Desperately Seeking Uruguay
Posted on May 18, 2007
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7 Comments
Have you noticed how hard it is to find information about Uruguay using search engines? It’s maddening! It has been said that searching for a piece of information contained somewhere in a US site is like trying to drink from a fire hose. If that’s the case, searching for information in Uruguayan sites is more like trying to drink from a clogged straw.
As you may know, Google uses the Page Rank (PR) algorithm to determine how “authoritative” or relevant a page is, based on how many pages link to it and how authoritative they are. If nobody links to a page, it will have a low PR. And in general, a page with a low PR will be displayed lower in the Google results list, although other factors are taken into consideration as well.
Unfortunately, most Uruguayan web sites have a very low PR, usually below 4 on a ten-point scale. For example, the main page of Conaprole and CUTCSA have a score of zero, Parmalat 2, Salus 3, Devoto, Tienda Inglesa, BROU and DGI (Uruguayan IRS) 4. For comparison, the Uruguay Dreaming blog has a score of 4! So according to Google, this blog is as relevant as the DNI. Yikes! In case you are curious, most large American companies score in the 6-8 range and government institutions 7-9. You can check the PR of any given site here.
The fact that there are many Spanish-speaking countries with vastly larger populations and with numerous higher-ranking sites also works against Uruguay. This means that information contained in Uruguayan sites is buried deep. It takes determination to find it.
Over the past few months I have done a lot of searches in order to research material for articles. In this process, I ended up learning a few techniques that improve the chances of finding relevant information from Uruguayan sites. Here are some tips:
Use the site:uy modifier after the search words. This limits the search to sites that end in .uy. Click here for an example. This technique is very useful, but has one limitation. Many Uruguayan companies make the mistake of choosing a .com or .net address. For example the site of the UCOT bus company is ucot.net and not ucot.com.uy as one might have guessed. Info contained on these companies’ sites may be virtually impossible to find in a blind search because they compete against all other sites in the .com or .net domain.
Keep in mind that word order affects the search. The effect is almost negligible for two word searches, but becomes more noticeable for searches involving three words or more. Change the order of the words before giving up.
If the search results contain an unrelated topic mixed in, refine the search by subtracting the word to be avoided. Click here for an example. You can further refine a search by limiting the search to indicate that the words must be in the title (as opposed to in the body of the text). The allintitle: operator can be used for that. Click here for an example.
Alternative words. Since there is relatively little information indexed in the .uy domain, it is important to use synonyms and alternative words before giving up.
Once you’ve found the site of a company and you are now interested in finding specific information within that site, use the site: modifier. Click here for an example.
Please refer to this site for a more complete Google search guide.
Interesting topic for a thesis in Computer Science: why Uruguayan web sites have a low Page Rank? Is it for lack of active web site marketing or is it because all Uruguayan sites are cross-linked in too small of a market?
Other posts in Uncategorized- Brazzie\'s Break
- Uruguay Dreaming Blog Statistics
- Articles about Uruguay Organized by Categories
- FAQ Announcement
- Frequently Asked Questions about Uruguay Dreaming
- Hard to Find Links to Uruguayan Resources
- Brazzie\'s Profile
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7 Responses to “Desperately Seeking Uruguay”
Excellent article!
Hi Brazzie. Good information. Not only is Uruguay off the beaten path geographically it’s also hiding on the Internet. We’ve come across the same frustrations as you have while looking for info on Uruguay.
Part of the lack of .com.uy domains I’m sure has to do with expense. To register a domain with Antel (dns.antel.net.uy) costs UY$1,000 a year (about US$40). Hosting with montevideo.com.uy starts at about US$15 a month for a very basic account (1 email address, 10mb disk space, no mySQL databases). A more advanced account (40mb, 20 email address, mySQL, and PHP) costs US$50 a month.
To register a .com and get hosting in the US can be about US$7 (or cheaper depending on what you need) a month for a much more complete hosting plan. I don’t know if there’s a low-cost host in the US that will host .com.uy domains (mine only does .com, .net, .org., .biz, .info, and .us).
Uruguay is a wonderful country but it has to make technology cheap for everybody. Right now it’s cheaper for an Uruguayan company or individual to buy their Internet hosting in the US than in their own country (which of course sends money and jobs out of Uruguay).
On another note I checked out the page ranking.
www.uruguaydreaming.com = 4
www.amavericko.com = 3
www.chuckstull.blogspot.com = 2
www.outinuruguay.com = 0
You’re the well-deserved leader of the pack! Your site is great. I hope you keep it going after you move down here.
Mike thanks for the great info. It helps explain why small companies would choose not to go with a .uy domain.
I would like to add that the Page Rank that we all can see is based on historical values that are only updated every three months or so ( http://www.seocompany.ca/pagerank/page-rank-update-list.html ), so outinuruguay has not been out enough for the value to be picked up.
www.fromuruguay.blogspot.com = 4 and is linked by FAR more blogs than UD.
Keep in mind that the Page Rank value does not “rate” the quality of a blog. I personally enjoy reading all the sites listed previously far more than I like to read mine own.
Brazzie, in browsing through your “UY Resources,” I’ve been stunned at the informative sites you’ve managed to ferret out. Most impressive, and an incredible resource. You have sites with information that I had given up hope of finding on the ‘net — and I can be pretty tenacious, so that’s saying a lot! Thanks for sharing some of your secrets!
Thanks Shirley. You are right, some of the sites listed are “impossible” to get with simple Google searches. Many of them were found by accident while searching for something else.
I should mention that many of the links in the UY Resources page were submitted by Enzo, so he deserves a lot of the credit for it being so complete.