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The next Google

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Re: The next Google

#521

Post by wmeredith »

unethical_ban wrote: post #461
ipaddr wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you searching for?

User manuals for stereo systems, specs for old hardware. Anything that can be generically referenced, maybe a bit harder to find. Someone can throw up a webpage that SEO's on "manual" or "user guide" and when I type in "Sony DTH-345 user guide" I'll see results like "manualsonline.xyz" that are clearly bogus. I can't lab it up now, but that is the gist. And DDG has it while Google rarely has the same level of it.

Isn't DDG just Bing's index with privacy (and some other QoL) features?

Re: The next Google

#522

Post by redhedgehog12 »

account42 wrote: post #482
manigandham wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly is Google supposed to do here? They're returning what's available. Beyond that it goes from search engine to active curation and recommendation - and they are actively moving in that direction by replacing results with "answers", which I find to be much worse.

They could stop encouraging SEO. They could start penalizing sites that show different things to googlebot and a real browser again. The could do a better job penalizing sites that just copy content from other sites. They could penalize ad-laden sites. They could stop prioritizing youtube results over text content. They could allow you to blacklist sites again. They could do so many things. None of this is curation,…

> They could stop encouraging SEO.

Have you read any of Google's advice to site owners? It amounts to "provide your users with what they're looking for, and do it with a fast and easy to use site". If you think SEO is an easy hack to get any site to the position 1 for any search, you're just ignorant of the landscape. All the "SEO" crap you see about keyword density or whatever, is just an industry trying to sound different and like they've got the key to position 1.

> They could start penalizing sites that show different things to googlebot and a real browser again.

Google is ridiculously good at this. Would be keen to see examples of a site that does this in a meaningfully negative way that ranks well for searches that matter.

I don't fully agree with all of your other points but I can see why you'd mention them.

Re: The next Google

#523

Post by randomblast »

Barrin92 wrote: post #45

I think 'more customization' which is a theme with a lot of these alternatives is a fundamental dead end. I don't know where this persistent myth comes from that people love choice and tinkering, because they clearly don't. There's a huge cost associated with having to make choices, and one feature of successful modern apps is that they're frictionless. That's why TikTok is so successful. There's no login, no user ch…

Exactly this. Scrolling through the customisation feature list, I just see "more work", "more work", "more work" - and it's not super clear how doing all this extra work is going to help me. And I'm in the target audience for a "technical" search engine; this is a total non-starter for the 99.999% of the world we call "normal people".

The useful ideas in here is the "just my data" search, linking into external providers across siloes. Of course, Microsoft, Google & Apple already have this as long as all of your data is held in their ecosystem.

Re: The next Google

#524

Post by pwython »

jader201 wrote: post #186
mostlysimilar wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a simple box where you put a question in and it gives you answers Google is very good at this, but this is exactly what I _don't_ want in the "Next Google". I want a _search engine_ for the web, not an answers engine that tries to know what I want better than I do. Search the web. Give me links to websites. This seems obvious to me, but everyone is trying to be like Google. I'm convinced the death of the web and in…

> but this is exactly what I _don't_ want in the "Next Google" You’re in the small minority. You’re a power user that thinks like a software engineer, and likes to deal with data in lists. Most users are completely happy that Google tries to answer their questions and (usually) provides the right answer front and center.

The best example of this is having a Google Home device and just being like, "Hey Google, how many ounces are in a cup?" as you're standing in the kitchen with your hands covered in flour.

Re: The next Google

#525

Post by pers0n »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #458
smitty1e wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, there was a time when Slashdot was as tech-heavy and full of learning as HN.

What happened to Slashdot? Around 2000, I was a regular reader. Then, I fell away, but I cannot remember why.

All the arguments were the same over and over. I remember reading the same comments that would come up all the time, the discussion got old.

Plus the topics were very Linux, DRM focused. Digg had newer more interesting tech topics

Re: The next Google

#526

Post by pers0n »

user3939382 wrote: post #332
baxtr wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. People don't realize that the early web was elitist. Now, the entire population is online. And, as you said, most people simply don't care about the stuff we care about. That's also why "Google's search results are soo bad." They're not. For the bulk of Google's visitors, they're good enough.

> For the bulk of Google's visitors, they're good enough I'm not sure that's true. Just to pick an example, basically any type of product search now leads to auto-generated spam/borderline-spam websites that scrape reviews from Amazon, which are themselves often fraudulent. I guess you could say that's "good enough" but only in the sense that someone being scammed at some point consents to something that makes them a…

Part of it is, that everyone already has heard about Google. Trying to get another search engine that people trust and have heard about is hard, not to mention it has to work decently.

Re: The next Google

#528

Post by Aachen »

bricemo wrote: post #385
tomatowurst wrote: post #352

The perfect search engine would be powered by humans with a search engine. Google is fantastic but there is no human understanding of the needs and wants that can be conveyed through series of keywords. For example when I type "best humidifiers" I want a suggestion that is ideally based on accurate anecdotes of people who've experienced a brand in a variety of context and edge cases. What google gives me is a cnet ar…

There was a startup called ChaCha that was a real live human answering every query in real time. They would chat with you and find you exactly what you were looking for. In the beginning it was amazing, but then they couldn’t figure out how to scale and quality went down. Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChaCha_(search_engine)

Aren't only something like 15% of queries unique? A cache ought to help scale.

Don't see it mentioned on Wikipedia what the issues were unfortunately. Interesting though, thanks for sharing.

Re: The next Google

#529

Post by TradingPlaces »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #43
sanxiyn wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kagi is "users pay". Yes, average users won't pay, but I don't see how that matters to me as a Kagi user.

A paid search engine? Bold. I'd pay if it could do anything close to what the old google code search could do. I miss it every day.

I am a Kagi beta user, and I intend to pay when they start charging. I have wanted a paid ad/tracker-free Google for a decade now. I want to be the customer, not the product

Re: The next Google

#530

Post by idiotsecant »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #432
idiotsecant wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The death of the web is because most people don't want what you want. They don't mind walled gardens, so long as they are easy to use and have the content and connections that they want to see. The audience of HN is extremely skewed towards preferring systems that allow tinkering but that's not what the market wants.

Imagine a commenter in a walled garden complaining about the walled garden's audience. "Facebook's audience is extremely skewed toward..., but that's not what...." How long before some Facebook reader asks, "Then why are you using it?" If one dislikes systems that allow tinkering then why read and comment on HN. I do not understand.

I'm not sure who said they dislike systems that allow tinkering.
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