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Is Google Search Deteriorating? Measuring Google's Search Quality in 2022

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Re: Is Google Search Deteriorating? Measuring Google's Search Quality in 2022

#11

Post by google234123 »

IAmEveryone wrote: post #4
CLLD wrote: post #3

It's definitely deteriorating, and the worst part is that it completely ignores quotes if it thinks you meant something else, and shows the results for what it thinks you want. Completely useless in a lot of cases

Google corrects spelling in the way you mention, but removes quotes only if there are zero results for the search with quotes. Example, finding one result; https://www.google.de/search?q=%22but+when+therefore+is+an+a... Getting this wrong is probably why people think we need more than definitive assertions from people operating from subjective impression. Changing a letter in the query, it says, right at the top: Sho…

This isn’t completely true, Google search is very complicated and definitely had the ability to rewrite queries in some cases.

Re: Is Google Search Deteriorating? Measuring Google's Search Quality in 2022

#12

Post by CLLD »

IAmEveryone wrote: post #4
CLLD wrote: post #3

It's definitely deteriorating, and the worst part is that it completely ignores quotes if it thinks you meant something else, and shows the results for what it thinks you want. Completely useless in a lot of cases

Google corrects spelling in the way you mention, but removes quotes only if there are zero results for the search with quotes. Example, finding one result; https://www.google.de/search?q=%22but+when+therefore+is+an+a... Getting this wrong is probably why people think we need more than definitive assertions from people operating from subjective impression. Changing a letter in the query, it says, right at the top: Sho…

This has only happened to me twice so far, but it has given me the "Did you mean:" even when using quotes for searches that definitely have results (as I found them with duckduckgo). I can't remember what they were now

Re: Is Google Search Deteriorating? Measuring Google's Search Quality in 2022

#13

Post by elondaits »

When I search for "databricks series b valuation" in Google (from Argentina, using Google.com in English) result #6 is:

"Python get value from database - Büro Jorge Schmidt", which judging by title and preview seems to be a Python + MySQL tutorial. It returns a 403 error and might be a hacked site, since the home page is for a graphic design studio in Munich.

Result #8 is something similar:

"Intellij flatten packages - Músicos de Viaje". This is definitely a hacked site (from Spain, apparently) that redirects me somewhere else.

Result #10:

"How to calculate tax percentage in sql query". Another hacked site, this time for an evangelical church from Brazil.

Now... how can Google think that any of these sites are relevant? Even if it doesn't realize the pages are hacked... even its crawler has been fed content that included the keywords... :

A - The sites themselves don't match the query at all.

B - No legit site about the subject would link to these sites.

C - The results themselves (title, url, preview), as Google shows them, have nothing to do with the search!

Re: Is Google Search Deteriorating? Measuring Google's Search Quality in 2022

#14

Post by AlbertCory »

I've been gone from G for 4 1/2 years now. When I was there, the weekly meetings often featured "search quality" measurements that were rigorous in their objectivity (I thought). They bent over backwards to be non-self-deluding.

I distinctly remember Udi Manber saying "if the web is slow, it's our fault" (actually, the speech was that everything is "our fault"), meaning, really, "take responsibility for problems and don't throw up your hands."

However, the natural tendency of any organization is to reward the suckups and promote mediocre people who just get along with everyone. It wouldn't surprise me if that's what's happened with Google, too.

Re: Is Google Search Deteriorating? Measuring Google's Search Quality in 2022

#15

Post by debesyla »

RandyRanderson wrote: post #8

One reason it might deteriorated is that goog is constantly battling ppl 'optimizing' their content for Google while competitors likely see less than 1/1000 of this.

That's a good point! A lot of online content is created for search clicks only, not quality. For example, I often search Google in lithuanian language and I keep getting whole lot of auto-translated blog/article farms as a result. Those translations almost always are shoddy, but these pages keep popping up in the first Google results because a) there is not a lot of native (language) content to push out these clickbaits and b) those clickbaits are on domains that are also, well, in the first results of other lesser languages... I think these auto-translated pages started to pop up two or three years ago...

Re: Is Google Search Deteriorating? Measuring Google's Search Quality in 2022

#16

Post by halpert »

I believe the theory that Google is optimizing for ad revenue. Sites without ads get ranked lower. The biggest example I can think of is Wikipedia. When I search a proper noun with a Wikipedia article, I almost want to go look at that article. Recently, I feel like I really have to dig for it.

Re: Is Google Search Deteriorating? Measuring Google's Search Quality in 2022

#17

Post by creato »

elondaits wrote: post #13

When I search for "databricks series b valuation" in Google (from Argentina, using Google.com in English) result #6 is: "Python get value from database - Büro Jorge Schmidt", which judging by title and preview seems to be a Python + MySQL tutorial. It returns a 403 error and might be a hacked site, since the home page is for a graphic design studio in Munich. Result #8 is something similar: "Intellij flatten packages…

I just tried that search, all of the results look relevant and I definitely don't get any of the results you are getting.

I wonder if you have some malware that is hijacking the results? I once had some malware (chrome extension) that was corrupting my search results. It was surprisingly difficult to remove (given that it was a chrome extension...).

Re: Is Google Search Deteriorating? Measuring Google's Search Quality in 2022

#19

Post by moises_silva »

creato wrote: post #17
elondaits wrote: post #13

When I search for "databricks series b valuation" in Google (from Argentina, using Google.com in English) result #6 is: "Python get value from database - Büro Jorge Schmidt", which judging by title and preview seems to be a Python + MySQL tutorial. It returns a 403 error and might be a hacked site, since the home page is for a graphic design studio in Munich. Result #8 is something similar: "Intellij flatten packages…

I just tried that search, all of the results look relevant and I definitely don't get any of the results you are getting. I wonder if you have some malware that is hijacking the results? I once had some malware (chrome extension) that was corrupting my search results. It was surprisingly difficult to remove (given that it was a chrome extension...).

Same here, all relevant results.

Re: Is Google Search Deteriorating? Measuring Google's Search Quality in 2022

#20

Post by thomassmith65 »

echen wrote: post #2

There's been a lot of HN discussion [1][2][3] about Google Search recently, and whether it’s gone downhill. I used to work on Search and Search Measurement at YouTube, Twitter, and Microsoft, so I thought it would be fun to move beyond anecdotes, grab some data, and do a quantitative analysis. tl;dr I didn't have historical data, to see how Google Search has trended over time. But compared to Bing, Google still gener…

The experiment I want to see is one where (1) the same set of test queries is run on multiple search engines (2) for each query result, the result links from all engines are combined into a single document (without including information about the search engine from which they came) (3) the links are ranked blindly for fitness in relation to the search query (4) the fitness rank of the results is then reunited to the source search engines.
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