Is It Me Or Is Google Less Useful?

Going through the process of setting up a new apartment in the UK, I’ve found myself Googling a whole bunch of things that normally I wouldn’t need to. For instance, where can I find a desk and chair to set up a home office? Back in Australia I know of a bunch of different stores that would have that kind of thing so I wouldn’t bother searching for it. Here though, I wind up searching for “home office furniture” and get a whole bunch of online only retailers of widely varying reliability. Even if they’re all completely legit – why doesn’t something like IKEA turn up when that’s what all the locals recommended (somewhat grudgingly admittedly)?

Now I’m trying to find a teleconferencing provider that offers at least UK dial-in numbers – preferably a range of European countries and all Google’s turning up is a bunch of “free” providers that seem to offer free calls if you just call into their premium number. Seems to be about as free as calling a psychic hotline… Maybe they could at least tell me where to find some decent furniture…

The impression I get is that if you’re looking to buy anything or are generally looking for information on anything commercial Google will just feed you a bunch of spam. I’d revert to the yellow pages but it doesn’t seem to know the difference between teleconferencing and telecommunications since it’s categories are so broad. I’ve found the same problem when I’ve been searching for information on various printers and digital cameras – nearly all the results were from online stores rather than less biased reviews and experiences using the products. I guess those SEO guys really do have an effect – sadly it seems to be a bad one.