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Ask HN: Has Google search been worse at finding information lately?

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Re: Ask HN: Has Google search been worse at finding information lately?

#61

Post by techrat »

ASalazarMX wrote: post #45
Bjartr wrote: post #19

For sure. Google's ability to surface useful pages above SEO gamed "articles" has been dropping for years. I've had to start adding '-best' and '-top' to searches in an attempt to stop getting blogspam stuff like "december 2020 best X" with no substance when searching for X. It used to be possible to, for some topics, limit the search period to pre 2010 to help improve the relevancy of results. But I've started to no…

Not only that. Suddenly some corporation learns to "game the SEO", and keeps their spam on the first page of results for months, without users having a choice to block or report it, like Pinterest. IMO it looks more like advertising deal than SEO gaming.

I'm really disappointed that Google removed the ability to ban domains from search results. Pinterest was one of the first to go.

For those wondering, this it what it looked like: https://searchengineland.com/google-brings-back-blocking-sit...

Re: Ask HN: Has Google search been worse at finding information lately?

#66

Post by kbaker »

Waterluvian wrote: post #8

I've been struggling with context. I fight for Google to know I'm talking about Rust the language and not the game or the oxidization. "Rust Vector Drain" really struggled today. I'm a bit surprised that Google isn't prepared to remember context. "User has been looking at a lot of Rust Lang so let's promote those kinds of results"

Are you logged in? I searched for that phrase 'rust vector drain' (without the quotes) and the entire page is filled with Rust documentation. Although the broader point stands, I have noticed Google search getting worse.

Re: Ask HN: Has Google search been worse at finding information lately?

#67

Post by sp304_ »

I am often interested in finding past sports information so if I search for something like +2003 "Team X" "football schedule" I will receive many pages of their 2020 or 2021 schedule and recent news about that team. I feel like the Google of the old days would deliver me exactly what I wanted within the first 5 results.

Re: Ask HN: Has Google search been worse at finding information lately?

#68

Post by quantumofalpha »

greatgib wrote: post #10

The worse now is email search in gmail. It used to be very efficient, but now, if you don't type the exact word in full with the exact spelling, it will not find it. The most annoying is sometimes when you only remember half of a name or first name that you are looking for. (Note: assuming that it is not in your contact list already)

It's been always that bad
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