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Ask HN: Let's build an HN uBlacklist to improve our Google search results?

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Re: Ask HN: Let's build an HN uBlacklist to improve our Google search results?

#181

Post by technofiend »

JonathanBuchh wrote: post #112
stevenleeg wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using Kagi over the last few days and have actually been pleasantly surprised with it performing better than both Google and DDG for my use cases. It's still free during the beta so might be worth giving it a shot.

I’ve also been using https://kagi.com for the past couple of days and have found the search results to be unparalleled to both Google and DuckDuckGo. I haven’t come across any SEO spam and the results seem to be of better quality overall. They have all of the same bangs DDG uses and get results from Bing, Google, and a bespoke index. Because they query Bing and Google, it will be pretty expensive when it launches (it…

Signed up for the beta, but their signup page has one annoyance... clicking back doesn't take you back one page in the signup process, it ejects you to the top but your answers are saved. Fine if it's an honest mistake, weird if it's an aesthetic choice, not a good idea if it's an indicator of how they plan to be different. It would be much better to prove how smart they are by fixing google's search than "fixing" well-established UI patterns.

Re: Ask HN: Let's build an HN uBlacklist to improve our Google search results?

#182

Post by Closi »

schleck8 wrote: post #159
Closi wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Im afraid this is potentially dangerously political. It only took 7 days for that other search engine project on HN last week (Mwmbl) to add hard-coded weights for certain news websites, so it does show how careful you have to be with this stuff. https://github.com/mwmbl/mwmbl/blob/a41088ca9ad7fdcac952a3be...

What's the issue with that? Doesn't Google do this too, based on ssl availability for instance?

Well Google testified against having hardcoded weights for news websites in congress.

And the issue is because it creates filter bubbles and introduces bias into how information is discovered.

Re: Ask HN: Let's build an HN uBlacklist to improve our Google search results?

#183

Post by endisneigh »

tyingq wrote: post #176
endisneigh wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great example of why "Google sucks!!11" is mainly FUD. Let's say you're looking for the SO link, which is #2 for Google. Let's compare: Google ("code that protects users from accidentally invoking the script when they didn't intend to") Link: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22code+that+protects+users+... SO - #2 Bing ("code that protects users from accidentally invoking the script when they didn't intend t…

I'm not sure it's a good example, really. It's an "exact phrase search" with quotes, which doesn't happen much in real life. It was helpful solely to show what some of these leech sites are. Searching for (without quotes): What does if __name__ == "__main__": do? Is probably a better test of which search engine has better results for the real-life query. Google might still win, but it should do a better job of screen…

All the search engines have seen massive increases in SEO and consequently, spam. Do you believe Google et al isn’t working on it?

It’s obviously a very difficult problem.

Re: Ask HN: Let's build an HN uBlacklist to improve our Google search results?

#184

Post by upbeat_general »

fsflover wrote: post #67

This looks like a big, time-consuming project that would rely on a private Google API that can change any time. I think it's not worth to invest your effort into that. I wish more people would help to improve FLOSS, peer-to-peer search engine YaCy instead, https://yacy.net .

I’m not sure why you think that a domain blocklist would be harder than custom search engine development.

Plus there’s no private Google API here, just an extension that removes search results from the page. I suppose you could say the extension APIs are from Google (Chromium) but they’re certainly not private and are commonly used.

Re: Ask HN: Let's build an HN uBlacklist to improve our Google search results?

#185

Post by lkbm »

siva7 wrote: post #6

I think we are attacking the wrong angle here. This should be solved at google

I coincidentally tweeted a reply[0] to your comment a couple minutes before seeing it:

> If I end up having to solve a problem that's someone else's fault, yeah, sure, it's unfair.

> But if I end up having to live with a problem because you insist that we wait for the responsible party to fix it, knowing that they never will, that's more unfair.

[0] https://twitter.com/lkbm/status/1478425875578302464

Re: Ask HN: Let's build an HN uBlacklist to improve our Google search results?

#187

Post by fsflover »

upbeat_general wrote: post #184
fsflover wrote: post #67

This looks like a big, time-consuming project that would rely on a private Google API that can change any time. I think it's not worth to invest your effort into that. I wish more people would help to improve FLOSS, peer-to-peer search engine YaCy instead, https://yacy.net .

I’m not sure why you think that a domain blocklist would be harder than custom search engine development. Plus there’s no private Google API here, just an extension that removes search results from the page. I suppose you could say the extension APIs are from Google (Chromium) but they’re certainly not private and are commonly used.

Doesn't this extension depend on how exactly the ads are presented on the page? Can't this be changed by Google easily?

> I’m not sure why you think that a domain blocklist would be harder than custom search engine development.

I didn't say this. The custom search is already created. Helping it's development is much easier now. AFAIK it's main problem is the lack of hosted servers.

Re: Ask HN: Let's build an HN uBlacklist to improve our Google search results?

#188

Post by tyingq »

endisneigh wrote: post #183
tyingq wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure it's a good example, really. It's an "exact phrase search" with quotes, which doesn't happen much in real life. It was helpful solely to show what some of these leech sites are. Searching for (without quotes): What does if __name__ == "__main__": do? Is probably a better test of which search engine has better results for the real-life query. Google might still win, but it should do a better job of screen…

All the search engines have seen massive increases in SEO and consequently, spam. Do you believe Google et al isn’t working on it? It’s obviously a very difficult problem.

I believe they've become more complacent since there is no competitive pressure, yes.

Re: Ask HN: Let's build an HN uBlacklist to improve our Google search results?

#189

Post by Dig1t »

xwdv wrote: post #98
Abimelex wrote: post #94

Quoted post unavailable.

What reasons?

I can't comment on the parent here because its dead, but I just want to add:

I think the intent behind the original comment is coming from a good place and I agree that its sentiment is good, but also is it not obvious that trying to police other people's language is going to do nothing but increase division and resentment amongst your peers? Especially when the intent is so obviously not racist or exclusionary. I invite you to ask each one of your friends/family to honestly tell you if the sentence "I have blacklisted that website" makes them feel personally excluded or discriminated against.

Re: Ask HN: Let's build an HN uBlacklist to improve our Google search results?

#190

Post by jasonjayr »

fowkswe wrote: post #102
javajosh wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience with ddg has been very positive over the years. Although I think my eyes have gotten good at skipping over the noise in the search results. It might be nice to offload that effort to software.

DDG has no idea of the intent of your search based on your previous searches and unfortunately this generates abysmal results for me when searching for something like `ruby xxx`. Those terms rarely return results about the programming language. I unfortunately end up using Google in these situations, always to immediate success.

One of the biggest reasons to switch away from Google is to shed that "previous search" bias, and refine + refilter results till you hone in on what you want.

Leaving it to "the algorithm" to decide what to show you based on what it "thinks you want" from previous interactions turns the tool into no better than Twitter or Facebook optimizing engagement by showing you what they think you should see.

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