Except duckduckgo can't find my project and Google can: http://duckduckgo.com/?q=sphela+github https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=sphela
Doesn't that say more about your project than DDG?
DuckDuckGo: Escape your search engine filter bubble
111–120 of 219 posts
Re: DuckDuckGo: Escape your search engine filter bubble
#112From the search engine revenue perspective, how much can be the loss in case they provide a preference option to show "generic results" (like "safe search option off") - with an easy to switch ui between the two?
Normally we don't like to crowd up our preferences page with a bunch of options that people don't use much, but you can turn off personalization by adding "&pws=0" to the end of the Google search url.
Re: DuckDuckGo: Escape your search engine filter bubble
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
I see it as being a straw man argument. The article makes the assumption that personalized search results are bad for you, then goes on exemplifying it, but does not say or demonstrate in any way why personalized search results are bad, especially since it doesn't give any context about the person making those queries. Search ranking is a matter of context. " Egypt " does not mean anything, other than the name of a c…
It's true that sometimes I'm looking for specific things, but other times I'm searching to get an idea of "what's out there", to fill gaps in my knowledge and make sure I'm appraised of what's going on in the world. It'd be nice to at least have some control over what kinds of searches I'm doing. For example, if I search for my own name, what I want to know is something like: what are the most common search results o…
I understand that, but if the search results are not personalized for you, then they must be personalized for the common denominator, as in the hive, the majority's opinion, the status quo.
For general search queries, the long tail goes out the window anyway, and I haven't done or seen any quality metrics for DDG, but I doubt their search results are better for exploration or getting opinions different from your own.
Re: DuckDuckGo: Escape your search engine filter bubble
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
How to do I know what filters form the top results if they aren't transparent? What would lead you to believe that familiarizing yourself with a different point of view would take you down a meaningfully different path through the search graph? None that I can see. Every search has a non-objective filter. The original page rank is one such. What would be useful is to make the tree obvious and manipulable as a separat…
I agree that it would be cool to expose the different criteria that Google (for instance) is using to help reorder your results, to the degree that those criteria can be discretely identified, but I'm not surprised that they don't; that's a pretty significant portion of their secret sauce they would be publicizing. I also don't think that mere transparency would really help solve any search engine "filter bubble" pro…
Agreed. I wouldn't either 80% of the time. But often I'm making a very directed search that I would really like the "best" results for where best is usually defined as different than the results I'm getting.
Re: DuckDuckGo: Escape your search engine filter bubble
#115This entire argument is simply without merit. Google is, and always has been, a filter.
If I type in "Barack Obama", it will not show me links about The Green Bay Packers NFL team. This is not because Google is conspiring to keep me from reading about the Green Bay Packers. It is because it is most likely that I am not looking for Packers links and will not click. The general idea is that Google starts with every single piece of content on the internet and filters to get the content it thinks I am looking for.
Now, this article complains that Google is flawed because it will more likely show some MSNBC over Fox News, or vice versa. The implication here is that you never click on Fox News when it is presented. Because if you did click on Fox News and its ilk from time to time, Google wouldn't start filtering it in the first place. The problem isn't that the search engine creates the "bubble", it is that the user does!
So if the scenario presented in this article offends you, then start changing your behavior and browsing more diverse sites. Otherwise, don't blame Google for noting that you hang out in a very narrow corner of the internet, and presenting you links from that corner. It's just doing its job correctly in that case.
Re: DuckDuckGo: Escape your search engine filter bubble
#116If I had to tackle the notion of over-personalization in ~5 minutes, I'd say: - If someone prefers to search Google without personalization, add "&pws=0" (the "pws" stands for "personalized web search") to the end of the Google search url to turn it off, or use the incognito version of Chrome. Personalization tends to be a nice relevance improvement overall, but it doesn't trigger that much--when it launched, the imp…
Do you have a pointer to a publicly visible reference to the definition of some of the other query string parameters Google uses? Just thought I'd ask, given the context. I've noted various references people have cobbled together, but perhaps there's something a bit more... "canonical". Thanks for the above.
Re: DuckDuckGo: Escape your search engine filter bubble
#117It almost seems like DDG is trying to get me to think personalization == censorship. Sorry, but that ain't gonna fly.
You've just undermined your own search engine's potential to use such a feature in the future -- people will be spitting quotes back at DDG about how opposed on this feature they were. Know your audience.
Re: DuckDuckGo: Escape your search engine filter bubble
#118People that don't want "filtering", also want their search results in German, Chinese or Japanese? Or is "filtering" on language ok?
I think it's fair to assume that people want results in the same language as the search terms they entered.
Re: DuckDuckGo: Escape your search engine filter bubble
#119Except duckduckgo can't find my project and Google can: http://duckduckgo.com/?q=sphela+github https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=sphela
Thx -- we do have our own github crawl, but it needs to be updated more frequently. Duly noted and will fix.
Re: DuckDuckGo: Escape your search engine filter bubble
#120I have Google Web History turned off and I'm seeing a pretty good mix of things in my results. E.g., I'm heavily left-wing, somewhat pro-gun control, with no personal interest in shooting, but my results for 'gun' are pretty much all gun shops and fansites. For Barack Obama I get mostly official sites, although some of the top news is critical (I'm Canadian, if it matters). Egypt gives me a mix of travel, protests, general info and ancient history. I don't recall ever turning it off, so is it off by default? And if so, what's the problem here?