Hi, how come when I submit the seach term ("flight tracker" europe) in
google, the first page of results are ALL commercial sites wishing to
sell me tickets?  I don't want to buy tickets -- I want to track some
European flights (which used to be possible with thetrip.com (but even
they now redirect to cheaptickets.com).  Seems to me google is
becoming less and less useful and kowtowing to the travel industry (or
anyone else wishing to get there commercial site listed first).

Greetings, asciiquestion!

(I like your username!)

Google has not kowtowed or sold out to ANY industry -- the Ranking of
their Search Engine results are still undoctored by human hands,
rather they are determined by a very complex computer algorithm which
is applied equally to ALL websites.

I think that a slightly different search text string will do the trick
for you:

tracking European flights
://www.google.com/search?q=tracking+European+flights

The first result is an EZBoard forum post by Lynda, who says:
"The link for tracking European flights is
www.telmeglobaltraveller.com/tc.dll?"
http://pub133.ezboard.com/ffearofflying74562frm3.showMessage?topicID=163.topic

Actually, if you go to 
http://www.telmeglobaltraveller.com
on the right-hand side, under "Travel Extras", you can pull down the
menu selection "Flight Tracker", which brings you to the URL specified
by Lynda.
Quite a few European Airlines are listed.

The 4th Search result leads to ThirtyThousandFeet.com
http://www.thirtythousandfeet.com/track.htm

This page has a list of websites where you can track flights,
including
The Air Travel Center:
"Airline and air courier flight tracking for U.S., Canadian, and
European flights.  Also, orbital flight tracking for manned and
unmanned spacecraft."
http://airtravelcenter.com/query2.htm

and FlyteComm, which despite the description  "Track the status of any
flight arriving or departing the United States or Canada.", appears to
track European Airlines as well.
http://www.flytecomm.com/cgi-bin/trackflight
 
Another good search text string is

European flight tracking
://www.google.com/search?q=European+flight+tracking

Here the 3rd Search result leads to Real Time Flight Tracking
http://www.service-co.com/flightcheck.html
which has quite a few European Airlines listed.


Before Rating my Answer, if you have any questions about the above
information, please post a Request for Clarification, and I will be
delighted to see what I can do for you.
 
Regards,
 
aceresearcher

Superb!  Yes, I should have known to rephrase my search strategy -- I
was just in a rush to get the information and became very frustrated
at pages of cheaptickets.whatever links.  Very informative -- great
links.  Enjoy the tip!

Google kowtow?  Hardly.

Seems you are taking this awfully personally, thinking google even
"made a decision" to do this, which I assure you they did not. Maybe
it's operator error, or you could be stuck in a holding pattern...

Try different keyword combinations, like:

"track flight" europe

OR: 

"track flight" "real time" 

...for starters.  The first few results have absolutely nothing to do
with selling tickets, as long as you aren't looking at the sponsered
links/ads on the right (which are not google results). Imagine my
surprise at seeing several flight trackers on the first page of
results. I have no idea whether they lead to cheaptickets.com though,
but I thought I'd at least get you out of the loop you were in.

Hope this helps,
~~Cynthia

Most of the European airlines offer their own flight trackers, or at
least Flight Status indicators, as do many of the airports.

For instance, Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport offers links to their own
arriving and departing flights on their home page, with links labeled
(in Dutch) "Vertrek tijden" and "Aankomst tijden".

Schiphol Airport
http://www.schiphol.nl/

Scandanavian Airlines (SAS) offers a Flight Status page:

SAS Flight Status 
http://ibp2.scandinavian.net/flightstatus/FlightStatus.asp?MKT=SE

Regretably, there doesn't seem to be a single source which tracks
multiple airlines across the multiple countries of Europe. The
Trip.com flight tracker is still available from CheapTickets, however,
it only tracks single country (USA) flights as well.

Former Trip.com Flight Tracker
http://www.cheaptickets.com/trs/cheaptickets/flighttracker/flight_tracker_home.xsl

--- larre

asciiquestion,

Thank you for the Excellent Rating and the generous tip!

I hope that you were able to find exactly what you needed!

Best Wishes,

ace

asciiquestion, 

You sound much more relaxed... I love happy endings!  Everyone wins...

~~Cynthia