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Ask HN: What's Up with Google?

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Re: Ask HN: What's Up with Google?

#201

Post by halpert »

superasn wrote: post #136
SnowflakeOnIce wrote: post #74

I've noticed in the past 2-3 months that results from StackOverflow, Wikipedia, and official programming language documentation sites seem to have been abruptly downranked. They used to typically be in the top 3 results for me for appropriate queries, but now they frequently aren't even on the first page.

Yes and on the other hand sites like codegrepper and other such scraper/scam sites are frequently showing in my search results - which are just SO results. I don't know if they're gaming Google's search or google is actually condoning this (like they've been condoning pinterest's shenanigans for almost 10 years now)

I genuinely believe it's because the scraper sites have more Google ads on them compared to Wikipedia and Stack Overflow. The ad load on returned search results has reached astronomic proportions. I use uBlock on my laptop, but it's almost impossible to view search results on my phone.

Re: Ask HN: What's Up with Google?

#202

Post by stephc_int13 »

richardsocher wrote: post #76
stephc_int13 wrote: post #62

I stopped using Google search (and most of their services) about three years ago. I used DDG for a while, but I was not convinced. Bing is average, not as good as Google once was, far from it in fact, but more relevant than the duck and less annoying than Google. But yeah, search is in a bad state.

Would love to hear your thoughts on you.com We're trying to innovate on various aspects of search, design, UX, AI, etc.

Not a huge fan of the domain name.

The landing page was not super clear about the usage, crowded.

I don't understand the service or the value here.

Re: Ask HN: What's Up with Google?

#204

Post by sebazzz »

black_puppydog wrote: post #170
sebazzz wrote: post #167

Try Kagi.com while its in free beta, and see if you like it.

I've been using kagi for a few weeks now and it's great! The only issue I have (and reported in their feedback form) is that it sometimes decides to log me out 3 times in an hour, so their session management could be better. But the results are great, with a clean UI and no BS. Definitely sth I'd pay a (small, but nonzero) amount for. Like 5 bucks or so a month.

Interesting, I've never been logged out.

Re: Ask HN: What's Up with Google?

#205

Post by tryauuum »

causality0 wrote: post #156

It's a rather standard tech company model: you build a product so good it becomes indispensable, then you stick the customers in a vice and squeeze until all the money comes out. "Produce the best search results" hasn't been the guiding principle for a good decade now. "Not growing is failing" is the most toxic principle of modern business. There is a finite amount of people, of money to be made. Ever-increasing inco…

That last line is enlightening.

Re: Ask HN: What's Up with Google?

#206

Post by ipaddr »

SnowflakeOnIce wrote: post #91
SnowflakeOnIce wrote: post #74

I've noticed in the past 2-3 months that results from StackOverflow, Wikipedia, and official programming language documentation sites seem to have been abruptly downranked. They used to typically be in the top 3 results for me for appropriate queries, but now they frequently aren't even on the first page.

I've also observed this on duckduckgo, perhaps to a slightly lesser extent. Strange: they either both tweaked their algorithms around the same time, or maybe SEO spam suddenly got a lot better.

Or bing is copying google listings still and using some data in it's own search

Re: Ask HN: What's Up with Google?

#207

Post by Semaphor »

black_puppydog wrote: post #170
sebazzz wrote: post #167

Try Kagi.com while its in free beta, and see if you like it.

I've been using kagi for a few weeks now and it's great! The only issue I have (and reported in their feedback form) is that it sometimes decides to log me out 3 times in an hour, so their session management could be better. But the results are great, with a clean UI and no BS. Definitely sth I'd pay a (small, but nonzero) amount for. Like 5 bucks or so a month.

5 a month would probably get you only some limited amount of searches. It’s currently looking like a plan with generous searches would be $20 and pay per use after.

Re: Ask HN: What's Up with Google?

#208

Post by peterth3 »

ur-whale wrote: post #172
otherotherchris wrote: post #151

Google since Page and Brin bailed has become a highly political organization interested only in short term revenue growth, and is no longer an engineering organization focused on product excellence. Anyone that has used their messaging products over the years has noticed this. This type of business attracts a different class of talent and nearly all of the old guard has cashed in their stock and left.

Spot on. The really interesting question is whether this is actually avoidable or if all highly successful human organizations that started with high bar ideals and brilliant folks are eventually doomed to rot in place the way Google has.

I believe this is more or less Christensen’s argument in “The Innovator’s Dilemma” [0]. Google is now the incumbent beholden to shareholders.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma

Re: Ask HN: What's Up with Google?

#209

Post by jonathankoren »

alphabetting wrote: post #178
jonathankoren wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IBM made Deep Blue, Watson (the Jeopardy player), two of the 10 most powerful computers in service today, and outperformed the S&P 500 from 2001 to 2014. What's your point? A gigacorp has tons of inertia?

My point was they're leading the field in AI when it is the future. What they're doing goes way beyond what Watson was. IBM also wasn't a trillion dollar company growing at 40% https://twitter.com/JonErlichman/status/1453089818402041857

Alright fanboi. You’re clearly not serious

Re: Ask HN: What's Up with Google?

#210

Post by janglezz »

mda wrote: post #198
Spooky23 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s less the DDG/Bing is good and more that Google is declining.

How does switching to DDG / Bing help? You would only get worse results.

All I’m saying is I switched my default search on my phone and browser to ddg (just to try it out) and the results have been good enough to not make me switch back to google.
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