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How is search so bad? A case study

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Re: How is search so bad? A case study

#401

Post by arminiusreturns »

sertaco wrote: post #399
arminiusreturns wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with your definition of most. https://electowiki.org/wiki/Majority Maybe not the best source, but quite a few sites returned similar verbiage about most usually but not always referring to a plurality. I'm open to correction on this point, and am genuinely curious about this meta argument now. Having a hard time finding a statistical dictionary that references the words we are using here (majority, most, e…

Can I even reply beyond this point?

Are you asking rhetorically in a facetious way or a real question? If the former am I missing something (like maybe I said something dumb, it's happened before)?

Re: How is search so bad? A case study

#402

Post by zackees »

skosch wrote: post #285
preommr wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's search rankings are based on opinions held by other credible sources. This isn't really blowing the whistle when, as you admitted, Google admits this openly. And maybe your site doesn't get ranked well because it's directly tied to project veritas. I don't like being too political, especially on hn and on an account tied to my real identity, but project veritas and it's associates exhibit appalling behavior…

His website contains gems like "Things got political in June 2017 when Google deleted "covfefe" out of it's arabic translation dictionary in order to make a Trump tweet become nonsense." (No, covfefe doesn't mean anything in Arabic.) Here is someone who believes that a private company's open attempts to rank websites by quality amounts to "seditious behaviour" deserving of criminal prosecution, and the only people wi…

Not only is it a word, but Google had to delete the word twice.

https://www.zachvorhies.com/covfefe.html

Re: How is search so bad? A case study

#403

Post by graycat »

yusef555 wrote: post #393
graycat wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How to be immune to SEO? Easy once see how. More details are in my now old HN post at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12404641 For a short answer, SEO has to do with keywords. My startup has nothing to do with keywords or even the English language at all. In particular, I'm not parsing the English language or any natural language; I'm not using natural language understanding techniques. In particular, my Web pag…

stop vaguebooking and post it up on HN. if you're comfortable with where the product is at at the current moment then share it. it will never be finished so share it today.

I was not really announcing a new Web site, which I do intend to do at HN once my omelet is ready for actual eating, but just replying to the post

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22092248

of rahulchhabra07.

His post was interesting to me since it mentioned some of the problems that I saw and that got me to work on my startup. And my post might have been interesting to him since it confirms that (i) someone else also sees the same problems and (ii) has a solution on the way.

For explaining my work fully, maybe even going open source, lots of people would say that I shouldn't do that. Indeed, that anyone would do a startup in Internet search seems just wack-o since they would be competing with Google and Bing, some of the most valuable efforts on the planet.

So that my efforts are not just wack-o, (i) I'm going for a part of search, e.g., solving the problems of rahulchhabra07, not currently solved well; (ii) my work does not really replace Google or Bing when they work well, and they do, what, some billions of times a second or some such?; (iii) my user interface is so different from that of Google and Bing that at least first cut my work would be like combining a racoon and a beaver into a racobeaver or a beavorac; and (iv) at least to get started I need the protection of trade secret internals.

Or, uh, although I only just now thought of this, maybe Google would like my work because it might provide some evidence that they are not all of search and don't really have a monopoly, an issue in recent news.

Re: How is search so bad? A case study

#404

Post by graycat »

freediver wrote: post #205
graycat wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good to hear your concerns. > The real problem with search engines is the fact that so many websites have hacked SEO that there is no meritocracy left. I intend to announce the alpha test of my search engine here on HN. My search engine is immune to all SEO efforts. > I can possibly not find anything deep enough about any topic by searching on Google anymore. In simple terms my search engine gives users content with…

Get feedback before you launch. Id be happy to test it.

Thanks. I intend to announce the alpha test here at HN, and I will have an e-mail address for feedback (already do -- at least got that little item off my TODO list although it took 36 hours of on the phone mud wrestling with my ISP to set it up).

Re: How is search so bad? A case study

#405

Post by dredmorbius »

eitland wrote: post #366
dredmorbius wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asking for a reference helps: - Establish the behaviour as documented. - In representing and demonstrating this to others. It's not that I doubt your word, but that I'd like to see a developed and credible case made. Because frankly that behaviour drives me to utter frustration and distraction. It's also a large part of the reason I no longer use, nor trust, Google Web Search as my principle online search tool.

I see. I'll try to make a habit out of collecting those again. That said, I might have something on an old blog somewhere. I'll see if I can find it before work starts... Edit: found it here http://techinorg.blogspot.com/2013/03/what-is-going-on-with-... . It is from 2013 and had probably been going on for a while already at that point. Edit2: For those who are still relying on Google, here's a nice hack I discovered…

Thanks.

I'm getting both mixed experiences and references myself looking into this. Which is if anything more frustrating than knowing unambiguously that quoting doesn't work.

I've run across numerous A/B tests across various Google properties. Or to use the technical term: "user gaslighting".

Re: How is search so bad? A case study

#406

Post by dredmorbius »

stevenicr wrote: post #237
dredmorbius wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been thinking along similar lines for a year or so now. There are several puzzling omissions from Web standards, particularly given that keyword-based search was part of the original CERN WWW discussion: http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/Addressing/Search.html IF we had a distributable search protocol, index, and infrastructure ... the entire online landscape might look rather different. Note that you'd likely n…

I too have been thinking about these things for a long time, and I also believe a better future is going to include "aggregation of such blocklists would, of course, be of some use, and facilitating this is an interesting challenge." I decided it is time for us to have a bouncer-bots portal (or multiple) - this would help not only with search results, but also could help people when using twitter or similar - good fo…

There are some ... "interesting" ... edge cases around shared blocklists, most especially where those:

1. Become large.

2. Are shared.

3. And not particularly closely scrutinised by users.

4. Via very highly followed / celebrity accounts.

There are some vaguely similar cases of this occurring on Twitter, though some mechanics differ. Celebs / high-profile users attract a lot of flack, and take to using shared blocklists. Those get shared not only among celeb accounts but their followers, though, because celebs themselves are a major amplifying factor on the platform, being listed effectively means disappearing from the platform. Particularly critical for those who depend on Twitter reach (some artists, small businesses, and others).

Names may be added to lists in error or malice.

This blew up summer of 2018 and carried over to other networks.

Some of the mechanics differ, but a similar situation playing out over informally shared Web / search-engine blocklists could have similar effects.

Re: How is search so bad? A case study

#407

Post by krageon »

viklove wrote: post #252
joshuamorton wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(I work at Google, but don't work on search) > If wikipedia contains cherry picked slander against a person, topic or website then the raters are instructed to provide a low page rank score This sounds like a good thing to me. Sites that contain lies, fabrications, and falsehoods should not be as highly ranked as those which do not. Why should shareholders sure Google for, as far as I can tell from your argument, try…

Why do your colleagues get to decide what is fact and what is fiction? It's our right, as humans, to be able to make that decision on our own after we encounter information. If Wikipedia gains a reputation for libel, then the onus should be on the public to stop trusting them. Google does not have the moral authority to censor the internet, and it's absolutely wrong for them to attempt this. Information should be fre…

> decide what is fact

The fun thing about facts is that nobody needs to decide whether or not they are true. Perhaps the fact that you can honestly claim to think otherwise means you need to take a step back and examine your reasoning.

Re: How is search so bad? A case study

#408

Post by Mauricio_ »

zackees wrote: post #219
rahulchhabra07 wrote: post #32

I have been thinking about the same problem since a few weeks. The real problem with search engines is the fact that so many websites have hacked SEO that there is no meritocracy left. Results are not sorted based on relevance or quality but by SEO experts' efforts at making the search results favor themselves. I can possibly not find anything deep enough about any topic by searching on Google anymore. It's just surf…

The real reason why search is so bad is that Google is downranking the internet. I should know - I blew the whistle on the whole censorship regime and walked 950 pages to the DOJ and media outlets. --> zachvorhies.com What did I disclose? That Google was using a project called "Machine Learning Faireness" to rerank the entire internet. Part of this beast has to do with a secret Page Rank score that Google's army of w…

>my website zachvorhies.com doesn't show up on Google's search index, even when using the exact url as a query!

Just searched it and it's literally the first result.

Re: How is search so bad? A case study

#409

Post by Mauricio_ »

BlackLotus89 wrote: post #152
rahulchhabra07 wrote: post #32

I have been thinking about the same problem since a few weeks. The real problem with search engines is the fact that so many websites have hacked SEO that there is no meritocracy left. Results are not sorted based on relevance or quality but by SEO experts' efforts at making the search results favor themselves. I can possibly not find anything deep enough about any topic by searching on Google anymore. It's just surf…

> I have been thinking about the same problem since a few weeks. The real problem with search engines is the fact that so many websites have hacked SEO that there is no meritocracy left. That's not actually the problem described here. His problem is actually a bit deeper rootet since he specified the exact parameters of what he wants to see, but got terrible results. He specified a search for "site:reddit.com" but th…

>but the resilts he got were ireelevant and worse than the results that he would have got when searching reddit directly

Wrong. Internal reddit search has bad results too, and why even let you filter by last month.

Re: How is search so bad? A case study

#410

Post by Mauricio_ »

arminiusreturns wrote: post #322
rahulchhabra07 wrote: post #32

I have been thinking about the same problem since a few weeks. The real problem with search engines is the fact that so many websites have hacked SEO that there is no meritocracy left. Results are not sorted based on relevance or quality but by SEO experts' efforts at making the search results favor themselves. I can possibly not find anything deep enough about any topic by searching on Google anymore. It's just surf…

I've often thought one approach, though one I wouldn't necessarily want to be the standard paradigm, would be exclusivity based on usefulness. So for example duckduckgo is still trying to use various providers to emulate essentially "early google without the modern google privacy violations", but when I start to think about many of the most successful company-netizens, one thing that stands out is early day exclusivi…

And how do you determine which websites are good other than checking if they are doing seo? Is reddit.com good or bad? If a good site that does seo should it be taken out?

And what if what you're searching exists only in a non good website? Isn't it better to show a result from a non good website than showing nothing?

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