Ask HN: Has Google search become quantitatively worse? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Has Google search become quantitatively worse?

#271

Post by blt » Tue, Nov 30, 2021, 6:01 PM UTC

fxtentacle wrote: post #106

fxtentacle wrote: post #89

Earlier 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…

Maybe I am looking upon the past with rose-colored glasses, but I recall a time when shopping on Amazon was like shopping at a huge Target. A lot of well-known name brands mixed with some no-name stuff. It was a nice relief from the limited selection, daytime hours, lines, and out-of-stock errors at department and big-box stores.

Now shopping on Amazon feels like shopping on eBay or Aliexpress with fast shipping. Everything name-brand could be counterfeit, and everything no-name is a complete gamble.

Re: Ask HN: Has Google search become quantitatively worse?

#272

Post by ankit219 » Tue, Nov 30, 2021, 6:05 PM UTC

mmaunder wrote: post #74

The problem isn’t solvable by modifying search queries. The fundamental issue is that the web has filled up with content designed to trick Google into sending it visitors and to maximize ad revenue. So you have content that is thick with ranking signals and thin on useful and new data. You also have to scroll past many ads and filler to get to the answer to your search query. The fundamental problem is that Google an…

Agree with you. A lot of news publications tend to post about anything hoping searchers would land on their page for the answer. I google times for Football games, and the first link I get (in India) is from a news website, which does not even have the answer. I got so frustrated, I switched my region to US.

Re: Ask HN: Has Google search become quantitatively worse?

#273

Post by _ea1k » Tue, Nov 30, 2021, 6:06 PM UTC

GenerocUsername wrote: post #224

Similarly, Google maps has begun giving me really bad routes and I live only 30 minutes outside a major tech city. It coincided with the little green leaf that promises to route me on 'eco friendly routes'. Don't see how sitting in the car longer can be more eco friendly

Yeah, the eco mode is really annoying. I don't understand why they added that, especially now that the types of cars we are driving are increasing in diversity. What's eco for a big truck might not be the same as a small EV.

Re: Ask HN: Has Google search become quantitatively worse?

#274

Post by dash2 » Tue, Nov 30, 2021, 6:07 PM UTC

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #6

fsflover wrote: post #2

Yes, since a long time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22107823 . > Any pro tips on how to google Pro tip: try DuckDuckGo, https://ddg.gg .

Google's search quality has definitely gotten worse, but DuckDuckGo is still worse than Google. I have DuckDuckGo as my default search engine but occasionally will Google something that DuckDuckGo can't find and Google has it on the first page.

Yeah, ditto for search.brave.com. It's fine but sometimes Google is just more creative or accurate in what it returns.

Re: Ask HN: Has Google search become quantitatively worse?

#275

Post by cmaggiulli » Tue, Nov 30, 2021, 6:10 PM UTC

My father has been saying this for years. I find Google to be useful by using search operators. I know for a fact that the YouTube recommendations algorithm is “worse” than before. It’s infuriating

Re: Ask HN: Has Google search become quantitatively worse?

#276

Post by micromacrofoot » Tue, Nov 30, 2021, 6:10 PM UTC

flenserboy wrote: post #263

micromacrofoot wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a reply to myself... but does anyone have ideas about how this can go away? Have we lost the internet to eternal marketing and data-mining arms races? Is this why people are flocking to search-opaque places like Discord? Sometimes I feel like that internet isn't for me anymore, and that's a little distressing.

The Eternal September always wins.

I get it, I almost included eternal september in my own post, but this feels like a reductive way to overlook an actual problem.

Re: Ask HN: Has Google search become quantitatively worse?

#277

Post by JohnWhigham » Tue, Nov 30, 2021, 6:13 PM UTC

jeremyjh wrote: post #149

aceazzameen wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that, we just need one that works the way Google used to work. You know, something like the old algorithm that made Google famous and made competitors obsolete.

That old algorithm would just hand you a bunch of SEO spam.

Google already does that though...

Re: Ask HN: Has Google search become quantitatively worse?

#278

Post by Scarblac » Tue, Nov 30, 2021, 6:13 PM UTC

Yes. It seems it has somehow stopped returning search results.

It tries to answer my question, it shows summaries of Wikipedia articles, it has a host of sponsored links, it can point to things on the map.

But I'm using a Web search engine and I was trying to find Web pages containing my search terms. That idea seems to have been lost somewhat.

(yes, I guess if you scroll down far enough. But it's probably a matter of months before they're all gone)

Re: Ask HN: Has Google search become quantitatively worse?

#279

Post by hackmiester » Tue, Nov 30, 2021, 6:13 PM UTC

MisterTea wrote: post #124

drainyard wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot stress enough how infuriating it is when a page loads content under my mouse cursor at such a delay that I can manage to point at a link and click on it _before_ the new content is loaded so that I click/tap an unexpected link. This happens _all_ the time on the Twitter app search bar.

This is my normal android experience. Use the share function, it displays a list of apps or chat conversations which actually are relevant, tap the app.... annnnnnnd the list refreshes with a new list and congrats, it buffered the tap before the menu refreshes and opens whatever app is now under your finger which is of course the wrong app. So when I use share I have to wait a few seconds to ensure the menu is refres…

Android STILL does this? Wow.

Re: Ask HN: Has Google search become quantitatively worse?

#280

Post by yumraj » Tue, Nov 30, 2021, 6:13 PM UTC

Personal anecdote from yesterday.

I was running into an issue with a docker container that I was trying to install on my NAS. I searched using just the actual error, one word, and the name of the container/service, again one word. So two words in total: “FakeUserAgentError caliber-web”

DDG gives great results, where the first result is GitHub issues related to what I’m seeing and so on.

!g gives me first two links as some crap websites that have scraped the above GitHub issues, then the GitHub issue mentioned above and some JP/CN websites which are supposedly about the error but I can’t make sense. Utterly useless results.

This is the first time I’ve seen this, never before. DDG results were miles better than Google results. Note: I generally use DDG so not sure if this is recent development or not.