The search, it is a-changing

So, pagerank is failing me lately.

Like almost everyone else, I start almost all my web browsing typing words, urls, ideas into a search field — all funneled through the mighty Google. It’s worked for years. Enough web surfing has trained my eyeballs to avoid most ads — and for a while I’ve known to avoid most SEO-heavy topics (you won’t find me doing a lot of “[product] reviews” searches, at least without a fair amount of cursing).

But for the last few days, I’ve noticed a couple of searches failing me. I had a mysql problem earlier this week and all my searches turn up results from 2007. Some due to the fact that the problems date back that long — but there’s newer information that I don’t find, because over and over that 2007 information is what’s getting linked to.

And recently, I am looking for information about using a Mac Mini as a home theater PC. Same results, 2007, 2008. Nothing recent. Again, there’s newer discussion and newer information that I want — but I’m not getting it, because all the links are pointing at that old information.

I’m looking for discussion/conversation/real people experiences, and I’m not really patient to dig through ad-flash-heavy forum packages to find what I want.

And then I remembered twitter search. Not quite sure about it yet, but it’s more of what I’m looking for after a page or two of commentary.

Google is in trouble.