@Dave I know you are not in charge of the internet, but a weird thing has been happening. For about a month I have been getting garden.org to show up less and less in my google searches. It used to be the top one or two choices and has slipped from there. I know I can look the plant up on the site. Usually when I want to evaluate a plant for purchase, I would Google the name. Garden.org came up and places that sold it and articles about it. Then I flip back and forth between them all looking and reading. Or if there were two similar cultivars I would do the same on two tabs comparing them against each other.

So this is an example what happens now when looking for a rose. Wanting to evaluate Our Lady Of Guadalupe rose. Googled it by name. Garden.org did not appear. Read about it but needed more info. So I googled "Our Lady of Guadalupe garden.org " wanting to get Garden.org to appear. It would not. I had to go to my icon to get into the site and type the name in on the site.

Edited to say, First search was "Our Lady of Guadalupe Rose"
Second search "Our Lady of Guadalupe Rose garden.org"

In the past on some plants, Garden.org would be the only search return option. Rare plant or older plant unusual name etc. Now I get a zero return. For awhile I would add garden.org to the name to thwart it not showing up. But that does not seem to work now I get empty searches.

Is garden.org not coming up because I have a shortcut icon and Google thinks if I wanted this site I would use my icon. Or is this a NET NEUTRALITY issue and garden.org will not come up even when I ask for it in a search?

I hope I am explaining it correctly.

May Everyone be blessed with a spectacular week!

You are not alone. I've noticed the same thing. Unfortunately, I don't remember to jot down notes when this happens.

Google revises their search algorithms on a regular basis, but I'm surprised at the varying results you are seeing.

Are you able to force Google to limit their search to garden.org by including "site:garden.org" in your search (note that just putting "garden.org" in the search bar doesn't actually limit it to this site, but actually uses it as a search term, so it could include any site that mentions it)?

@Australis I could try it. Without doing it I used to get garden.org as one of the top three choices. Then I started getting Dave's Garden a revised site but no new info, and Houzz with forum info.
At that point garden.org took a real dive in not being in the first couple of pages. So that's when I added garden.org and things went back to normal. Then after a couple of weeks it was always ads, more garbage and no garden info, etc.. Just thought I would bring it up in case it was a Net Neutrality thing. I remember in the early days of the internet the only way to find a site was to actually type in its address. Searching for the address did not even yield the site. Something struck me as not right and reminded me of that.

If I know garden.org exists and have a problem "finding it" what about all the people who need gardening help and garden.org does not come up as an option for them.

Many blessings for your success!

So once again, I failed to take notes. I think I can remember several searches and will try them again.

Australis said: force Google to limit their search to garden.org by including "site:garden.org" in your search

Doubt if I'd use it, but if I were to add that to a search, would I use the quotation marks? Also, I'm guessing that I'd put the plant name before the site or does it matter?

Thanks.

Hi @tx_flower_child,

No need to add the quotes (that was just me trying to highlight exactly what needed to be in the search) and you can put site:garden.org before or after your search term (doesn't matter which order you put them in).

That's good to know. Thanks, Joshua.