Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Has Google search become quantitatively worse?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

481–490 of 515 posts

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

#481

Post by skinkestek »

wffurr wrote: post #43

The topic here says "quantitatively". Does anyone have any actual statistics or quantitative data on the quality of Google search results? All of these threads devolve into anecdotes and reminisces about the "good old days" and complaining about Pinterest. None of which is in the least quantitative. I'd be interested to see some actual data or research on the subject, if it exists. Or maybe it's not Google that's got…

> Does anyone have any actual statistics or quantitative data on the quality of Google search results?

It is pretty quantitative yes, but it happened at different times for different people.

But it used to be that when you searched for something you got pages containing the thing you searched for, and if you couldn't find it at first then you could do a search on the page and find out some enterprising scammer had included your keywords in white text on white background.

Today Google and Bing has teamed up with the scammers so they don't need to use such hacks anymore. Google and Bing will include the results even if they don't contain said keywords at all.

Uncharitable? Yes. Do I hope Google and Bing engineers read this and fix it or do I hope some Russian enterprise launch a better engine?

I actually hope Google find back to its roots! I don't hate you guys but you really don't make it easy for us in between using all the oxygen in the room and annoying me all the time with useless time wasting results.

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

#482

Post by skinkestek »

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #431
Reuzel wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> lmfao. so you're telling me "quantitatively" that google search results have gotten better, without citing any data at all, but with an appeal to common sense and "technological advancement"? Yes. If that sounds so unacceptable or strange to you, I suggest you try it. Works really well when reasoning about unavailable data, or researching a field with slow peer-review process. > what if i told you that search is an…

> So webcontent-spammers still are on the first 2 pages of Google, but with content not classifiable as spam/content farm. The exact clones of StackOverflow and Wikipedia are all over the first two pages of Google.

Because Stack Overflow is its own worst enemy and routinely deleted extremely useful questions because they "didn't fit in"?

Is it the any surprise if it ranks highly on alternative sites, spam or not?

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

#483

Post by skinkestek »

Reuzel wrote: post #391
hnaccount141 wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This presumes that the metrics they optimize for are intended to represent usefulness to actual users and not, say, ad revenue. Even if they do intend to optimize for usefulness, this doesn't mean that they have metrics that accurately represent that. I also think you're underestimating average users. Anecdotally I've heard my parents complain repeatedly about the incoherent, auto-generated, affiliate link spam that…

> This presumes that the metrics they optimize for are intended to represent usefulness to actual users and not, say, ad revenue. Even if they do intend to optimize for usefulness, this doesn't mean that they have metrics that accurately represent that. They have multiple levers, of which user search quality is a big set. There is always trade-offs and a balance that must be found, which aligns with company vision an…

> So for me: either Google is trying really hard, but essentially failing.

If Google really really wanted they could find out why they more often than not include results that doesn't contain my keywords even after I have put doublequotes around them and hunted down and applied their verbatim setting!

After that they could think really hard about how relevant the text:

> and something someone said xyz.

>

>abc is next up and something something

is for someone searching for "xyz.abc"

Or maybe see if they can dig out an old cheat sheet with all the operators they used to support and invite some old Googlers to secretly come in and teach about it but that can wait until they got the basics working again.

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

#484

Post by gbrindisi »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #100
alangibson wrote: post #12

Everytime 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.

I did just that. Well not specifically aimed at research, but the types of websites I'm interested in, written by humans, blogs and such. It's got some quality issues right now because I fucked up some of the keyword extraction logic and it's taken a while to identify just what's gone wrong. Even though it's a bit broken, it has some lucid moments. Just compare: https://www.google.com/search?q=mechanical+keyboards ht…

Thanks for your work! FYI I've submitted a !Bang on DuckDuckGo to search Marginalia (see: https://duckduckgo.com/bang). Waiting for it to be approved.

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

#485

Post by no-s »

nafizh wrote: post #258
vgeek wrote: post #9

The 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…

For what it’s worth, I have been using the new you.com headed by Richard Socher as my search engine for the last 2 weeks. The condensed search results with sections from reddit, wikipedia, stack overflow or arxiv is really great. It’s really suited for technical users.

you.com looks good. I am USA and English centric. I’m annoyed at the futility of google search for ordinary technical topics. Bing, duckduckgo are also more futile as time goes on.

What are the ways to direct more air into the likes of you.com? You.com was an “Show HN” topic 3 weeks ago[1]. The you.com improvement in 3 weeks is noticeable.

This post has been simplified for sentiment parsers...

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29165601

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

#486

Post by OrderlyTiamat »

superasn wrote: post #134

There was a very good thread on HN about this not long ago(1). Google search is getting worse because it is letting companies like Pinterest game it. Instead of fixing the spam they are instead encouraging companies to spend more and more time on SEO and coming up with their own shenanigans like better ranking for using AMP (defunct now). People who generally make great content (think a researcher or a great software…

> AMP (defunct now)

What did I miss?

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

#487

Post by skinkestek »

mda wrote: post #207
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.

Old algorithm with todays internet content would be utterly garbage.

People keep saying that and yet the one person project search.marginalia.nu keeps delighting us.

I can't imagine they use Googles newest algorithm.

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

#488

Post by skinkestek »

akvadrako wrote: post #51
sumtechguy wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For many searches like that I use 'tools->all results->verbatim'. Seems to help.

I've been using the verbatim mode by default for a couple years. It does improve the results substantially.

Depends on which experiment you are part of.

For long stretches of time Google flat out ignores verbatim operator when I try it.

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

#489

Post by no-s »

elliekelly wrote: post #255
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 more I think about it the more I just don’t think it’s possible to have an internet that is supported by ad-revenue and isn’t user-hostile. The incentives are diametrically opposed. We need a PBS/NPR of search engines.

> We need a PBS/NPR of search engines.

PBS/NPR like solutions would be subject to co-opting forces as with other search engines. Look at wikipedia, touted as a “social good” but undermined by collective activism edits in the name of various ideologies claiming pure intentions of “social good”.

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

#490

Post by marginalia_nu »

gbrindisi wrote: post #484
marginalia_nu wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did just that. Well not specifically aimed at research, but the types of websites I'm interested in, written by humans, blogs and such. It's got some quality issues right now because I fucked up some of the keyword extraction logic and it's taken a while to identify just what's gone wrong. Even though it's a bit broken, it has some lucid moments. Just compare: https://www.google.com/search?q=mechanical+keyboards ht…

Thanks for your work! FYI I've submitted a !Bang on DuckDuckGo to search Marginalia (see: https://duckduckgo.com/bang ). Waiting for it to be approved.

I think it's been submitted a few times before, but I guess if they keep getting these requests they'll eventually add it.
Post reply on HN