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Google Memory Loss

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Re: Google Memory Loss

#121

Post by AndrewKemendo »

userbinator wrote: post #93

I've noticed this many times too, particularly recently, and I call it "Google Alzheimer's" --- what was once a very powerful search engine that could give you thousands (yes, I've tried exhausting its result pages many times, and used to have much success finding the perfect site many dozens of pages deep in the results) of pages containing nothing but the exact words and phrase you search for has seemingly degraded…

I've noticed the same and if you look across internet and search properties it's trending the same way.

I'm not certain yet, but I think it has to do with systems relying more and more on the the system giving a high weighting on popular or frequent searches. In other words, these systems are filtering content by how frequent they are searched and annealing returns which have low frequency.

This makes sense from a machine learning perspective. If I want to build a system which returns a search quickly, then it will be biased towards pathways with strong weights. So in the end, systems would be biased against outlier searches and very specific terms which have low or weak search pathways. Effectively the system is getting really fast and good at giving you the most popular return, rather than a precise return.

The major problem there is that over time the search space will atrophy, much like memories do, and will kill off pathways which have low frequency. It's unclear if this is good or bad long term for a search engine, because it will remain popular for the majority of users, so long as their search terms and desired results live within the same space. In other words, we're creating a less diverse and more homogenous space by virtue of giving higher weights to more common thoughts/searches/desires.

Re: Google Memory Loss

#122

Post by fixermark »

incompatible wrote: post #20
anfilt wrote: post #7

I would not be surprised if google still has the data. Not sure how google handles things internally. However, google needs to pull up the results fast. So they might have 4 billion results with the word "water" in it. They only make tiny portion of that available. So if I type the words "Hot water" google it looks at the subset of pages with words "Hot" and the word "Water" So google must pull the pages that have bo…

Intersections are another thing that Google search doesn't do properly anymore. If I search for something like lkasdfjer samsung galaxy s8 it just gives me matches for samsung galaxy s8 and ignores the first word. When I do searches like this, I do it for a reason and don't want matches that lack some of the search terms.

It's probably architected to err on the side of giving you something over giving you nothing, because the common use-case for +hit+hit+hit is "not-in-index term is a typo," not "not-in-index term is an intentionally-crafted attempt to zero the results."

Re: Google Memory Loss

#123

Post by nostromo »

userbinator wrote: post #93

I've noticed this many times too, particularly recently, and I call it "Google Alzheimer's" --- what was once a very powerful search engine that could give you thousands (yes, I've tried exhausting its result pages many times, and used to have much success finding the perfect site many dozens of pages deep in the results) of pages containing nothing but the exact words and phrase you search for has seemingly degraded…

Searching using “Verbatim” can be helpful.

What’s particularly infuriating is when searching with verbatim still ignores keywords.

Re: Google Memory Loss

#124

Post by fyfy18 »

Puer wrote: post #110
jakecopp wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel that it is intentionally bad so people don't realize how much Google knows about them.

Meanwhile their image recognition gets better and better. For those of you who use Google Photos backup, try a keyword image search in Google Drive sometime of your untagged photos ("beach", "face," etc.) You'll be creepily surprised on what Google is indexing, even against what they claim they don't (try some sketchier words).

I can one up that: I was living in Dubai a few years ago and have a number of photos of fancy cars I could never even dream of affording. If I search for “Lamborghini” or “Rolls Royce” it gives me the photos of those cars. I’ve never tagged them and I’m not an Android user, so they aren’t reading my messages.

https://imgur.com/caz8D2Y

I even have four photos I took at night, in burst mode, as a Bughatti Veyron zoomed passed, and yes, it can recognise those...

Re: Google Memory Loss

#125

Post by alva »

incompatible wrote: post #20
anfilt wrote: post #7

I would not be surprised if google still has the data. Not sure how google handles things internally. However, google needs to pull up the results fast. So they might have 4 billion results with the word "water" in it. They only make tiny portion of that available. So if I type the words "Hot water" google it looks at the subset of pages with words "Hot" and the word "Water" So google must pull the pages that have bo…

Intersections are another thing that Google search doesn't do properly anymore. If I search for something like lkasdfjer samsung galaxy s8 it just gives me matches for samsung galaxy s8 and ignores the first word. When I do searches like this, I do it for a reason and don't want matches that lack some of the search terms.

double quote each term/phrase and intersect with + sign. this tends to work.

"lkasdfjer" + "samsung galaxy s8" : brings up this discussion

Re: Google Memory Loss

#126

Post by colordrops »

Declanomous wrote: post #101
userbinator wrote: post #93

I've noticed this many times too, particularly recently, and I call it "Google Alzheimer's" --- what was once a very powerful search engine that could give you thousands (yes, I've tried exhausting its result pages many times, and used to have much success finding the perfect site many dozens of pages deep in the results) of pages containing nothing but the exact words and phrase you search for has seemingly degraded…

> has seemingly degraded into an approximation of a search engine that has knowledge of only very superficial information, will try to rewrite your queries and omit words (including the very word that makes all the difference...) I think the biggest irony is that the web allows for more adoption of long-tail movements than ever before, and Google has gotten significantly worse at turning these up. I assume this has s…

This same AI effect can be seen in the Android keyboard, where _properly_ spelled words will be replaced after typing another word or two because it's been determined to be more likely what you want. It's infuriating.

Re: Google Memory Loss

#127

Post by fixermark »

mark-r wrote: post #94
mark-r wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Q: What's the difference between amnesia and Alzheimer's? A: I don't remember.

And by that I really mean it doesn't matter why they forgot. The fact that they forgot means there's a sickness.

I believe the sickness you're thinking of is "distributed data index."

Consistency, availability, tolerance: pick two (https://landing.google.com/sre/book/chapters/managing-critic...). If you think about the uptime constraints of www.google.com, you'll possibly conclude that the limits of distributed systems necessitate a solution where some data is transiently unavailable.

Re: Google Memory Loss

#128

Post by colordrops »

nostromo wrote: post #123
userbinator wrote: post #93

I've noticed this many times too, particularly recently, and I call it "Google Alzheimer's" --- what was once a very powerful search engine that could give you thousands (yes, I've tried exhausting its result pages many times, and used to have much success finding the perfect site many dozens of pages deep in the results) of pages containing nothing but the exact words and phrase you search for has seemingly degraded…

Searching using “Verbatim” can be helpful. What’s particularly infuriating is when searching with verbatim still ignores keywords.

I still remember the day that stopped working. I decided that was the day Google died.

Re: Google Memory Loss

#129

Post by rectang »

dannyw wrote: post #115
userbinator wrote: post #93

I've noticed this many times too, particularly recently, and I call it "Google Alzheimer's" --- what was once a very powerful search engine that could give you thousands (yes, I've tried exhausting its result pages many times, and used to have much success finding the perfect site many dozens of pages deep in the results) of pages containing nothing but the exact words and phrase you search for has seemingly degraded…

I'm glad I'm not alone in thinking this way. I wish I could use the Google of 10 years ago. Pre-personalization, pre-deep-learning RankBrain, just the reliable and consistent search engine where complex queries will return the result I want, if it is there. Today, if I'm searching for something unpopular or specific, I usually get frustrated. You would expect the opposite to happen as the size of the web should incre…

I wish I could go back to the Google of 1999. PageRank was magic before people learned to game it. The results were incredibly good.

Re: Google Memory Loss

#130

Post by colordrops »

snowwrestler wrote: post #117

I wouldn't be surprised if this issue is as mysterious to Google staff as it is to you. Google Search no longer runs a clearly defined algorithm to find search results. It is a collection of AI systems that are trained continuously on a variety of data. There is probably no human alive who fully understands how Google makes decisions about which results to return and how to rank them. They just understand how to prov…

That's unfortunate, because their simpler system worked better.
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