How much longer will we trust Google’s search results? • Hacker News Board

Re: How much longer will we trust Google’s search results?

#61

Post by reaperducer » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 6:08 PM UTC

gregcrv wrote: post #10

BitwiseFool wrote: post #4

I've actually moved to other search engines because the quality of the results have gone down dramatically. It seems like google will fixate on one or two keywords in my search (usually the most generic ones) and ignore the rest. In addition, the old google tricks like using quotes for literal values no longer seems to work. It is like google is guessing what I want, rather than trying to find what I have entered as…

They are definitely trying to guess what you are searching for. One thing that drives me crazy is that they assume all of your searches are geographically or linguistically "local", they don't have an international search mode where the most relevant result in the world shows up.

One thing that drives me crazy is that they assume all of your searches are geographically or linguistically "local"

It wouldn't be so terrible, except that Google is extraordinarily bad at geolocation.

Right now, Google thinks my work computer is in southern New Mexico. Google thinks my personal computer, right next to it, is in northern Nevada. Google thinks my mobile phone, in between the two, is in Los Angeles. All of those locations are hundreds of miles wrong.

But it gets even worse when you want to know about something in a place other than where you're standing right now. It's like nobody inside Google has ever done any trip planning in their entire lives.

Apple Maps has the opposite problem, though. If I want to search for a German restaurant near my location in the United States, it will show me places in Germany.

Re: How much longer will we trust Google’s search results?

#62

Post by JohnFen » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 6:09 PM UTC

mehrdadn wrote: post #56

JohnFen wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am forced to use Comcast, and I really wish I had another option. I have numerous complaints about them. But I have to say -- the quality of their internet service is not one of them. It's been consistently solid and well-performing for me for years.

Their upload speed doesn't bother you?

Not really, no. Their price tag and their billing shenanigans sure do, though.

Re: How much longer will we trust Google’s search results?

#63

Post by thrwaway69 » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 6:09 PM UTC

Here is a list of alternatives:

Ecosia: https://www.ecosia.org

Duckduckgo: https://duck.com

Yandex: https://yandex.com

Cliqz: https://beta.cliqz.com

Qwant: https://www.qwant.com

Startpage: https://www.startpage.com

Searx: https://github.com/asciimoo/searx

Bing: https://bing.com

Resources to build your own:

https://github.com/topics/search-engine

https://openwebindex.eu

https://commoncrawl.org

Re: How much longer will we trust Google’s search results?

#64

Post by suifbwish » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 6:12 PM UTC

bplot wrote: post #54

I'm surprised nobody has been talking about the fact that muddying the distinction between ads and organic results is illegal. Google, Amazon, and others have been moving this way for a while, despite the FTC sending a warning a few years ago: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/blogs/business-blog/2013/06/...

This is literally what the Facebook post feed is made of.

Re: How much longer will we trust Google’s search results?

#65

Post by wcchandler » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 6:13 PM UTC

I’m a sysadmin/engineer. Google results have gotten so bad in the past year I’m debating about taking some training courses from our vendors just so I’m not so reliant on a search engine. I feel like this is dark times for my profession.

Re: How much longer will we trust Google’s search results?

#66

Post by j4kp07 » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 6:14 PM UTC

BitwiseFool wrote: post #4

I've actually moved to other search engines because the quality of the results have gone down dramatically. It seems like google will fixate on one or two keywords in my search (usually the most generic ones) and ignore the rest. In addition, the old google tricks like using quotes for literal values no longer seems to work. It is like google is guessing what I want, rather than trying to find what I have entered as…

The new UI with favicons was the last straw for me. Everything looks like an ad, which I'm sure is intentional. I've been adjusting to DDG for the past 4+ weeks.

Re: How much longer will we trust Google’s search results?

#67

Post by valdiorn » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 6:16 PM UTC

I switched to bing on my work machine at the start of this week, and have found I've been getting better results than google gives me. Especially if I'm trying to do any type of complex query, like filtering by domain or multiple search phrases, google dumbed down their query handing some years ago so it's basically useless now.

I've started treating google more like the Yellow Pages; a good source when you WANT ads, i.e. you're looking for a tradesman in your area, or a restaurant to go to. For organic search, it's rubbish.

Edit: the dumbed down search has begun on youtube as well, YT routinely ignores what I searched for and just shows me videos related to what I was watching previously. I search for guitar amps and get videos for DIY kitchens, because I was looking at that stuff last night. Beyond moronic.

Re: How much longer will we trust Google’s search results?

#68

Post by dreamcompiler » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 6:21 PM UTC

monadic2 wrote: post #22

ogre_codes wrote: post #19

I have to disagree fundamentally with the author on this point: > but then Google was always ugly until relatively recently Google was originally and for many years extremely elegant in it’s simplicity. There is nothing ugly about getting people exactly what they need instantly. As for the main thrust of the article, I’ve already found Google’s results mostly untrustworthy. For some time search results have been so d…

> Google was originally and for many years extremely elegant in it’s simplicity. What, no ads?

Google had zero ads in the early days.

Re: How much longer will we trust Google’s search results?

#69

Post by puranjay » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 6:22 PM UTC

I've switched to DDG. I'll take slightly inferior results if it means a more open web.

Google's results are now nearly all ads above the fold. The ads are also deceptively marked.

Really scummy tactic. The sort of thing you'd expect from crappy credit card companies.

If this is the direction Google is going to take under Pichai, then I'm out.

Re: How much longer will we trust Google’s search results?

#70

Post by ignoramous » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 6:23 PM UTC

I don't, anymore. Just as I now don't trust and download a gazillion apps on my phone anymore.

I've personally switched to https://duckduckgo.com/lite (wished it was available in dark-mode, may be I should write a greasemonkey script) and make it a point to change search engine defaults on all phones in the household and remove or disable google-search and chrome apps.

For most basic searches, ddg/lite works just as good and is lighting fast. I do find myself !g redirecting searches to Google which admittedly does a remarkably better job at answering certain class of queries. I used to search on startpage.com, before it sold to an ad-company, which proxies Google search results minus the tracking and ads.

Speaking of proxy search engines, there're various searx mirrors too, but I haven't yet used them.