Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Why doesn't anyone create a search engine comparable to 2005 Google?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 492 posts

Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't anyone create a search engine comparable to 2005 Google?

#321

Post by pronik »

JacobThreeThree wrote: post #263
SamBam wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You do a search on Gigablast and say, well, why didn't it get this result that Google got. And that's because the index isn't big enough I wionder how much this is true, and how much (despite all our rhetoric to the contrary) it's because we have actually come to expect Google's modern proprietary page ranking, which counts more than just inbound links but all sorts of other signals (freshness, relevance to our pre…

I think people also have an inflated recollection of how good Google actually was back in 2005. Back then Google was only going up against indexes and link-rings, not 2021 Google/Bing/DDG/etc.

I've been using Altavista at that time, every now and then switching to Northern Light. Everything else was abysmal. Google blew them out of the water in terms of speed, quality, simplicity, unclutterdness and everything else. I can't remember ever retraining muscle memory so fast when switching to Google. So, no, Google has been great then and apart from people actively working against the algorithm is still good now, but obviously a completely different beast.

Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't anyone create a search engine comparable to 2005 Google?

#322

Post by danielmarkbruce »

gbmatt wrote: post #80
technobabbler wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cloudflare functions kinda like a private security company. They don't go around blocking sites willy-nilly, site owners have to specifically choose to use their service (and maybe pay for it), configuring the bot blocking rules themselves. That's not really Cloudflare's fault. Someone has to do it, whether it's them or a competitor or sys admins manually making firewall rules. Cloudflare just happens to be good enou…

I've had extensively dealing with Cloudflare. They have a complex whitelisting system that is difficult to get on, and they also have an 'AI' system that determines if you should be kicked off that whitelist for whatever reason. Furthermore, they give Google preferred treatment in their UIs and backend algos because it is the incumbent and nobody cares about other smaller search engines. So there's a lot of detail to…

It isn't up to them to give everyone a fair shot. That isn't what their customers actually want. Cloudflare aren't in the "fair shots for all search engines" business. They are in the "stop requests you don't want hitting your servers" business.

Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't anyone create a search engine comparable to 2005 Google?

#323

Post by loonster »

supernovae wrote: post #317
lolinder wrote: post #290

The consistent theme every time this comes up is that dealing with the sheer weight of the internet is almost impossible today. SEO spam is hard to fight and the index gets too heavy. However, I wonder if this is a sign that we're looking at the problem wrong. What if instead of even trying to index the entire web, we moved one step back towards the curated directories of the early web? Give users a search engine and…

It's flawed from the get go if reddit is the basis.

As much as I like to hate on reddit (I'm a permanently suspended user), not every sub there is trash. There are some great subs there on very specific niche topics.

Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't anyone create a search engine comparable to 2005 Google?

#324

Post by gompertz »

xtracto wrote: post #232
RhysU wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A subscriber-supported search engine sounds cool to me. Any precedent?

Copernic ( https://copernic.com/ ) had Copernic Agent Professional, a for-pay desktop application that had really good search features, a while ago . Not sure if they discontinued it.

Wow blast from the past. I think I was using Copernic all the way back in 2003... Forgot all about them. Thanks!

Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't anyone create a search engine comparable to 2005 Google?

#325

Post by jonathankoren »

lessname wrote: post #297
lolinder wrote: post #290

The consistent theme every time this comes up is that dealing with the sheer weight of the internet is almost impossible today. SEO spam is hard to fight and the index gets too heavy. However, I wonder if this is a sign that we're looking at the problem wrong. What if instead of even trying to index the entire web, we moved one step back towards the curated directories of the early web? Give users a search engine and…

This might work well in some situations (e.g. research, development), however it would also increase the effect of echo chambers I think.

Part of the thing with echo chambers is that the search terms themselves can be indicative of a particular bubble. For example, there's a difference in the people that refer to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms by the official initialism, "ATF", and those that use "BATF". There's a strong antigun control bent to the `"BATF" guns` query, compared to the `"ATF" guns` query.

If you're indexing forums or social media, the same site is going to give back the bubbled responses, possibly without the person even being aware they're in a bubble.

https://www.google.com/search?q=%22BATF%22+guns&client=safar...

https://www.google.com/search?q=%22ATF%22+guns&client=safari...

Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't anyone create a search engine comparable to 2005 Google?

#326

Post by marksbrown »

copperx wrote: post #314
mclightning wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's basically what I'm doing with my search "site:reddit.com" I wonder if anyone at Google is aware of this trend and taking notes.

I estimate that about half of my searches have either site:reddit.com or site:news.ycombinator.com at the end. In fact, I have an autocomplete snippet on my Mac so I don't have to type all that.

FYI this is exactly what the hashbangs in DDG do!

Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't anyone create a search engine comparable to 2005 Google?

#327

Post by Nasrudith »

Retric wrote: post #137
sdfjkl wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps vote on results like on Reddit posts? Gets the junk sites down (and out of the index eventually).

Any open voting system is going to be under serious SEO pressure. That’s the real issue, Google has indirectly infected the web with junk sites optimized for it. Any new search engine now has a huge hurdle to sort through all the junk and if it succeeds the SEO industry is just going to target them. A more robust approach is simply pay people to evaluate websites. Assuming it costs say 2$ per domain to either whiteli…

Adding a gatekeeper collecting rent isn't a solution - the people using SEO are already spending money to get their name up high on the list.

Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't anyone create a search engine comparable to 2005 Google?

#328

Post by erpellan »

Even if Google dusted off their 2005 codebase and ran it on today's web it wouldn't come close to the results quality of Google in 2005. The SEO industry has been in an arms race with the search engines for 16 years. 2005 Google would be like a goldfish in a piranha tank.

Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't anyone create a search engine comparable to 2005 Google?

#330

Post by yumraj »

spullara wrote: post #273
yumraj wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cloudflare (owned in part by Google) Please elaborate. Is there a special relationship between Cloudflare and Google?

Google Capital is an investor: https://www.forbes.com/sites/katevinton/2015/09/22/google-mi...

That is not the same as being owned by Google.
Post reply on HN