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Ask HN: Is it just me or did Google search recently get a lot worse?

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Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or did Google search recently get a lot worse?

#21

Post by nihil75 »

Timucin wrote: post #16

I've recently moved away from Google to DuckDuckGo, so didn't notice that but I noticed something similar on YouTube. For some reason, it keeps recommending the videos I already watched, the ones in my save for later and the most annoying one: the ones from the channels I marked as not interested. My recommendations also getting less and less relevant. They definitely changed something and broke a perfectly working s…

Second.YouTube keeps showing me the same (promoted?) videos on the right-hand bar, so I keep navigating back to the home page to get half-decent recommendations.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or did Google search recently get a lot worse?

#23

Post by twic »

Jefff8 wrote: post #18

Similar. I can't quantify, but I seem to be getting less useful results, certainly on the first page, and often beyond. I'm not sure it's not just perception though because I've not kept any log and it's also possible there are genuinely no matches to the searches I've been doing.

Also similar. What do we mean by "recent"? I feel like it got a lot worse a year or two ago, and has been consistently bad since then.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or did Google search recently get a lot worse?

#24

Post by the_other_guy »

I know that this post is about bashing Google since it's the big _evil_ boy and then slowly promoting DuckDuckGo since we are used to at least a weekly DDG shilling thread here in HN, but let me tell you the honest truth that Google is still the best search engine by far (e.g. indexing javascript content, accuracy based on your history for instance try searching "Prometheus" if you're a developer and again on not logged in account with another IP), the only other sea rch engine that comes close is Yandex especially for images. Nothing wrong if you like using DDG with for worse results accuracy and a fake sense of privacy if that's what you want, but please respect our intelligence here since 99% users of this website are software engineers and you know that DDG can't beat technically Google by any means.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or did Google search recently get a lot worse?

#26

Post by pi-victor »

I use DDG but when i wanted better results i used google. It gets harder to differentiate, they both miss the point.

Granted search engines are no psychics, you also need to better phrase your searches sometimes.

I remember Google used to return way more accurate results a few years ago. I guess privacy regulations, increasing demand for higher ad revenue have made it a lot worse than it used to be.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or did Google search recently get a lot worse?

#27

Post by TomMarius »

DarkWiiPlayer wrote: post #17
keiferski wrote: post #12

The "must include" functionality makes zero sense to me and I'm dumbfounded as to why it was ever added. If I didn't want my results to include a particular word, I wouldn't have included it in the search. Boggles my mind how Google could mess up something so simple.

Because people are dumb and type in entire questions or sentences, so google tries to be "smart" and remove words that hold no real meaning.

Actually I think it's useful to google whole questions - for forum thread titles. The problem of course is that Google does not search for the whole thing and wrapping it in quotes makes it useless as well.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or did Google search recently get a lot worse?

#29

Post by isostatic »

the_other_guy wrote: post #24

I know that this post is about bashing Google since it's the big _evil_ boy and then slowly promoting DuckDuckGo since we are used to at least a weekly DDG shilling thread here in HN, but let me tell you the honest truth that Google is still the best search engine by far (e.g. indexing javascript content, accuracy based on your history for instance try searching "Prometheus" if you're a developer and again on not log…

If google works for you, great.

> 99% users of this website are software engineers

Citation Needed

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or did Google search recently get a lot worse?

#30

Post by brazzledazzle »

I think Google is focusing on the friendlier natural “human” queries. I noticed this some time ago when I’d ask it in a “lazy” way because I’m tired or distracted. E.g. “What day is Mother’s Day?”, or “What time is it in London?” I’ve noticed it seems to be more and more optimized for this sort of query as time goes on, to the point that I use the quote modifiers in many (most?) of my searches and the other modifiers more frequently than I used to.

I suspect that the people who’ve noticed this and feel frustrated have, like me, been searching on Google since back when it was on its way to unseating Altavista/Yahoo/etc (or maybe somewhere between). But I don’t hold it against Google because they’re optimizing for the widest possible audience and if it makes it easier for most people I’m ok with being a little inconvenienced. As long as adding quotes or other modifiers kicks in the old/advanced search I’m ok with that price for something I not only don’t pay for, but don’t click on the ads for either.

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