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Why one search engine for the whole internet is not a good idea anymore

dynamicguy.com

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Re: Why one search engine for the whole internet is not a good idea anymore

#21

Post by ojosilva »

golergka wrote: post #16
ojosilva wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a problem now only AI could solve. All other attempts at non-AI algorithms are futile. We need to be able to search through a curated internet that looks somewhat like a mix of Wikipedia and the old Yahoo directory and has to be tailored to each individual user search goals (I unlike you may be interested in commercial workout products). AI is the only "curator" capable of ranking and selecting results with su…

Just like Facebook's AI is solving the feed problem? Do you trust the proprietary machine learning black box, that even the creators don't completely understand, ran by a for-profit corporation to decide what information you consume? It's not like I have a better suggestion, but AI is definitely not a silver bullet for this.

I wasn't think corporate AI actually. Something between Wikipedia not-for-profit wikipedians and personal AI (browser or independently managed). AI is definitely not a silver bullet, but algorithm and human-based solutions are out of the question, so AI is probably the best option moving forward.

Re: Why one search engine for the whole internet is not a good idea anymore

#22

Post by pdimitar »

vvvkkk wrote: post #20

The author says a lot of correct things. When information belongs to one organization, then there is no future. Do you really think that we will receive information only from 1 organization? Monopoly on information, like any other monopoly will not be eternal. Today the information growing rapidly and they try to place everything on first page - it is impossible to display all the relevant information on 1 page, it i…

Feedback on your product: very bland landing page (I know Google does it too but they can get away with it).

Consider showing some random examples from popular searches. I think DuckDuckGo have been doing this a while ago -- was showing search result page which was more relevant than what Google was showing.

Just one thought. Try to engage potential users. To me, your landing page says nothing.

Re: Why one search engine for the whole internet is not a good idea anymore

#23

Post by pdimitar »

shubhamjain wrote: post #9

> Sooner or later the internet will have to be decentralized. It sounds like a pipe dream. Centralisation exists for a reason: it's far easier to coordinate complex efforts within a single organisation, rather than a host of unreliable entities. Supposedly, we develop a protocol where we share the responsibility of crawling, indexing, and searching the whole web. Isn't is unrealistic to expect that millions of comput…

I hear you. Nobody claims it's gonna be easy to go the decentralization route however. Quite the contrary, it's gonna be extremely hard, probably even harder than what it took to arrive at today's status quo. But IMO it will be worth it.

Centralization and monopoly never end well. Only benevolent dictatorship systems kind of worked half-well, historically. I don't think we should just blindly believe a person in a position of power is benevolent. We humans are easily corruptible, that's the sad truth.

Re: Why one search engine for the whole internet is not a good idea anymore

#24

Post by pdimitar »

golergka wrote: post #16
ojosilva wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a problem now only AI could solve. All other attempts at non-AI algorithms are futile. We need to be able to search through a curated internet that looks somewhat like a mix of Wikipedia and the old Yahoo directory and has to be tailored to each individual user search goals (I unlike you may be interested in commercial workout products). AI is the only "curator" capable of ranking and selecting results with su…

Just like Facebook's AI is solving the feed problem? Do you trust the proprietary machine learning black box, that even the creators don't completely understand, ran by a for-profit corporation to decide what information you consume? It's not like I have a better suggestion, but AI is definitely not a silver bullet for this.

Facebook's so-called "AI algorithms" only optimize for advertisement money, not for good feed experience. Hardly a good example.

Re: Why one search engine for the whole internet is not a good idea anymore

#25

Post by pdimitar »

golergka wrote: post #5

Personally, when I know that a certain topic is of high value to advertisers, I don't even bother googling anymore, and try to find someone qualified instead. For example, I recently was trying to look up theory behind working out, how differenr muscles work, how nutrition works and all that - but there're so many people who're trying to sell their courses, apps, books and stuff, that I have no idea how to go around…

Same here. I want to find a good and affordable high-protein and low-carb diet which is sustainable over months, years, or maybe a lifetime, and yet Google fails me every time. It's always some bright-smiling 22-year old chick (as if they need a diet before 30), or some old guy who discovered how his diet fixed his knee problem, or an Indian guy who is happy to tell us how everybody else is bullshitting us but hey, HE HAS THE ANSWERS. Etc. to infinity.

Also nobody wants to give you an affordable diet. Hello, I can't pay for salmon 3 times a week, okay? I know it contains an easier to digest fat, fine! Can't you give me some alternatives?

It's infuriating. But Google optimizes for advertisement money and there are known "cheats" on how to be on top in Google searches which aren't well addressed to this day.

Re: Why one search engine for the whole internet is not a good idea anymore

#26

Post by pdimitar »

adamcanady wrote: post #6

I work on Google Search. Having one search engine per country doesn't seem like the correct approach to the problem. > Every country has a mammoth collection of valid results for your query. Having seen the corpus of content available from each language, this is categorically false. Consider Wikipedia, which is a fairly ubiquitous information source on the web that provides answers to tons of searches. English docume…

Slight off-topic and a shameless plug:

Are you guys working on removing the websites who somehow manage to be on top when you search for an entire class of queries? They are practically empty, they contain 10+ affiliate Javascripts (with which they supposedly make money from clicks?) and are basically a search query aggregators, yet Google haven't removed them yet.

Sorry I can't give examples, but these sites are out there and IMO should be outright banned. They bring zero value to customers and I'd argue that a good part of them are bringing zero value to Google as well -- they utilize some "SEO secrets" to get to the first page of Google without paying a penny.

Re: Why one search engine for the whole internet is not a good idea anymore

#27

Post by golergka »

pdimitar wrote: post #24
golergka wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like Facebook's AI is solving the feed problem? Do you trust the proprietary machine learning black box, that even the creators don't completely understand, ran by a for-profit corporation to decide what information you consume? It's not like I have a better suggestion, but AI is definitely not a silver bullet for this.

Facebook's so-called "AI algorithms" only optimize for advertisement money, not for good feed experience. Hardly a good example.

If you're worried about ad money in a scope of 10 next years, one will be related to the other.

Re: Why one search engine for the whole internet is not a good idea anymore

#28

Post by brudgers »

adamcanady wrote: post #6

I work on Google Search. Having one search engine per country doesn't seem like the correct approach to the problem. > Every country has a mammoth collection of valid results for your query. Having seen the corpus of content available from each language, this is categorically false. Consider Wikipedia, which is a fairly ubiquitous information source on the web that provides answers to tons of searches. English docume…

A server made out of Lego probably would not have been seen as the correct approach to the problem by an engineer at AltaVista a few years ago. Search engines by country is just a way of expressing the abstractions that are involved in chunking up search in a way that is orthogonal to building a service chunked around advertizing revenue, English, and Silicon Valley political philosophies.

Or to put it another way, 376k Wikipedia documents in Romanian is about 50% more than the number of articles in the last print version of Encyclopedia Britannica. The dismissal of their significance may express a worldview bubble that is endemic of Google and its business model.

Just because 376k Romanian documents is not enough to train a data center in how to sell chia pets to Bucharestians, doesn't mean that it is not a significant repository of information for actual human beings.

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