Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it

#81

Post by hectormalot » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 1:47 PM UTC

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #66

iamben wrote: post #63

We're going to end up going back to community sites. Reddit is obviously the good example here, but you can guarantee if you find a 'racing bike' forum (or whatever), take the time to join up, search, ask - someone with a passion for it will give you a great, well researched list because they love it and take pride from knowing . Exactly the same as when I ask my friend who's passionate about wine for his recommendat…

I want you to be right but the GME and AMC nonsense doesn’t instill a lot of confidence that Reddit isn’t being gamed already by automated accounts. I’ve had my own comment altered a little and regurgitated by a bot before, which was extremely creepy. But you are right that the signal to noise is at least better on Reddit.

I don’t know. It depends on the ‘quality’ of the community. Eg when I’m considering a new IT tool, I tend to search ‘!hn $tool’ just to see what the comments on HN are like, as it’s the most reasonable signal I can find vs google. Similar example, when searching for a good EV charging pass my first go-to were the Tweakers.net forums. It’s a place where the general IT crowd of the Netherlands hangs out and indeed someone already wrote a very extensive topic on the EV charging world, the business models, what to watch out for, etc.

I suppose if you have the same for cooking, cycling, cars, etc. It might actually end up going that direction for more people.

As a community becomes higher quality though, it also becomes more interesting for scammers to abuse. (The Bitcoin Reddits you mentioned are a great example). Good moderation is key I think.

Re: Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it

#82

Post by SerLava » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 1:49 PM UTC

mustacheemperor wrote: post #62

flenserboy wrote: post #49

Google broke itself over a decade ago when they began giving you results either that their algorithms assumed you wanted or that they wanted you to have , period. Verbatim search hardly produces anything useful anymore, either. Search has been coopted, making the prime thing (past general connectivity) that made the internet so useful now all but worthless.

I’ve found DuckDuckGo can be better at some searches, and at others far worse. I was recently trying to search up how to do something in Excel and every result from DDG was some “excel-help” website that was actually just parroting common search terms as the headers on non-articles full of ads. The entire search space has apparently been hijacked by what is essentially a fake help site. I see results like that on goo…

Similarly on Google and YouTube- nearly the entire search space for "how to pronounce xyz" has been taken over by videos of text to speech recordings that have absolutely no idea how to pronounce anything.

There are huge YouTube channels posting this scam content, and they never seem to go away. There are real ones in there too, but there are way more spam words than real ones.

Re: Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it

#83

Post by ds » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 1:49 PM UTC

Affiliate links arent the problem per-se. Shitty content is. Google is supposed to penalize sites like this with lousy, thin reviews and promote things like wirecutter and whatnot.

I much prefer affiliate links to the alternative: Unblockable ads and paywalls.

Re: Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it

#84

Post by seoaeu » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 1:49 PM UTC

flenserboy wrote: post #49

Google broke itself over a decade ago when they began giving you results either that their algorithms assumed you wanted or that they wanted you to have , period. Verbatim search hardly produces anything useful anymore, either. Search has been coopted, making the prime thing (past general connectivity) that made the internet so useful now all but worthless.

It is always weird to me that people think the quality of Google results compared to the past are a deliberate choice by Google, and not the consequence of an adversarial process where marketers spend billions of dollars trying to distort the rankings

Re: Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it

#85

Post by okareaman » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 1:49 PM UTC

> I wound up buying a used bike from a local shop

I think this is a positive outcome. Google and Amazon are driving people to shop locally with their tricks.

Same thing happened to me and I couldn't be happier I bought an electric bike from a local shop. I probably paid a little more, but I made a new friend. The local shop owner is a really cool guy who was interested in meeting my needs, not in selling me his most profitable bike.

Re: Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it

#86

Post by flenserboy » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 1:50 PM UTC

cainxinth wrote: post #57

flenserboy wrote: post #49

Google broke itself over a decade ago when they began giving you results either that their algorithms assumed you wanted or that they wanted you to have , period. Verbatim search hardly produces anything useful anymore, either. Search has been coopted, making the prime thing (past general connectivity) that made the internet so useful now all but worthless.

I take your point, but don’t you think you’re overstating things a bit? The internet is still incredibly useful and so is Google search (granted, it takes more effort and sophistication to avoid the spam).

I don't think I'm overstating things. Yes, the internet is useful, but consider how the ability to accurately search is the real key to the whole of it. As the original post points out, this hits us in day-to-day matters just as much as in trying to find/discover useful research on a particular topic. The simple fact is this: not only must nearly every link you click be viewed with suspicion, so must every search result you're given by Google, and pretty much every other engine. What is most useful is a presentation of naked results (with functional boolean operators, exclusions that work, a lack of "suggested" terms, etc.), but that doesn't shape and cause more interactions, direct people to the "proper" sites, or improve the bottom line. I remember the internet when it was usable for much more than consumption; it is only marginally so today.

Re: Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it

#87

Post by wlesieutre » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 1:51 PM UTC

makecheck wrote: post #70

flenserboy wrote: post #49

Google broke itself over a decade ago when they began giving you results either that their algorithms assumed you wanted or that they wanted you to have , period. Verbatim search hardly produces anything useful anymore, either. Search has been coopted, making the prime thing (past general connectivity) that made the internet so useful now all but worthless.

Yep; I can’t believe what used to be bar-none the most useful set of search results will now seemingly scatter results into the list that have zero matches for my search term, as well as some with boldfaced words that I did not even type. And also, for some reason the “zero-click results” stuff really bothers me. I don’t want some crappy AI summary of a Wikipedia page, I want the Wikipedia link first , for example. I…

> I can only assume this is a form of traffic theft because I seriously doubt Google has agreements with all the sites they slurp useful information from.

Yup: https://theoutline.com/post/1399/how-google-ate-celebritynet...

Re: Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it

#88

Post by cainxinth » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 1:51 PM UTC

eddieh wrote: post #67

cainxinth wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I take your point, but don’t you think you’re overstating things a bit? The internet is still incredibly useful and so is Google search (granted, it takes more effort and sophistication to avoid the spam).

I don't think its overstated. The web is broken and search especially so. Now days I look for curated list to find interesting webpages and topics. Google ruined itself years ago, or maybe "we" ruined it.

The original commenter said: "Search has been coopted, making the prime thing (past general connectivity) that made the internet so useful now all but worthless."

I agree that Google search has been coopted. It now requires a keener awareness of what is and isn't being artificially promoted. Is it annoying? Yes. Is it something that unsophisticated users fall prey to (by design)? Also sadly yes. But 'all but worthless'? That's a huge overstatement.

Re: Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it

#89

Post by benrbray » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 1:51 PM UTC

thrower123 wrote: post #80

tmccrary55 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet Reddit could take a big chunk of Stack Overflow's market share.

Reddit would need to fix their UI so that it isn't actively hostile to people trying to read content on their site.

StackExchange is a breath of fresh air compared to the rest of the web. I saw a meta post the other day where they were soliciting feedback about how make their mobile site more information dense. Love it!

Re: Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it

#90

Post by micromacrofoot » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 1:52 PM UTC

iamben wrote: post #63

We're going to end up going back to community sites. Reddit is obviously the good example here, but you can guarantee if you find a 'racing bike' forum (or whatever), take the time to join up, search, ask - someone with a passion for it will give you a great, well researched list because they love it and take pride from knowing . Exactly the same as when I ask my friend who's passionate about wine for his recommendat…

yes! probably only a matter of time until they ramp up the astroturfing (which already happens a fair amount). It seems pretty common for someone to do a Google search for "X product review reddit"