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Author Topic: Firebrick Ltd - unloved by Google  (Read 2685 times)

Weaver

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Firebrick Ltd - unloved by Google
« on: June 24, 2018, 06:40:48 AM »

Trying to Google “Firebrick” - as in the small company that makes router - is almost impossible. I am wondering exactly why Google hates them so much. There is the issue of the space vs no space ie "fire brick", a common noun, to confuse matters. The company’s website is perhaps not well connected on the web and just doesn't have a good Google page rank or whatever. What should they be doing to make themselves a bit easier to locate for the convenience of lazy web users like me ?

I don't know enough about how to use Google. How to say “exactly, literally this” and forbidding it from breaking up the single word I specified, just because it feels like it. It also does not seem to be interested in taking notice of the initial capital letter which indicates that this is a proper noun.

I seem to remember some way of finding out which other web pages link to a given page but I forget just now.
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johnson

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Re: Firebrick Ltd - unloved by Google
« Reply #1 on: June 24, 2018, 06:55:48 AM »

I don't know enough about how to use Google. How to say “exactly, literally this” and forbidding it from breaking up the single word I specified, just because it feels like it. It also does not seem to be interested in taking notice of the initial capital letter which indicates that this is a proper noun.

Heh, you hit upon it already - quotes.

firebrick.co.uk is the first hit for me with the term "firebrick", with quotes.

Edit: well maybe I typed too soon, its probably my google bubble that gets me straight to their website, its nowhere to be seen in duckduckgo's results

Also:
Quote
Base model £500+VAT

Seriously? I'm sure its a fine device but that is pricey.
« Last Edit: June 24, 2018, 07:07:13 AM by johnson »
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roseway

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Re: Firebrick Ltd - unloved by Google
« Reply #2 on: June 24, 2018, 07:11:59 AM »

There's no difficulty here finding firebrick without quotes using StartPage as the search engine. Apart from the advertised results at the top, the first three results are firebrick.co.uk.
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  Eric

Weaver

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Re: Firebrick Ltd - unloved by Google
« Reply #3 on: June 24, 2018, 07:14:08 AM »

It used to be a lot more than that. I paid £900 for my FB2700 “fully loaded” model. I have an FB2500 too. I suppose that doing their own hardware means that they don't have the economy of scale that the high volume manufacturers have.

I absolutely love mine.
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Ronski

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Re: Firebrick Ltd - unloved by Google
« Reply #4 on: June 24, 2018, 08:33:42 AM »

No problem Googling firebrick here,  I get numerous  results for the correct site.
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Weaver

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Re: Firebrick Ltd - unloved by Google
« Reply #5 on: June 24, 2018, 09:58:28 AM »

Maybe it is something to do with Apple because I did it in Safari on the top line of the browser. I should have also tried going straight to the Google website.
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4candles

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Re: Firebrick Ltd - unloved by Google
« Reply #6 on: June 24, 2018, 03:09:44 PM »

From here, googling firebrick as one word with no quotes gives the first four results for the router/firewall company.
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sevenlayermuddle

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Re: Firebrick Ltd - unloved by Google
« Reply #7 on: June 24, 2018, 04:00:21 PM »

Maybe it is something to do with Apple because I did it in Safari on the top line of the browser.

I normally search for stuff from the google home page, but I just searching from address bar, on Safari on an iPad, iSO 11.2.5, for the word firebrick, unquoted.

The top line presented was a list of ‘shopping’ results for building materials.
The second line, and first proper search result, was firebrick.co.uk.   :-\

It is not a search term I have used much, if ever, before, so I don’t think Google would have been giving me preferential treatment on basis of search history.

But, from their cookies, they do know I spend a lot of time on this website where firebricks (networking products) are widely discussed.  So they could deduce I have at least a passing interest.  Same may apply to other forum members too?
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Chrysalis

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Re: Firebrick Ltd - unloved by Google
« Reply #8 on: June 24, 2018, 05:10:38 PM »

I doubt google have done anything negative, its just a name that matches very common terms so will struggle to get anywhere via search terms.
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Weaver

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Re: Firebrick Ltd - unloved by Google
« Reply #9 on: June 24, 2018, 05:31:08 PM »

That is good then - it is just my iPad being strange, going straight to the google website seems to be a different matter.
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spring

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Re: Firebrick Ltd - unloved by Google
« Reply #10 on: June 24, 2018, 05:45:21 PM »

On google.com with United States results it's nowhere to be found: https://www.google.com/search?gws_rd=cr&gl=us&hl=en&num=30&q=firebrick
On google.com with "unbiased results" it's found: https://www.google.com/search?gws_rd=cr&hl=en&num=30&q=firebrick

With the 2nd link in this post, I get an Israeli site: that too, is biased - but not as much.
« Last Edit: June 24, 2018, 05:48:38 PM by spring »
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4candles

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Re: Firebrick Ltd - unloved by Google
« Reply #11 on: June 24, 2018, 10:49:39 PM »

On google.com with United States results it's nowhere to be found
:hmm: That's ringing a small bell...
Some while ago a friend with an iPad was having problems with Google.
He's not at all tech savvy, so hadn't altered anything, and it seemed that Safari by default was accessing google.com. Changed it to google.co.uk and all was well.
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sevenlayermuddle

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Re: Firebrick Ltd - unloved by Google
« Reply #12 on: June 24, 2018, 11:06:51 PM »

I was under the impression that google.com, when accessed from an IP known to be in the uk, would silently redirect to google.co.uk.  Hence, regardless of .com or .co.uk,  you would get UK-biassed results.

Until recently you could override the redirect, by specifying google.com/ncr (ncr being “no country redirect”), in which case a search would give results as seen by Google’s home audience, in USA.   That was very useful, to the extent I once had www.google.com/ncr configured as my default search engine,  but I don’t think the ncr suffix makes any difference these days.
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spring

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Re: Firebrick Ltd - unloved by Google
« Reply #13 on: June 25, 2018, 12:24:12 AM »

Yeah so now I think there is no way to make them completely unbiased [I wish I knew if there isn't so I didn't hope], but gws_rd=cr that I use now is close enough.

I use this search engine on Firefox [don't know other browsers]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/google-no-country-redirect/

Note it searches with gl=US so search results are for United States: but this way I'm not seeing random Israeli domains at least.

Also, google.com [global domain] has different search results from google.co.il [Israel].

Before this using /ncr on any domain like google.co.il led to clean unbiased .com, good old times.

Quote
I was under the impression that google.com, when accessed from an IP known to be in the uk, would silently redirect to google.co.uk.  Hence, regardless of .com or .co.uk,  you would get UK-biassed results.
Maybe he had it .co.uk and it later on got set to google.com, or the browser decided to request .com


https://image.ibb.co/m9iHeo/with_gl_US.png
https://image.ibb.co/etmsC8/without_gl_US.png
« Last Edit: June 25, 2018, 01:02:46 AM by spring »
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