This morning I was using Google to do a search for "springfield mo marketing".  I was actually looking for a local blog that deals with the topic.  But I assumed that the majority of the results I'd get would have to do with marketing agencies in Springfield.  I think that's a valid assumption, no?

To my supreme irritation, that's not what I got.

Instead, I was presented with 4 pages of results that were largely dominated by two sites:  jobs.net and careerbuilder.com.  In fact, about half of the results were from various subdomains of careerbuilder.com that 1) were links to search results and 2) all had almost the exact same content.

Google is apparently frowning on search results in search results unless they "add value".  One set of search results for "springfield mo marketing" jobs is fine.  But two dozen?  Some of the domains include:

• salesmarketing.careerbuilder.com
• sales-marketing.careerbuilder.com
• sales-marketing.msn.careerbuilder.com

How is that not search engine spam?  Isn't this what supplemental search results are supposed to be used for?  You have to traverse 40 results before you actually get to a Springfield marketing agency in Google.

To be fair, I repeated the same search in Yahoo, Live.com, Ask.com, and Dogpile.  In all honesty, every one of them was at least a little better than Google.  Of the whole group, Dogpile returned the best useful results.  Live.com was (surprisingly) a close second.

Has Google always been this full of repeat, spammy results and I've just never noticed?