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Google Memory Loss

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Re: Google Memory Loss

#141

Post by mc32 »

I hadn't used Bing because Google whenever I would compare the results, it was no match, specially in long-tail results. This article has made me reconsider my assumption.

Usually GOOG had best results for technical queries --but fresh results for those tend to be the better results (things go out of date pretty quick because of quicker release cycles)

However, on occasion it has been difficult to find very specific results to non technical questions --I never even bothered with DDG or Bing, but now I will surely give them a try.

If they are data driven (and they are) for their average users, long tail, old results probably don't make sense --how many people really go down to page 20 of the SERP? I'm sure it's a very miniscule number.

Re: Google Memory Loss

#142

Post by fixermark »

sincerely wrote: post #133
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…

If that's the case then this seems like a symptom of a problem I've been thinking about for a while...is it safe to build systems where it's impossible for someone to understand how it works? What happens when it breaks down? Who will be responsible?

You just described human society in the large, and the answer appears to be "We muddle on."

Re: Google Memory Loss

#143

Post by foobarian »

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 fear that something like PageRank used to work well just because back then many individuals had personal web pages with well curated links. It seems like this has slowly gone away, and now Google et al. have to resort to increasingly more hand-tuned AI extravaganza to get the search to work decently well at all.

Re: Google Memory Loss

#144

Post by userbinator »

mc32 wrote: post #141

I hadn't used Bing because Google whenever I would compare the results, it was no match, specially in long-tail results. This article has made me reconsider my assumption. Usually GOOG had best results for technical queries --but fresh results for those tend to be the better results (things go out of date pretty quick because of quicker release cycles) However, on occasion it has been difficult to find very specific…

how many people really make go down to page 20 of the SERP? I'm sure it's a very miniscule number.

Unfortunately those people are the ones who are searching the hardest for the most difficult-to-find things, and thus need the services of a search engine the most. It's unfortunate because, for every one of those, there's probably millions of others who just want to search "facebook" and click the first link; a site that I don't even use yet can recite the domain name of off the top of my head.

Re: Google Memory Loss

#145

Post by dingo_bat »

colordrops wrote: post #126
Declanomous wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I was amazed by the Gboard thing though. It usually picks the correct phrases for me.

Re: Google Memory Loss

#146

Post by bajsejohannes »

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…

> will try to rewrite your queries and omit words

This has been bugging me too the last couple of years. Sometimes I would actually prefer an empty answer to one where various words are missing. Empty can mean an idea is still unexplored.

I've started sending feedback to Google every time this happen. Maybe it'll make a difference if more people do it?

Re: Google Memory Loss

#147

Post by mathattack »

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…

Yes. The problem seems to be compounded by Google's intention to correct spelling, and (for the long tail searches) to assume you're really just looking for whatever everyone else is searching for.

Re: Google Memory Loss

#148

Post by dingo_bat »

fixermark wrote: post #131
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 wonder if what you're seeing is a result of the Internet growing, not specifically Google degrading. Which is to say, as the indexable dataset grows, you'd expect the individual indices to turn up more and more heterogeneous results over time.

The fact that other engines are able to offer up results tells me this is a Google thing, not the size of the internet.

Re: Google Memory Loss

#149

Post by trendia »

fixermark wrote: post #140
visarga wrote: post #134

Google search team, I wouldn't want to be in your place today. My frustration with Google Search is it's degree of protection against bots. If you, Google, can spider everything webmasters post, why can't webmasters spider everything Google returns? In my case, I would like to use Google search to bootstrap a few minor search engine indexes and collect data for NLP projects. But the free version is too limited and th…

> why can't webmasters spider everything Google returns? I'm sure you could start client-side caching every search you ever do to Google. But if you're searching enough to eat up Google's bandwidth, they're paying for that data and they're under no obligation to keep serving you as a client (much as any server is under no particular obligation to serve a search spider).

> But if you're searching enough to eat up Google's bandwidth, they're paying for that data and they're under no obligation to keep serving you as a client

Do you not see the irony?

Re: Google Memory Loss

#150

Post by just2n »

This reminds me a lot of another article posted here recently: http://www.sicpers.info/2017/12/computings-fundamental-princ....

This behavior makes sense for most people, those who don't know what they're doing, at the expense of rendering the tool useless in cases where advanced functionality is needed. Perhaps Google should have an advanced, AI lite version.

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