Imo YouTube search is really bad. First 5 results are related to your query, rest are just the most popular.
Ask HN: Has Google search become quantitatively worse?
211–220 of 515 posts
Re: Ask HN: Has Google search become quantitatively worse?
#212Everytime one of these threads show up, I find myself wondering why someone doesn't launch a technical and research focused competitor. There seems to be such broad agreement that Google is now terrible for research that there's for sure a market for it. Edit: I'd love to see a some-of-the-web search engine like this. Start just with university sites, prepress archives, quality forums, public dev Slacks, etc.
This site can help: http://teclis.com
I just searched 'what is energy' and is see posts from Quora and Medium on the first page. Definitely not what someone doing real research would be looking for
Re: Ask HN: Has Google search become quantitatively worse?
#213Amazing suggestions from commenters on better search engines.
Why hasn't a group of passionate developers gotten together to build an amazing, open source, ad-free, tamper-proof search engine?
Wouldn't that instantly be like a mega impactful, economy-changing kind of project?
Re: Ask HN: Has Google search become quantitatively worse?
#214You are right, I'm one of the people who is frustrated by this. I have been researching this for a very long time. To my understanding, page rank algorithm is dead. Current definition of the Web is not just for public websites, it's now including a good majority of paywall websites and smart device apps. So, if we really wanted to organize world's data, we sure need an entirely new algorithm that will give equal opportunity to all these information holders which Google's current business model can't deliver. Again, to make things right, the next disrupter is going to be a neutral algorithm that will make all these closed information searchable in the public without infecting any business's individual interests.
I'm seeing an interim era of Boutique search engines (powered by better search & people curation) - just like the old Yahoo (yet another hierarchal * *) era. I also believe that a unified search algorithm will unfold following this "yahoo like interim" again, to reorganize the Web once again.
I'm sharing a document that I'm updating on this exact issue, with the information I have collected so far: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cSMY5wXSKhJdMxeJEvTUJ21e...
I'm working on a project as well, to try solving this: https://aquila.network - with an open, neutral search protocol. Anyways, some web standards organization can do the same thing better than me, with more impact. If they do, I'm more than happy to see that as well..
Re: Ask HN: Has Google search become quantitatively worse?
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because google doesn't need to worry about such things. For most people DDG would be a much better experience - if only they knew?
I'm using DDG for almost a year, and I'd say that DDG is slightly better because I have a bit more control. It's important when you're multilingual (common in Europe) to be able to de-localize results chose language etc. But it isn't MUCH better. DDG is just slightly better than Google, that has become infuriating.
I use it regularly but it is getting to be unreliable for technical searches. I often have to resort to using google when trying to track down information about programming problems.
Re: Ask HN: Has Google search become quantitatively worse?
#216google,youtube search is trash now. it's adds search now
When I can't find videos using YouTube's search that I've watched on YouTube before, I use DDG and it is usually the first result.
Re: Ask HN: Has Google search become quantitatively worse?
#217Absolutely, to the point I no longer use it. For me it was the pinterestizing of image search that finally made me realize how pointless google was. Why use a service that is just going to feed me ads in response to every query?
What do you use now?
DDG for new searches, but mostly just bookmarks and in-site search when available.
Searching the whole web isn’t nearly as useful as curating useful sites yourself.
Re: Ask HN: Has Google search become quantitatively worse?
#218The results keep getting "refined" so as to suit the popular 80% of queries, while getting much worse for any technical or obscure queries. Forced synonyms and "people also searched for" are typically useless and almost infuriating. Once you get off the first or second page, the results get even worse-- with pages entirely unrelated to the query (e.g. not even containing the searched phrases). They are probably testi…
Yes, that is also my observation. They will show content that completely does not contain your query words if that content is just popular enough. The result is that niche technical topics get drowned out by related popular discussions. Also, I am by now 100% sure that Google has just stopped indexing the long tail. Like if I search for function names of public source code that I downloaded from GitHub, Google won't…
Yeah. Absolutely infuriating if you specifically use quotes and you get all sorts of dross not containing what you're looking for. Clearly they have figured out in some way that giving the end user what they want does not maximise income.
Google News too has become flaky. Often does not find stuff you know is there, or finds it one day, but not another. Hrmph.
Re: Ask HN: Has Google search become quantitatively worse?
#219Google is a recommendation engine, not search. It recommends what you will click on, not necessarily what you want.
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Re: Ask HN: Has Google search become quantitatively worse?
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, that is also my observation. They will show content that completely does not contain your query words if that content is just popular enough. The result is that niche technical topics get drowned out by related popular discussions. Also, I am by now 100% sure that Google has just stopped indexing the long tail. Like if I search for function names of public source code that I downloaded from GitHub, Google won't…
(same poster) BTW, amazon.com is in my opinion even more infuriating. I just searched for "Odense Marzipan" (which is a 100+ years old brand serving the royal danish court) and they show me pictures of gamepads made out of chocolate along with a note: Your search "odense marzipan" was automatically translated into "odicht marzipan". Then searching for "odicht" out of curiousity, they auto-correct it to "olight". So I…
Yeah, Amazon search results are often infuriating. Most searches are flooded with similar items that need better filters and some notes on product differentiation. Amazon feels like a bazaar set up inside a Walmart where everyone is yelling at you to buy from them and you don't really know what you're going to get. I know it's a hard problem, but I can often look at the results and imagine some easy UX improvements. Maybe they have higher priorities than helping me buy insulated pants.