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What people want (according to Google Suggest)

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Re: What people want (according to Google Suggest)

#61

Post by awolf »

bad_user wrote: post #56
awolf wrote: post #22

>People who search in "how can i ..." type of questions are probably not a representative sample of the whole population. My guess is that they are less tech-savvy users on average. Hmm... I dunno. I search this way all the time. Mainly because I assume a lot of other people do as well and, more importantly, it works. Am I the only one?

Tech-savvy people know that Google eliminates stop-words and uses stemming anyhow, although their algorithms for doing that aren't public, so ... lose weight ... is a lot more efficient to write than ... how can I lose weight And while not yielding the same results, I think the first yields better results (in this case). Then you start adding words for refinement ... lose weight safe See a pattern? ... It's a lot lik…

But... the results for "lose weight" and "how to lose weight" are not the same. Nor are the results for "earthquake" vs "what is an earthquake". In both cases if I'm after the latter then it is the more verbose query that yields the better results.

Re: What people want (according to Google Suggest)

#62

Post by stoney »

awolf wrote: post #22

>People who search in "how can i ..." type of questions are probably not a representative sample of the whole population. My guess is that they are less tech-savvy users on average. Hmm... I dunno. I search this way all the time. Mainly because I assume a lot of other people do as well and, more importantly, it works. Am I the only one?

I don't search this way normally, but if I'm struggling to find what I want I will resort to this sometimes (in the hopes that a suitably titled blog post will appear somewhere).

Re: What people want (according to Google Suggest)

#63

Post by hboon »

awolf wrote: post #61
bad_user wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tech-savvy people know that Google eliminates stop-words and uses stemming anyhow, although their algorithms for doing that aren't public, so ... lose weight ... is a lot more efficient to write than ... how can I lose weight And while not yielding the same results, I think the first yields better results (in this case). Then you start adding words for refinement ... lose weight safe See a pattern? ... It's a lot lik…

But... the results for "lose weight" and "how to lose weight" are not the same. Nor are the results for "earthquake" vs "what is an earthquake". In both cases if I'm after the latter then it is the more verbose query that yields the better results.

stop words/phrase removal can't be done in a too simplistic manner. words like signify a different kind of intent. Also if stop words are always removed, queries like wouldn't work properly.

Re: What people want (according to Google Suggest)

#64

Post by igravious »

masklinn wrote: post #14
igravious wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's in all likelihood the the parent-son bond has been broken and the parent would like to fix that. They are both very sad, and no reference to daughters in the list? Sons may stray further or abandon their parents more than daughters.

> No, it's in all likelihood the the parent-son bond has been broken and the parent would like to fix that I'd have thought of a divorce gone bad, and a father barred from seeing his son.

I hadn't thought of that but that could easily be the case as well. Very sad also.

Re: What people want (according to Google Suggest)

#65

Post by pornel »

lukev wrote: post #46
pornel wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's the case, it should be fixed by tweak in the ranking algorithm (rank informative sites higher than junk filled with hate), not by filtering out query suggestions.

That's a very dangerous line to cross - ranking search results by, essentialy, ideology?

I think it would be appropriate to rank objective(ish) information about a topic higher than extreme opinions about the topic.

Re: What people want (according to Google Suggest)

#66

Post by GeneralMaximus »

todayiamme wrote: post #26

I wonder if mining it regionally and seeing the unique searches will tell us more about a culture than years of on the ground anthropological observations. Of course, it assumes that people are kinda well off in the country and a sizable majority uses the internet. Further, this is something that networks would kill for. Most people google the news they want to read. So, they could manage their editorial content bett…

[edit: I am sorry if that sounded like a generalization, but what I intended to say is that from first hand experience and abnormally large amount of people are fixated over porn. It's kinda understandable with teenagers, but grown men and women? I know this stuff since I am sorta an unofficial tech support, so I come upon GBs of stuff that rattles the hell out of me. It might be personal bias, but I genuinely think that porn is more prevalent here due to social norms than a more liberal country kinda like Victorian england.]

Nah, you're completely right. Me and my friends have a joke: nobody has sex in India; we're all children of God. I find it unbelievable that kids at my college never discuss sex.

Edit: formatting.

Re: What people want (according to Google Suggest)

#67

Post by todayiamme »

GeneralMaximus wrote: post #66
todayiamme wrote: post #26

I wonder if mining it regionally and seeing the unique searches will tell us more about a culture than years of on the ground anthropological observations. Of course, it assumes that people are kinda well off in the country and a sizable majority uses the internet. Further, this is something that networks would kill for. Most people google the news they want to read. So, they could manage their editorial content bett…

[edit: I am sorry if that sounded like a generalization, but what I intended to say is that from first hand experience and abnormally large amount of people are fixated over porn. It's kinda understandable with teenagers, but grown men and women? I know this stuff since I am sorta an unofficial tech support, so I come upon GBs of stuff that rattles the hell out of me. It might be personal bias, but I genuinely think…

It is so hard to explain this to people who haven't grown up down here, but I was still wrong. We can't make generalizations at all.

Yes India is a society where menstruation is a taboo. It is a "dirty thing" that girls do, or something to most men. Live in relationships are against god. Women have to be "pure" until marriage. Men can do whatever the fuck they want as long as they aren't gay or effeminate, of course.

Ah yes, the joys of indian "society", but do you know something?

I cherish people who do not live by these standards.

When you meet someone over here who treats women as human beings and considers live in relationships to be normal then you have found an outlier, and they tend to be pretty amazing folks.

Re: What people want (according to Google Suggest)

#68

Post by lukev »

pornel wrote: post #65
lukev wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very dangerous line to cross - ranking search results by, essentialy, ideology?

I think it would be appropriate to rank objective(ish) information about a topic higher than extreme opinions about the topic.

But what's objective? The best way to marginalize an opposing viewpoint is to paint them as extremists who shouldn't be taken seriously.
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