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Ask HN: Has Google search become quantitatively worse?

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

#61
Long story short: They replaced carefully crafted human readable rules with black box AI.

After ranking results by profit it wasn't even necessary anymore to index or present other results.

Equally unnecessary it then became to maintain or create any such websites.

The future, if you ask me, is carefully crafted invitation-only websites. Get back to information exchange just for the sake of sharing, discovering and learning.

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

#62
post #23
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…

The "people also searched for" box is not just useless, but also very much messing with usability for me. Every time I click on a link, go back, then trying to click on the next link, this box shows up and I accidentally click on that (because it shows up with a little delay and an animation). This filter takes care of that box completely: www.google.com##.exp-outline www.google.com##[style="display: block; opacity:…

[deleted]

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

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want a curated search engine so badly. I feel like some enterprising developer could craft one specifically geared towards developers. Imagine a search that doesn't ignore operators like '?.' and where you can set persistent conditions on every single query without having to type it out. This would help prevent you from needing to type in the language you are searching for in every query. Oh, and the cherry on top…

I've considered taking a stab at it, but I didn't for likely the same reason no one else has: no idea how to monetize it. Sure you can run ads, but your conversion rates will likely stink because you'd be selecting for non-suckers.

You might be able to monetize through closer partnerships with companies like Microsoft, Atlassian, Amazon, etc.. I'm envisioning an ad system that is basically geared towards selling their cloud and DevOps services. Because the engine is geared towards programming queries, you might also entice these companies by showing that developers have an easier time troubleshooting their systems. Perhaps, eventually, the engine could be bought out and act like a loss-leader or funnel to services. I know Microsoft is trying to be very developer friendly.

Just some random thoughts. Monetization is a huge bootstrapping challenge for something like this.

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

#66

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.

DevonAgent may do what you want, it felt very thorough and powerful but I never got in the habit of using it, there’s a learning curve to it

https://www.devontechnologies.com/apps/devonagent#editions

mac os only. 5$ or 50$ for automation+archival

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

#67

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.

Neeva is worth looking at. I recently switched to it exclusively for a week and found it as good as Google for 90% of what I do. (FWIW, previous attempts doing this with Bing or DuckDuckGo last about a day before I get so mad I switch back.) Right now Neeva seems very good at navigational queries, which I do 90% of the time. It's still not as good at deep research queries for obscure things. Probably related: Neeva i…

Neeva has the right business model (search as a product) which helps align interests. On the other hand some of their reasoning around the business execution left much to be desired:

https://www.reddit.com/r/vivaldibrowser/comments/pol41p/comm...

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

#68
Yes, each time I'm looking for something specific I'm only getting results from more popular "similar requests", and of course sponsored ads, this is very infuriating.

On a similar note, but this time for reasons that completely elude my reasoning, GPS navigation with google maps has become worse and worse over the years. It went from surprisingly good at avoiding closed routes and accidents at a time when there was likely a lot less real-time data available, to guiding me over and over again to the same closed roads that sometimes have been for weeks, even though they have troves of user data that clearly show everybody having to turn back and change course. WTF google ?

Also, please implement something like traffic prediction, when I leave around 5pm when it's still fluid, I get an ETA like 40 minutes later, even though I know for sure that it's going to get way worse while I'm on the road and those 40 minutes become more like 90. If I can predict it, why can't google ? That's just crazy stupid.

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

#69
post #23
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…

The "people also searched for" box is not just useless, but also very much messing with usability for me. Every time I click on a link, go back, then trying to click on the next link, this box shows up and I accidentally click on that (because it shows up with a little delay and an animation). This filter takes care of that box completely: www.google.com##.exp-outline www.google.com##[style="display: block; opacity:…

[deleted]

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

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want a curated search engine so badly. I feel like some enterprising developer could craft one specifically geared towards developers. Imagine a search that doesn't ignore operators like '?.' and where you can set persistent conditions on every single query without having to type it out. This would help prevent you from needing to type in the language you are searching for in every query. Oh, and the cherry on top…

I've considered taking a stab at it, but I didn't for likely the same reason no one else has: no idea how to monetize it. Sure you can run ads, but your conversion rates will likely stink because you'd be selecting for non-suckers.

Not trying to spam but will mention devonagent once more in this thread, they just sell it, old fashioned perpetual license. respects boolean operators.

https://www.devontechnologies.com/apps/devonagent#editions

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