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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

#111

Post by crdrost »

freediver wrote: post #83

The article mostly talks about IA (instant answers) which are notoriously hard. The recent advances in machine learning have made the technology more approachable, so startups like Kagi Search (disclaimer: founder) can also leverage latest advances in NLP and compete on this ground. To give just a few examples: Query 1: how many stars in the usa flag Google: https://cln.sh/63sVzh Kagi: https://cln.sh/bFEHsD Pretty su…

My favorite is, given that I have a baby and I am a trained scientist and I live in the US, I find myself converting milliliters to fluid ounces a lot.

Right now the Google Assistant will correctly transcribe the request to a Google search... Only for the search to interpret “ml” as “miles” and, faced with the discrepancy between the length and a volume, cube the miles. So I am expecting an amount that is like 1 oz because I am converting like 30 mL... and I instead get 4 quadrillion ounces (exact number is 1 mi³ = 140,942,994,870,857 + 1/7 oz because of course it's got that extra 7th in there what were you expecting from our ridiculous US system, haha).

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

#112

Post by Hard_Space »

I share the view that Google SERPS have dropped in quality the last 5-7 years. Of great annoyance to me is the amateurish way that a search results page will find relevant Twitter results but then clicking on the results takes you to the root page of the Twitter user and not the result. Since many Twitterers are prolific posters, it can be very time-consuming or even impossible to find the result listed. Thankfully Inoreader takes me to the exact Twitter result.

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

#113

Post by JohnJamesRambo »

kebman wrote: post #90

If you search for anything political on Google, you'll notice that the results are clearly slanted in one direction, towards the opinion of a handful of pre-approved news outlets. This leads me to seek alternatives whenever I need neutral sources, for instance Yahoo search.

Sounds like you want non-factual answers.

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

#115

Post by rleigh »

IAmEveryone wrote: post #89
pottertheotter wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a user, I can’t think of a time when censoring a term has given me relevant results. It just serves to frustrate me. If Google doesn’t want to return a blank page, they ought to have a small section at the top that says something like, “No results found for [search terms]” and then another section following that clearly states it is excluding a term. FaceBook Marketplace and Craigslist do something similar when th…

Could you all stop misusing the word "censoring" like that? It's almost worse than the way it's usually misused. Also, at least for me, Google does exactly what you describe at the right approach.

While I agree this isn't technically "censorship" from one perspective, I do think it's important to consider this: by forcibly omitting search terms against your wishes, it is actively and deliberately preventing you from searching from what you wanted to search for. This is both frustrating for the user, and has a detrimental effect upon the quality of the search results.

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

#117

Post by wolpoli »

The web itself is deteriorating.

Instant answers (IA) caused a shift in the way contents are written. Content optimized for IA tend to be repetitive and shallow. Viewing content written for IA is a frustrating experience and these tend to dominant the result page now.

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

#118

Post by odessacubbage »

echen wrote: post #62
AlbertCory wrote: post #14

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…

Yeah, when I was at Google, the SERP (and caring about users) was a shrine at all levels. Here's an example of one of the weekly Search meetings AlbertCory is talking about: https://search.googleblog.com/2012/03/video-search-quality-m... For example, my first week at Google/YouTube, I was in a New Hire meeting with our VP. Someone asked about profitability, and he responded that Larry said we didn't have to worry abo…

in 10+ years of targeted advertising, i still have yet to see a single ad for something that is actually relevant to what i want to buy. i'm actually baffled that these companies that have my entire purchasing history and metadata still cannot do a better job at making me spend money than absolute randos on the internet.

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

#119

Post by lvs »

kebman wrote: post #90

If you search for anything political on Google, you'll notice that the results are clearly slanted in one direction, towards the opinion of a handful of pre-approved news outlets. This leads me to seek alternatives whenever I need neutral sources, for instance Yahoo search.

Oh give it a rest.

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

#120

Post by perryizgr8 »

freediver wrote: post #83

The article mostly talks about IA (instant answers) which are notoriously hard. The recent advances in machine learning have made the technology more approachable, so startups like Kagi Search (disclaimer: founder) can also leverage latest advances in NLP and compete on this ground. To give just a few examples: Query 1: how many stars in the usa flag Google: https://cln.sh/63sVzh Kagi: https://cln.sh/bFEHsD Pretty su…

> The article mostly talks about IA (instant answers)

Not really. TFA is discussing the search results. If google/bing want to put instant answers then that is what will get judged. If your ML/AI is not good enough yet to provide natural language answers, don't make it the most prominent part of the search results.

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