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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

#131

Post by dataflow »

Sebguer wrote: post #51
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.

Minor note: they announced it in 2010, but the acquisition closed on April 12, 2011. [1]

[1] https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/ita-software-acquisi...

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

#132

Post by physicsgraph »

beachy wrote: post #54

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…

I've a good experience with uBlacklist, an extension that blocks results by domain in the search page results.

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

#133

Post by russellbeattie »

Wasn't there just an article about how horizontal services get eaten away by focused rivals once a market has been identified? [1] Like Indeed doing job search better than Craiglist.

I wonder if Google isn't ripe for that sort of competitor. I can think of a bunch of verticals that could easily get their own dedicated search site, including cooking. Bing and others are trying to beat Google in generic search, and it'll never happen because Google defines what that means, and it's a moving target.

I'm wondering why Google hasn't done this themselves? Whitelist a bunch of decent websites and give the search page a fun URL like "Cookle".

1. https://www.georgesequeira.com/writing/zapier-the-5b-unbundl...

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

#134

Post by richardsocher »

mattferderer wrote: post #21

Question regarding the recipe example. Does Google deduct quality points the more ads that are put on the website? A long time ago, I recall hearing how Google was able to beat Yahoo by focusing on quality of ads & a higher click rate. Has Google defeated it's rivals & switched to their tactics? Side note, I prefer DDG as my search but only because of the bang operators. For recipes !b added to the search lets me use…

you.com has all the bangs that DDG has too now.

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

#135

Post by tptacek »

I'm immediately suspicious because of the inclusion of cooking. Google's cooking results aren't bad because Google is bad at cooking content; they're bad because Google is giving people what they actually want, which is lifestyle content. Most people searching for cassoulet aren't actually looking to make a cassoulet; they just enjoy reading about it.

I say this as someone who is ultra-annoyed at the state of cooking results on Google (I want to make the cassoulet!). But there probably aren't enough of me to sustain a product --- and I'm not sure I'd even like that product, because even if Google gave me the most useful practitioner content it could, it still wouldn't be meaningfully curated. I can get recipes for anything from sites like Epicurious, but I'd sooner search for code tips on Expert Sex Change than try an Epicurious recipe. That's what Food52 and Serious Eats are for.

Similarly, programming is a weird callout here. I've never heard of the code search engine they mention ("Neeva"?) and, if that name comes up a week from now, I still won't have heard of it. Stack Overflow solved this problem pretty decisively, and they did it with a Google-first strategy, which is the reason the first example code search in this article has strong Stack Overflow results at the top of the SERP.

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

#136

Post by [deleted] »

tptacek wrote: post #135

I'm immediately suspicious because of the inclusion of cooking. Google's cooking results aren't bad because Google is bad at cooking content; they're bad because Google is giving people what they actually want, which is lifestyle content. Most people searching for cassoulet aren't actually looking to make a cassoulet; they just enjoy reading about it. I say this as someone who is ultra-annoyed at the state of cooking…

[deleted]

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

#138

Post by kristopolous »

tptacek wrote: post #135

I'm immediately suspicious because of the inclusion of cooking. Google's cooking results aren't bad because Google is bad at cooking content; they're bad because Google is giving people what they actually want, which is lifestyle content. Most people searching for cassoulet aren't actually looking to make a cassoulet; they just enjoy reading about it. I say this as someone who is ultra-annoyed at the state of cooking…

Who is looking for paragraphs and paragraphs of poorly written memories about their childhood in the countryside when they type in "gingerbread recipe"?

The fall leaves change colors along the windy path to Grandma's cottage with the crisp smell of freshly burnt firewood in the distance while my trusty spotted Labrador plays with me and my sister at the creek by the meadow. As Fido splashes playfully after a school of tadpoles, a scent of gingerbread cusps over the sunburnt field and tickles my senses like the first soft ray of sunshine on a dewdripped morning

I smell 1tsp of ground ginger as I remove a piece of driftwood and toss it on to the old cornhusks amidst overgrown willows as my companion chases after it. We race together back to the warmth of grandmother's kitchen overcome by the rapturous aplomb of allspice, cinnamon and cloves all at 1/4 tsp.

That was 40 years ago and I've longed to touch the perfection of those fretless childhood days of a memorized youth modified by dreams. This gingerbread loaf lets me relive the magic of a forgotten freedom with a preparation time of merely 90 minutes.

I close my eyes during the baking as I lie on my afghan rug in my Boston apartment knowing there's another generation of youth passing by idyllic days on those timeless Connecticut farms where the 1/4 cup of unsalted butter comes from.

I mean it's just insanity. I'm not doing them justice. The real stuff looks AI generated

I honestly don't think these people exist. It's just SEO food

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

#139

Post by alphabet9000 »

the pointless animations on google search make the site truly unbearable to use, unless you have ublock to disable the animations. i can't believe it still has those animations, do people at google even use their own site?

[0] http://jollo.org/LNT/public/google-animations.html

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

#140

Post by pronlover723 »

pcurve wrote: post #67

Google lags behind in Image search quality too, surprisingly. Bing consistently does better for me at least. Google also lags behind searching for torrent content, not surprisingly. In fact, I'm going to say, I use Google knowing that it sucks in many areas, just because it's hassle to use multiple search engines, and the quality was acceptable enough that it got the job done. But now, I do more searches in both Goog…

Google sucks at image search but I just wanted to add, Bing either intentionally or unintentionally broke one of my porn searches. I'd search for "my-fetish-keyword-of-choice" and then pick to only show results for the last month. Since like January of February the results have been zero which I know, based on all the other places I look for content, is false. Content from sites that otherwise show up in Bing results. And no, I'm not looking for anything remotely illegal.
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