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Google search results have more human help than you think, report finds

arstechnica.com

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Re: Google search results have more human help than you think, report finds

#41

Post by giardini »

shrubble wrote: post #15
danielfoster wrote: post #4

I’ve been pretty frustrated with Google lately. Maybe it’s me, but they seem to keep skewing their algorithm to ignore precise queries and always show broad matches. For example I recently searched “US ambassador Germany” on Google News and the top results were all stories about Ukraine and the impeachment hearings. Google completely ignored “Germany.” Similar things happen to me all the time on Google Search. Perhap…

I have certainly been disappointed recently by Google search results when searching for certain information on microcontrollers and the Forth programming language. Forth gets corrected to fourth and/or is found in the idiom 'back and forth'

This.

FWIW I will use "Forth language" or "Forth programming language" instead of "Forth" to delineate more precisely what I'm seeking.

Re: Google search results have more human help than you think, report finds

#42

Post by cinnamonheart »

tyingq wrote: post #19
harikb wrote: post #5

Somewhat click-baity. They are not implying runtime / live intervention (which isn’t possible anyways). Top bad results are tweaked. That is part of making the “algorithm”. Who says that is immoral or illegal?

Not immoral or illegal, but using human raters to seed an algorithm can make the results worse. For example, it could skew to favoring websites where the rater is familiar with the brand. Which might rank mediocre branded content over less well known sites with much higher quality content. That seems to match what I've seen over the last 10 years with Google.

I worked for Leapforce for a while doing this sort of rating work using Google's guidelines. The guidelines were linked elsewhere in this thread and, at a glance, they are the same ones I used:

https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/guidelines.raterh...

If you're doing something that would skew the results to favour a certain brand, you'd be going against Google's guidelines and your contract would be terminated quickly. I found the review process of my results to be fairly stringent; they were reviewed frequently to ensure I was staying within the guidelines, and I was told even about slight deviatiations.

Re: Google search results have more human help than you think, report finds

#43

Post by doublekill »

apatters wrote: post #8
danielfoster wrote: post #4

I’ve been pretty frustrated with Google lately. Maybe it’s me, but they seem to keep skewing their algorithm to ignore precise queries and always show broad matches. For example I recently searched “US ambassador Germany” on Google News and the top results were all stories about Ukraine and the impeachment hearings. Google completely ignored “Germany.” Similar things happen to me all the time on Google Search. Perhap…

Having been on the fringes of the SEO industry for many years, my theory is that the spammers and algorithm gamers have slowly but surely won out. This has forced Google to de-emphasize keyword relevancy and instead prioritize content source--large and well known brands with high domain authority have captured increasingly larger numbers of queries over the years. Someone at Google will probably disagree emphatically…

I do not think it is the SEO, but Google adapting to its less-technical userbase (people who search for "facebook" and click the first result).

It makes sense for this target audience to give broad results. They seem to be relying more on neural language models to accomplish this.

Google also surfaces more authoritative results than Bing, Google thus favors bigger commercial sites.

Google is suprisingly good on vague searches (for instance, describing a singer's appearance and song themes will return the name), but getting worse on "conspiracy"-type searches (you will not find many amateur sites discussing the high-class escort past of the First Lady, because these lack authority, all results focus instead on the massive fine for posting allegations).

Re: Google search results have more human help than you think, report finds

#44

Post by corodra »

danielfoster wrote: post #4

I’ve been pretty frustrated with Google lately. Maybe it’s me, but they seem to keep skewing their algorithm to ignore precise queries and always show broad matches. For example I recently searched “US ambassador Germany” on Google News and the top results were all stories about Ukraine and the impeachment hearings. Google completely ignored “Germany.” Similar things happen to me all the time on Google Search. Perhap…

I'm going to second this for web searches. My results lately for either geopolitical or tech have been oddly broad as well. Even though I try to find specific information on a topic, the website results (I don't do their news searches often, can't speak to that one) always have a "trendy" vibe to them. Even if I'm looking for tutorial or technical info, there's been more search-result attention devoted to puff-piece blog articles roughly related to what I want. Like they are more focused on the political aspect of what I want instead of giving me what I want.

I've been noticing it for the past 3 or 4 weeks. I've been thinking my google-fu has been weakening. Glad to know I'm not the only one.

Re: Google search results have more human help than you think, report finds

#45

Post by NoodleIncident »

danielfoster wrote: post #4

I’ve been pretty frustrated with Google lately. Maybe it’s me, but they seem to keep skewing their algorithm to ignore precise queries and always show broad matches. For example I recently searched “US ambassador Germany” on Google News and the top results were all stories about Ukraine and the impeachment hearings. Google completely ignored “Germany.” Similar things happen to me all the time on Google Search. Perhap…

I've been pretty frustrated with HN lately. Every time Google search is discussed, someone comments with a Google News search that fails for them, despite it being almost completely irrelevant to the conversation.

Re: Google search results have more human help than you think, report finds

#46

Post by ilaksh »

It should be based on public protocols/networks running as a decentralized system rather than relying on a private for profit entirely. It may be possible to have businesses run on top to provide added value, but the core should provide transparency and auditability.

Re: Google search results have more human help than you think, report finds

#47

Post by ppod »

thedevil wrote: post #32
bytematic wrote: post #14

This is the full Quality Raters Guidelines that physical people comb through a website with. https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/guidelines.raterh...

Out of curiosity, I looked for their policies on misinformation. I could see some potential risks here but it still seems reasonable to me: > Demonstrably inaccurate content > YMYL content that contradicts well-established expert consensus > Debunked or unsubstantiated conspiracy theories This part, I imagine, is a bit more controversial: > pages that potentially spread hate, cause harm, or misinform or deceive users…

I think the first few are problematic too. Which conspiracy theories? Moon landing, pizzagate, Epstein? No idea where to draw a line there.

Demonstrably inaccurate? I doubt they remove young earth creationists. It seems easy at first, but it doesn't take long to find a lot of gray areas.

Re: Google search results have more human help than you think, report finds

#48

Post by pascalxus »

Just do the following search on google and see what the auto complete shows you:

Men can... (you get things like: men can have periods, men can have babies, men can get pregnant, etc)

Then look at what women can do: Women can...(do it, fly, do anything, can vote, can work, etc)

There's a very particular agenda that seems to be present. it's kinda scary how strongly biased their search results are.

Re: Google search results have more human help than you think, report finds

#49

Post by 1_2__4 »

Ok this is now the fourth day in a row this is getting pushed to the front page. The first three times it was the WSJ article over and over again, now we get recycled articles about the exact same report.

It’s debunked thoroughly in the comments and pops up day after day. Almost as if there’s some kind of concerted agenda to get it on the front page of HN.

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