I was initially looking for.
From one search, I’ve now seen the Google SERPs, the AOL SERPs, and now the Ask.com SERPs. Really?
Google – What are you doing?
I NEVER wanted to be taken to someone else’s SERPs from yours when I do a search. Never, never, never, ever. If I wanted to search on their search engine i would have.
What in the world are you thinking? How can an algorithm as sophisticated as yours not see that link goes to AOL’s SERPs?
Worse yet is that each progressive click takes me not closer to what I’m searching for, but further away. I’m well aware that search is complicated, but the user experience from something like this is so awful I might have to switch to Bing.
(By the way, I did eventually find a celebrity look-a-like site. It said I most resemble Sam Elliott. The next best alternatives were Dennis Weaver, Mark Ruffalo, and Kim Rossi Stuart (don’t worry, I had to look him up too). Finally, at 60% match… O. J. Simpson. Still, better than the other site that said I most resemble Albert Einstein. Don’t spend too much time on this, folks.)
I'm passionate about digital marketing, customer service, personal branding, and education. My posts here will mostly focus on those subjects, though I can't preclude the very real possibility of a rant or two now and then. And I have a very snarky sense of humor, though it's never mean-spirited.
In addition to being a digital marketing consultant, I'm the Program Director for the Internet Marketing degrees at Full Sail University. I love my job(s)!
I'm also a father, a son, a brother and a friend - all of which are way more important than what I 'do' for a living.
Glad I am not the only one experiencing this mayhem! I thought it was something I was doing, but really – how can you mess up a “search”?! Isn’t it supposed to be for “every (wo)man”!
So the real question is Rob – do you think Google has had any time to even know this is happening? Maybe they are so busy trying to beat Facebook, they have abandoned the search ship!? Crazy stuff!
I’m not sure, Sharon. I’d think that they wouldn’t intentionally link to AOL’s SERPs; that seems pretty bizarre to me.
Rob (long time..hope you are well),
You do realize that AOL Search is powered by Google right?
They signed an extended 5-year deal..
“The global alliance, which has at its core Google’s provision of search services to AOL’s content network and properties, in exchange for a revenue-sharing arrangement between AOL and Google…”
So it is natural that they will jump SERPS, especially if you clicked a result that was referenced off of an AOL results page.
Either way..Google gets paid.
Joel – Good point, though I still maintain it’s really bad usability to take me from one results page to another. You’re making me click again.
(And I am doing great; hope you are too!)