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Google's PageRank patent has expired (2019)

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Re: Google's PageRank patent has expired (2019)

#71

Post by utopcell »

tyingq wrote: post #5

I'm not sure how useful this might be to anyone anymore. Google still uses it for the base ranking. But, the results are then run through a variety of add-on ML pipelines, like Vince (authority/brand power), Panda (inbound link quality), Penguin (content quality), and many others that target other attributes (page layout, ad placement, etc). Then there's also more granular weightings for things like "power within a n…

Whatever you do, whichever ML model you develop, a query-independent ordering of all documents will always be necessary since all distributed IR systems will over-retrieve according to some form of term matching and then apply sophisticated scoring to extract the best documents. You can't score trillions of docs for every query.

Google still uses PageRank, but at the risk of stating the obvious, the current PageRank is much more sophisticated than the one found in the bibliography.

Re: Google's PageRank patent has expired (2019)

#72

Post by unity1001 »

creamynebula wrote: post #32
tyingq wrote: post #5

I'm not sure how useful this might be to anyone anymore. Google still uses it for the base ranking. But, the results are then run through a variety of add-on ML pipelines, like Vince (authority/brand power), Panda (inbound link quality), Penguin (content quality), and many others that target other attributes (page layout, ad placement, etc). Then there's also more granular weightings for things like "power within a n…

My search results were a lot better in 2006 when, I assume, they didn't have all these ML pipelines...

Ditto.

Re: Google's PageRank patent has expired (2019)

#73

Post by bogwog »

scroot wrote: post #17

Cool. Now let's get the Library of Congress or NARA -- which are natural homes for this kind of thing -- to implement the public option free of profit-driven cruft.

That would actually be pretty cool. Too bad government software has a tendency to come out shitty and expensive.

Re: Google's PageRank patent has expired (2019)

#74

Post by mynameisash »

ge96 wrote: post #53
tyingq wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My view of it is that they basically lost the SEO spam wars. Without the ML pipelines, the top results would all be dominated by the smaller, highly skilled, SEO manipulators. They didn't find a way to cleanly excise that spam, so they resorted to a very imperfect hammer...giving a lot of SEO weight to large corporate entities. So basically, a different kind of spam dominates now.

Minor rant: I can't seem to contact an actual towing company directly, it's usually some external entity that ranks top in Google then they charge you more to find the actual local towing company. It says "Towing company in city name" but it's not local.

This was my experience last year when I wanted to find a locksmith. EVERY result on GMaps that was shown as being in my city was, in fact, some centralized company that seemed to contract out to guys working out of their cars. Every one took my name and said they'd get back to me (which they did).

This is certainly a problem with the locksmith companies, but I think there's also a Maps problem, too: Google enables this kind of commerce, especially businesses that apparently have a physical location but explicitly stated on the phone that I can't stop by there. It reminded me of all of the thousands of Delaware corps housed in a single building.

If Google made it so that you're only listed on the map if you actually have a physical commerce location, that would help a lot -- at least for those kinds of businesses that need it. Towing companies and the like may be an exception?

Re: Google's PageRank patent has expired (2019)

#75

Post by raunak »

losvedir wrote: post #51
creamynebula wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My search results were a lot better in 2006 when, I assume, they didn't have all these ML pipelines...

> My search results were a lot better in 2006 when, I assume, they didn't have all these ML pipelines... That's like an old person complaining that their body felt a lot better back in 2006 when, I assume, they didn't have to use their walker and glasses all the time...

Search is objectively worse today than it used to be, it's not just that "it's harder to use for old people", it's just worse.

Re: Google's PageRank patent has expired (2019)

#76

Post by jeffbee »

moribunda wrote: post #69
swiftDaemon wrote: post #7

21e8 replaces pagerank https://youtu.be/6HYdTtIoyts

I'm not sure if it's a joke or if he's for real... It's basically replacing google with "serach engine" where every place is bought. Coming from SEO world this looks like a joke.

Selling the search result slots is just Overture all over again.

Re: Google's PageRank patent has expired (2019)

#77

Post by zdragnar »

s17n wrote: post #60
creamynebula wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My search results were a lot better in 2006 when, I assume, they didn't have all these ML pipelines...

That's because the web was better in 2006. I think Google has made one change for the worse, though, which is strongly favoring more recent content. Increasingly, I think that change has been a big contributor to the decay of the web since.

Part of the problem is, I think, many searches strongly benefit from up to date content- programming tools, fashion, celebrities, things to do in X area, etc.

It seems that Google has decided that most people want the most updated information when they look for something, which I don't think is entirely unreasonable.

What I would love, however, is a way to turn that off for particular searches. Researching past events, as a trivial example, benefits far more from exact results rather than most recent tangentially related blogspam.

Re: Google's PageRank patent has expired (2019)

#78

Post by hubraumhugo »

Google won because they started early and had the right algorithm. Back in 1998, Google's PageRank was an innovative algorithm that calculated relevance based on counting backlinks instead of parsing the word counts in embedded HTML text like other search engines. This made Google way better than any other available search engine back then (Lycos, Yahoo, AltaVista, etc.), and within weeks, everyone was switching to Google.

A successful Google competitor just needs to be way better than what’s currently available. Nobody seems to have the next big idea for a better search engine yet.

Re: Google's PageRank patent has expired (2019)

#79

Post by pelorat »

5evOX5hTZ9mYa9E wrote: post #10
tyingq wrote: post #5

I'm not sure how useful this might be to anyone anymore. Google still uses it for the base ranking. But, the results are then run through a variety of add-on ML pipelines, like Vince (authority/brand power), Panda (inbound link quality), Penguin (content quality), and many others that target other attributes (page layout, ad placement, etc). Then there's also more granular weightings for things like "power within a n…

And yet, the results are worse and worse.

Are you logged in? Google works best when search history is enabled. Just saying.

Re: Google's PageRank patent has expired (2019)

#80

Post by NateEag »

subsubzero wrote: post #55
creamynebula wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My search results were a lot better in 2006 when, I assume, they didn't have all these ML pipelines...

I feel the same way, I think one of the biggest startup opportunities now is to create a decent search engine. Google is absolute rubbish and a new player needs to step in and take away that market share that google is throwing away by means of a terrible user experience.

I strongly disagree that there's a startup opportunity in Google's relatively poor search performance.

Obsessive programmers like myself really want a search engine that does better and helps us find the weird corners of the web.

Most people do not care. They can type a question into Google and get an answer, and that's all they're looking for.

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