Ask HN: What are these low quality “code snippet” sites? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What are these low quality “code snippet” sites?

#211

Post by ahepp » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 10:40 PM UTC

tekstar wrote: post #123

1_player wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Search has been going downhill _fast_ over the past 5 years or so. Since it's probably incompetence rather than malice, what the heck is going on at Google Search? It seems to me the "let's use AI for everything" camp has taken over the entire place even though it's making Search worse than it ever was. And please spare me the excuse that now Google can answer questions. It can't, it just answers with snippets…

Maybe some PM realized: Worse search results -> more Google searches -> more ad views

That backfired then (well, for me). I use DDG now because if my results are going to suck either way, I’d rather have privacy.

Re: Ask HN: What are these low quality “code snippet” sites?

#212

Post by dorkwood » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 10:42 PM UTC

1_player wrote: post #86

BLanen wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They seem to keep giving more and more confidence in their language semantic ai. Quoted words in the search should return only pages with that actually on the page. That used to work. Now it often shows pages that don't contain it all, not in the search results page itself, nor on the page when you go there. So you'd think it just ignored the quoted text and gave me results without it instead, right? Wrong. Removing…

Google Search has been going downhill _fast_ over the past 5 years or so. Since it's probably incompetence rather than malice, what the heck is going on at Google Search? It seems to me the "let's use AI for everything" camp has taken over the entire place even though it's making Search worse than it ever was. And please spare me the excuse that now Google can answer questions. It can't, it just answers with snippets…

If I search "who gave away Anne Frank's hiding place?", Google confidently gives me the answer "Miep Gies".

I don't know why Google would even suggest this -- Miep was one of Anne's helpers. Imagine all the other people out there having their names unfairly smeared by Google's algorithm.

Re: Ask HN: What are these low quality “code snippet” sites?

#213

Post by new_guy » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 10:44 PM UTC

ScottWRobinson wrote: post #129

For years now I've ran a programming site (stackabuse.com) and have closely followed the state of Google SERPs when it comes to programming content. A few thoughts/ramblings: - The search results for programming content has been very volatile the last year or so. Google has released a lot of core algorithm updates in the last year, which has caused a lot of high-quality sites to either lose traffic or stagnate. - The…

> I'll admit that this is likely a difficult problem because of how programmer's use Google

It's beyond simple for Google to fix. Just drop those sites from the search index. But Google won't do that because it's in their interests to send you to those shit holes because they're littered with Google ads.

Re: Ask HN: What are these low quality “code snippet” sites?

#214

Post by ahepp » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 10:44 PM UTC

andai wrote: post #202

ScottWRobinson wrote: post #129

For years now I've ran a programming site (stackabuse.com) and have closely followed the state of Google SERPs when it comes to programming content. A few thoughts/ramblings: - The search results for programming content has been very volatile the last year or so. Google has released a lot of core algorithm updates in the last year, which has caused a lot of high-quality sites to either lose traffic or stagnate. - The…

>it's hard to convince programmers to pay for anything Offtopic but I'm curious why this is the case? Is the Free Software movement responsible for this mindset?

The content I want already exists. It’s provided for no charge on stackoverflow, reddit, Wikipedia, cppreference, and a handful of other high quality sources. All of which do not charge users a fee, most of which obtain the content from users in the first place.

So as far as I see it, the problem is not that the content is uneconomical to produce. The problem is that searching doesn’t discover the content I want. It brings up geeksforgeeks or worse.

Re: Ask HN: What are these low quality “code snippet” sites?

#215

Post by stavros » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 10:45 PM UTC

ahepp wrote: post #211

tekstar wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe some PM realized: Worse search results -> more Google searches -> more ad views

That backfired then (well, for me). I use DDG now because if my results are going to suck either way, I’d rather have privacy.

I've been using DDG for years, and its quality has recently gone down too. I was accustomed to using !g to search Google, but now I'm very surprised to find that the Google results are worse!

Google has completely lost the plot if DDG is the engine with the better results.

Re: Ask HN: What are these low quality “code snippet” sites?

#216

Post by mdasen » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 10:45 PM UTC

andai wrote: post #202

ScottWRobinson wrote: post #129

For years now I've ran a programming site (stackabuse.com) and have closely followed the state of Google SERPs when it comes to programming content. A few thoughts/ramblings: - The search results for programming content has been very volatile the last year or so. Google has released a lot of core algorithm updates in the last year, which has caused a lot of high-quality sites to either lose traffic or stagnate. - The…

>it's hard to convince programmers to pay for anything Offtopic but I'm curious why this is the case? Is the Free Software movement responsible for this mindset?

It's been a hard habit for me to break, but when you know that you could do something and theoretically do it better, it can bias you against paying for something. None of that is meant to sound arrogant - every company could do a better job given more time and resources, just as I could. But my time isn't infinite and I've found that paying for solutions in my life is a good thing. Sure, I could run my own email, but I'll just pay for it. Sure, I could create an app that does exactly what I want, but this one is close enough and it's $10.

With knowledge, the problem can be worse. You can't even evaluate if it's any good until it's been given to you. At that point, you don't need to pay for it because you have it. The number of paid knowledge things that I see that don't really have good information and avoid all the real problems that they promised they were going to solve for you can be high.

I think sites can build trust with users, but it can mean creating a lot of free content in the hopes of converting some people to paid users. Of course, if that model is too successful, then there will be an army of people dumping free content hoping to do the same, but then your paid content is competing with the free content available from many trying to do the same business model. If Bob creates a business doing this, do Pam, Sam, Bill, James, and Jess try to do that a few months later which then means that the amount of free content is now 5x what it was and there's no need to pay for it because it'll be a freebie on one of those sites?

Re: Ask HN: What are these low quality “code snippet” sites?

#217

Post by aaron695 » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 10:47 PM UTC

a_e_k wrote: post #130

shmde wrote: post #98

Just to chip in with a very minor annoyance, I hate how google puts up w3schools results above MDN for anything related to JS/HTML.

Hell, yesterday I searched for `python string split`. Stupid w3schools was the first hit. The official library reference documentation on python.org (which was what I was looking for) didn't turn up until nearly the bottom of the 2nd page of search results!! Beyond frustrating.

w3schools is better than python.org in your example.

So that issue needs to be addressed first.

I don't give a fuck about what library it's in blah blah a massive text wall.

I want a quick example at the top. Most of the time Fini.

Then more info about arguments, with quick examples.

Then more deeper info.

Fuck documentation as it stands in the IT world.

Also set your Google results to 100. What's the chances what you want will be in the top 10? Sure you are not a unique snowflake, but you should be better than the top 10 some of the time if you have any sort of expertise.

Re: Ask HN: What are these low quality “code snippet” sites?

#218

Post by pronik » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 10:48 PM UTC

Important tidbit: SO's content is CC-licensed and this is probably completely legal (apart from those who fail to add a link to the original). Not that I don't want those sites to burn in hell, but they are not even in a grey zone legally.

Re: Ask HN: What are these low quality “code snippet” sites?

#219

Post by ahepp » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 10:49 PM UTC

stavros wrote: post #215

ahepp wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That backfired then (well, for me). I use DDG now because if my results are going to suck either way, I’d rather have privacy.

I've been using DDG for years, and its quality has recently gone down too. I was accustomed to using !g to search Google, but now I'm very surprised to find that the Google results are worse ! Google has completely lost the plot if DDG is the engine with the better results.

Yeah, it’s at the point where search engines are now closer to shortcut bars for me. It’s rare that I don’t have to append “wiki” or “Reddit” to my search in order to find a decent result (which I assumed existed before I even searched it).

I wonder what the consequences are for discoverability on the web. It can’t be good. Maybe I’m waxing nostalgic, but it seemed like there was a time I discovered new and cool web sites. Now all I discover is ad spam clogging up the tubes.

Re: Ask HN: What are these low quality “code snippet” sites?

#220

Post by webmaven » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 10:51 PM UTC

Terry_Roll wrote: post #164

ScottWRobinson wrote: post #129

For years now I've ran a programming site (stackabuse.com) and have closely followed the state of Google SERPs when it comes to programming content. A few thoughts/ramblings: - The search results for programming content has been very volatile the last year or so. Google has released a lot of core algorithm updates in the last year, which has caused a lot of high-quality sites to either lose traffic or stagnate. - The…

I've seen programming newsgroups, those things from the 90's, with what can best be described as MITM attacks having taken place when coders have been looking for solutions to problems and the solutions have not been correct. Most newsgroups were never secure so vulnerable to MITM from day 1 and what is being reported today is just the latest variation in that attack process. I've also seen Bing & Google citing Stack…

> I've seen programming newsgroups, those things from the 90's, with what can best be described as MITM attacks having taken place when coders have been looking for solutions to problems and the solutions have not been correct. Most newsgroups were never secure so vulnerable to MITM from day 1 and what is being reported today is just the latest variation in that attack process.

Well, that's also the side effect of taking Cunningham's Law to heart, which says "the best way to get the right answer on the Internet is not to ask a question, it's to post the wrong answer."