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Three areas where Google Search lags behind competitors: code, cooking, travel

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Re: Three areas where Google Search lags behind competitors: code, cooking, travel

#51

Post by Sebguer »

kshacker wrote: post #49

I know google search is probably not the same as google flights, but I spent a few hours recently (over a few days) using google flights and it was a delight to use compared to the Expedia children. We had a bereavement in the family and had to book multiple independent tickets because we could not travel together. This was just after the Ukraine war started so prices had gone through the roof. Exact number of days w…

Google bought the main provider of flight information in 2010 (ITA). ITA had such a monopoly that Google was required to continue licensing their software out for years afterwards, though I think it expired in ~2016.

Re: Three areas where Google Search lags behind competitors: code, cooking, travel

#52

Post by paxys »

victor106 wrote: post #29

Also noticed a recent change that Google did, if I search for e.g:- Volvo XC 60, it does not show me the Volvo XC 60 page on Volvo.com, it instead shows the ad that Volvo paid for and a bunch of other ads. So they essentially don’t want you to click on the organic link that points to Volvo.com. They want Volvo to know that all the traffic to them is being sent due to the Ad and not from any organic links. This is wha…

This is not a recent change but exactly how Google has worked since 1999.

Re: Three areas where Google Search lags behind competitors: code, cooking, travel

#53

Post by DancesWTurtles »

WestCoastJustin wrote: post #11

An interesting observation is that over the years, I've sort of found that if there are not many good results, maybe I'm not asking the right questions, or I'm not thinking about the problem the right way. For example, you come up with some weird programming idea to solve a problem and no results are found -- I'm almost always headed down the wrong path. This has been proved to me over and over again as sort of a can…

> For example, you come up with some (...) idea (...) and no results are found -- I'm almost always headed down the wrong path.

And by that you mean, Google is telling you how to think, and that you should think in some way and not in some other way. I'm quite sure I am not comfortable with that.

Re: Three areas where Google Search lags behind competitors: code, cooking, travel

#54

Post by beachy »

The one thing I wish that Google offered would be the ability to blacklist sites for a period (coud be fixed - say 6 months).

So damn annoying when the top search results all lead to shitty SEO-optimised sites that use a whole page to blather on and on, leading to a tiny information nugget at the end. No value, just excellent SEO scamming.

As these scam artists get better and better at this, Google gets less and less useful.

When I see a site like that, I can be quite sure there is no value to me from that site. I want to blacklist it - not forever (though I'd settle for that) but so I don't see it in search results again.

The crazy thing is that this could even be a benefit for Google themselves. They could aggregate these signals and use them to identify SEO scammers, since their algorithms clearly can't. I'm sure that Google aren't happy with the lacklustre performance of their search in modern times.

Re: Three areas where Google Search lags behind competitors: code, cooking, travel

#55

Post by version_five »

That was a weird example to me. Google, although it ends up returning seo spam like w3schools, usually surfaces good SO answers, which are imo (and I think generally recognized as) the best answers that also contain discussion and caveats, if warranted. It's considered bad practice already to just cut/paste the SO answer unthinkingly. The only thing worse would be to do the same thing with whatever this search engine dragged out of w3schools.

There are lots of criticisms of google search, but in this case, I think the Google result is better - anyone looking regularly for answers is conditioned to tune out the Geeksforgeeks and w3schools and other spam, so as long as good SO answers are from and center, I think google wins

Re: Three areas where Google Search lags behind competitors: code, cooking, travel

#56

Post by slaymaker1907 »

arccy wrote: post #14
ab_testing wrote: post #5

I would say that I have the exact opposite experience. My company is moving from IE to Edge as the default browser and I search for code issues on Edge (Bing). I usually do not like the results and then have to manually type in Google.com > search for code issues as that gives me better results.

you should be able set the default search engine...

I like Edge, but the setting for the search engine is quite difficult to find despite being (I assume) one of the most common settings to change. You have to click on "Privacy, search, and services", then go the "Services" heading and click on the tiny "Address bar and search" box, and then you finally come to the page where it will let you change the default browser. Said "Address bar and search" box is also the very last item on the "Privacy, search, and services" page with no highlighting or emphasis whatsoever.

Meanwhile for Firefox, I just have to go to "Search" and the setting for default search engine is immediately obvious. Chrome seems to have a similar layout as well despite being produced by a search engine company. Edge is my daily driver, but it still took me way longer to find the default search engine setting in Edge compared to Chrome and Firefox.

Also, I have to compliment Firefox for making it really easy to search with a non-default search engine. I generally use Google, but I use Bing when searching for internal work stuff since it is integrated with O365 and SharePoint.

Re: Three areas where Google Search lags behind competitors: code, cooking, travel

#57

Post by Baeocystin »

vasco wrote: post #45
BitwiseFool wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"if there are not many good results, maybe I'm not asking the right questions" I used to think this way too, but I've come to realize that Google has turned from a search engine that returns results based on my input to an answer engine that actively tries to reframe whatever I enter into some other more generic query - usually with the intent of selling me something or returning SEO spam. I've also found that the o…

Nowadays you should google using what in 2005 would be considered "the wrong way to search". Back then it was all about keywords, quotes and so on. For example if you wanted to know if dogs could eat apples you'd search: > dog apple dangerous Today you should search: > can dogs eat apples And you get way better results with the second form. I've noticed that people who are stuck thinking that the right way to google…

"you're thinking about it wrong" isn't really that great a defense of Google, you know? I'm not being flippant. The two examples you gave are different searches, with different goals.

Re: Three areas where Google Search lags behind competitors: code, cooking, travel

#58

Post by hattmall »

version_five wrote: post #55

That was a weird example to me. Google, although it ends up returning seo spam like w3schools, usually surfaces good SO answers, which are imo (and I think generally recognized as) the best answers that also contain discussion and caveats, if warranted. It's considered bad practice already to just cut/paste the SO answer unthinkingly. The only thing worse would be to do the same thing with whatever this search engine…

What's wrong with w3schools, never get the hate, it's an ok site, code on it seems fine.

Re: Three areas where Google Search lags behind competitors: code, cooking, travel

#59

Post by cogman10 »

slaymaker1907 wrote: post #40
mywittyname wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that recipes on on this list suggests this is the case. Recipe sites are notorious for SEO tactics. They all follow the same highly optimized format with the stupid story about the author's grandma and how they just couldn't get enough of these cookies, and how the recipe was lost for 90 years until recently their great great uncle Lou found a copy of the recipe in an old donut. Google has all of the tools t…

The stories also serve the purpose of providing copyright. A recipe alone doesn't have copyright, but the story mixed throughout the recipe does have copyright.

Nah, the stories are there so you have to scroll 6000 pages to finally find the actual recipe. Why do they want you to scroll? Because every 5th word is an advertisement. More scrolling, more ads, more revenue.

All of these recipe sites (that I've seen) will drop the ingredients + directions on the bottom of the page.

Re: Three areas where Google Search lags behind competitors: code, cooking, travel

#60

Post by hiccuphippo »

criddell wrote: post #31
jeffbee wrote: post #15

The question is whether any of those other sites could maintain quality while also being Google , that is, while being target #1 for every SEO bad actor, spammer, and anti-trust regulator on the planet. The people at W3schools are a combination of all of the above: filthy SEO spammers who would readily make an antitrust stink if Google started just ripping off their content, but who in all likelihood don't care if Ne…

Google spies on us so they can better serve us. Maybe it’s time that they let us directly tell them what we want. Let me easily blacklist sites from the search results. They could even take the blacklists from all people with a high reputation and use that as a signal when they are building search results for others.

Sounds very easy to abuse. Don't like the competition's website? Pay a clickfarm to blacklist them on Google.

I'd prefer a browser extension that removes results locally. Actually all I need is probably just a rule in uBO.

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