This complaint features regularly on HN so [my assumption] it has to be wilful blindness on the part of google?
Ask HN: Why does Pinterest dominate Google text search results?
281–290 of 329 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why does Pinterest dominate Google text search results?
#282Earlier quoted context omitted.
I use DDG search most of the time, but I find this to be untrue. DDG is pretty good, but struggles with context a lot more than Google does. For example, when searching for an error in a programming library, DDG is likely to return the library homepage, whereas google is more likely to return the specific github issue where the error is being discussed.
For text it depends [1] but for images I find DDG to range from slightly to significantly better than Google. Also, I have direct access to the image file URL without having to rely on browser extensions. [1] I wonder if the meme "DDG is not that good" is so prevalent on Hacker News because it sucks for programming stuff.
Yes, Google image searches produce wild results. Far-right groups have had a field day with it.
Re: Ask HN: Why does Pinterest dominate Google text search results?
#283I strongly dislike pinterest for this very reason. I wish I could block it from search results
Re: Ask HN: Why does Pinterest dominate Google text search results?
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just add `-site:example.org` to your query.
I have done this throughout COVID for the NYTimes' content, as it's behind a paywall.
Interestingly, if you use Brave, it lets you hop to the tor versions of sites, and since NYTimes has a tor version, if you visit that, it’s paywall free.
Re: Ask HN: Why does Pinterest dominate Google text search results?
#285There's no intentional or manual effort at Google to promote pinterest. Pinterest shows up because they understand how the Google algorithm works and built their website to display all the signals that Google looks for in relevant image content. They understand user intent and generate URLs that present content in a way that google expects to see. Examples of how they do this from their engineering team: https://medi…
"There's no intentional or manual effort at Google to promote pinterest." But there is an effort at Pinterest to promote itself via Google. Pinterest pays Google for online ad aservices. Pinterest is a Google customer. The user is not. The bottom line at Google is not driven by showing users the "best" results for users. The bottom line is driven by customers such as Pinterest who pay Google to assist them with onlin…
The term "black art" appears to be a synonym for "black magic".
Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_magic) describes black magic as "the use of supernatural powers or magic for evil and selfish purposes."^1
1. J. Gordon Melton, ed. (2001). "Black Magic". Encyclopedia of Occultism & Parapsychology. Vol 1: A-L (Fifth ed.). Gale Research Inc. ISBN 0-8103-9488-X.
Re: Ask HN: Why does Pinterest dominate Google text search results?
#286Earlier quoted context omitted.
-pinterest removes pages that contain the term pinterest, so pages from a pinterest.* domain, plus articles about pinterest, etc.
Sounds pretty good to me. If I'm searching for a term, but don't want results from pintrest, then I'm probably not wanting to read an article about pintrest either.
Except that the word "pinterest", like pinterest.* results, appears in all the nooks and crannies of the rest of the Web. Excluding the domain like that succeeds in narrowing the scope of the search without excluding content unduly.
Re: Ask HN: Why does Pinterest dominate Google text search results?
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately this did not work for me. I added these two, and then I did a search on images.google.com for "custom carved door frame". 5 of 7 images on the first row of results was some pinterest site.
Can you try this? google.*##.g:has(a[href*=".pinterest."]) google.*##a[href*=".pinterest."]:nth-ancestor(1)
nth-ancestor(n) and upward(arg) look handy. They're uBO extensions.
https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Procedural-cosmetic-f...
Re: Ask HN: Why does Pinterest dominate Google text search results?
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have done this throughout COVID for the NYTimes' content, as it's behind a paywall.
Interestingly, if you use Brave, it lets you hop to the tor versions of sites, and since NYTimes has a tor version, if you visit that, it’s paywall free.
I use Brave. How do I hop to the Tor version of a site?
Re: Ask HN: Why does Pinterest dominate Google text search results?
#289Re: Ask HN: Why does Pinterest dominate Google text search results?
#290Related: in the last several years, there started appearing these StackOverflow mirrors. It's gotten to the point that you can't google a programming question without running into at least one. Some copy the questions and answers verbatim, some use machine translation to (crappily) translate them into my native language. Sometimes they even rank higher than the real StackOverflow. I really wish there was a non-hacky…
I presumed it was just DuckDuckGo lacking algorithms to detect such 'spammers'.
But now I learned that Google is suffering the same poor detection. Another 'downside of using DDG debunked', I guess.