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

Post by twofornone » Wed, Apr 13, 2022, 11:38 PM UTC

PaulHoule wrote: post #87

For Python programming I would say 100% of the time you should look the answer up in the official manual for a well-defined problem (delete a file) because the manual is correct, well-written, etc. It's astonishing how often Google and Bing snatch defeat from the jaws of victory on queries like this. If you go looking in splogs, spam overflow and other spam sites at best you are going to get wrong answers, at worse y…

Post by PaulHoule » Wed, Apr 13, 2022, 11:46 PM UTC

twofornone wrote: post #121

PaulHoule wrote: post #87

For Python programming I would say 100% of the time you should look the answer up in the official manual for a well-defined problem (delete a file) because the manual is correct, well-written, etc. It's astonishing how often Google and Bing snatch defeat from the jaws of victory on queries like this. If you go looking in splogs, spam overflow and other spam sites at best you are going to get wrong answers, at worse y…

>because the manual is correct, well-written, etc. It's also verbose and requires effort and working memory to parse, when I could get a trivial one line answer or code snippet from a stackoverflow post specific to my question. Yes, in an ideal world we would all read the manual, but unfortunately manuals are inconvenient. And in my experience the vast majority of stackoverflow answers are correct.

Post by benrapscallion » Wed, Apr 13, 2022, 11:58 PM UTC

julianlam wrote: post #106

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…

Wouldn't this just be caused by Volvo committing ad spend on their own keyword? I liken it to a defense strategy. Imagine if they didn't, and a search for Volvo XC 60 showed an ad for a Subaru!

Post by Ozzie_osman » Thu, Apr 14, 2022, 12:02 AM UTC

Post by kevin_thibedeau » Thu, Apr 14, 2022, 12:09 AM UTC

beachy wrote: post #104

mulmen wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This used to be a feature of Google Search. It then moved from the Google Account to Chrome. I'm not sure if it still exists in the Chrome browser. It can be done with addons but of course that doesn't feed back to Google. It does surprise me that Google wouldn't want to capture this signal. Maybe it is too susceptible to abuse?

It surprises me too. Perhaps they are snow blind from having had something like it in the past and then removing it. But in the modern era, I feel that being able to use human signals like that - on top of the fancy algorithms - could well be a killer network effect for them.