It seems that Google is forgetting the old web • Hacker News Board

Re: It seems that Google is forgetting the old web

#241

Post by Groxx » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 9:15 PM UTC

Liquix wrote: post #104

founderling wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is an example: http://www.gnoosic.com/discussion/metallica__5.html No matter how you search for the content on Google, nothing comes up: https://www.google.com/search?q="Metallica+only+played+2+son... DuckDuckGo has it: https://duckduckgo.com/?q="Metallica+only+played+2+songs+fro... I checked the wayback machine and the content has constantly been on that url for over 10 years. This is the first example of an ol…

Anecdotally and perhaps unrelated - has anyone else noticed a decrease in the accuracy and general quality of Google search over the past 2-4 months? They've had to have been utilizing ML to 'improve' searches for some time now, but the quality of the results has decreased suddenly and inexplicably (for me).

Their keyboard predictions have gone from "OK" to "Amazing, we live in the future", and over the past couple years to "of course I didn't mean 'aaAAaAAnd', wtf were you thinking".

I frequently suspect they're starting to optimize more for $ than they were before, and ML just gives them more ways to make that number go up another % or so... but it often comes with impossible-to-predict and wildly inhuman edge cases. It's a pretty common trend when companies start focusing on small number increases - each A/B test shows improvement, but the product as a whole worsens and it drives people away in time.

Re: It seems that Google is forgetting the old web

#242

Post by JohnFen » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 9:18 PM UTC

sodosopa wrote: post #231

JohnFen wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DDG has become my first stop. It gets me what I need 90% of the time.

I found the opposite. I started using DDG when I moved to Brave but after a month, I found I would go to DDG, search page after page and get frustrated and open google and have my result on page one or two.

I've heard others say similar things. That's simply not my experience. I wonder if it depends on the sorts of searches that we each tend to perform?

Re: It seems that Google is forgetting the old web

#243

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 9:28 PM UTC

throwaway2048 wrote: post #230

icebraining wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I can tell, there's no links anywhere on the site to that particular page, you have to know the exact term and search it: http://www.gnoosic.com/discussion/ How is Google supposed to find that out?!

How are you determining nothing links this? Google?

[deleted]

Re: It seems that Google is forgetting the old web

#244

Post by BRAlNlAC » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 9:29 PM UTC

therein wrote: post #179

a1369209993 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Upwards of five years, actually. It was already declining when they decided to fuck the +WORD operator for their Facebook ripoff.

So you're also saying ever since Hummingbird [0], Google search hasn't been the same. I agree. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Hummingbird

Yup, that's when I started to switch to DDG. I remember Google saying that you needed to add '+' +before +words that must be included instead of "putting them in quotes"–how annoying. But even using their new operators, I couldn't get answers like I used to be able to. I already didn't like their data gathering practices by then, so gimping search for me made the transition a breeze. Interestingly even up to even 9-12 months ago I remember people consistently saying that DDG was so much worse than Google, which I always figured was a result of user error, or a result of not caring about tracking and leveraging the Google profile. I'd been off the Google grid for a while so I couldn't really argue, but I knew that I got significantly better information from DuckDuckGo, having grown accustomed to the level of detail needed. These days I probably only use Google a handful of times a month. The concept that they are purposefully soiling search results to add value to ads and sponsored results sounds about right, honestly. Advertisements used to be much less relevant than the results I'd get if I inputted a string of 5+ words, but anymore I have to be careful not to accidentally click on an ad, as the results tend to be terrible, and I'd rather enter a url into a browser than click on an ad I'm actually interested in. .

Re: It seems that Google is forgetting the old web

#245

Post by icebraining » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 9:29 PM UTC

throwaway2048 wrote: post #230

icebraining wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I can tell, there's no links anywhere on the site to that particular page, you have to know the exact term and search it: http://www.gnoosic.com/discussion/ How is Google supposed to find that out?!

How are you determining nothing links this? Google?

No, I'm browsing the site and I'm unable to find any links to those band-specific pages.

Re: It seems that Google is forgetting the old web

#246

Post by appleflaxen » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 9:36 PM UTC

inetknght wrote: post #7

I have noticed that searching for exact quotes seems to have been broken on Google for a few years. But only minimally broken. And I've had no idea how to reason with it. This article completely corresponds with problems I've encountered with searching for results on StackOverflow or software documentation sites; it's especially perplexing that "site:..." combined with exact quotes does not work for many cases. Googl…

you have to go to the options at the bottom

more >>

settings >>

or whatever. Fiddle around until you find "verbatim" and choose it.

Re: It seems that Google is forgetting the old web

#247

Post by JohnFen » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 9:52 PM UTC

gowld wrote: post #145

addicted wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it may be a simple consequence of the fact that Google Search is increasingly less of a searching engine and more of an answering engine. I think Google has been explicit about this (I may be wrong, but I seem to remember thinking about this because Google themselves said it). Essentially, I believe, they are no longer concerned about being a way to navigate all the material found on the internet. Instead, th…

Does Google work if my questions is "what's a good article about X" ? I'm willing to modify my search terms to speak Google's language.

In my experience, Google works better if you ask it questions like that. Not good enough, especially if you're looking for something specific and technical, but better.

Re: It seems that Google is forgetting the old web

#248

Post by JohnFen » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 9:55 PM UTC

xvector wrote: post #142

coliveira wrote: post #130

One of the changes that made Google forget the old web is favoring https sites. This is a big benefit to new and commercial web sites because setting up SSL is still a burden for non-comercial publishers.

I feel like LetsEncrypt is a 5-minute burden. Unless I’m being naive - I’ve only used it in personal projects. Thoughts?

As a user, I don't care. If Google is preventing me from finding a site I want just because it's not using HTTPS, I count that as a fault with Google, not the site.

Re: It seems that Google is forgetting the old web

#249

Post by randomsearch » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 9:59 PM UTC

marttt wrote: post #49

kickscondor wrote: post #17

While it's become impossible to browse the wider Web with Google, it's getting a bit easier elsewhere. A few helpful search engines: * https://millionshort.com/ * https://wiby.me/ * https://pinboard.in/search/ A recent movement to build personal Yahoo!-style directories: * https://href.cool/ (my own project) * https://indieseek.xyz/ * https://districts.neocities.org/ * https://the.dailywebthing.com/ The above resourc…

There's also Kenneth Goldsmith's UbuWeb, a curated directory of (hard or impossible-to-find) avant-garde art, music, writing, video. Launched in 1996. http://ubu.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UbuWeb

Possible contrarian insight: in the era of recommendation systems, hand-curation is due a big comeback.

I’ve been listening to the BBC’s Introducing Mixtape podcast for a while. I also use Spotify and really enjoy its recommendation but the 6 Music podcast is just stellar.

As paywalls restore quality journalism, I believe a renaissance for curated content is possible.

Re: It seems that Google is forgetting the old web

#250

Post by JohnFen » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 9:59 PM UTC

besulzbach wrote: post #9

> But this only makes bigger the problem of what to remember, what to forget and above all who and how should remember and forget. And today, if the big search engines decide something will (no longer) be indexed, they can make it effectively unreachable.

> they can make it effectively unreachable.

I think you mean "unfindable", not "unreachable". It may seem pedantic, but I think there's a critical difference there.