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The Age of PageRank Is Over

blog.kagi.com

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Re: The Age of PageRank Is Over

#311

Post by mda »

booleandilemma wrote: post #83
VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The blogspam has made Google and Bing/DDG almost completely unusable for technical searches. Go search for something like "postgres cte" and you won't find anything useful until probably halfway down the page. And maybe not at all.

I searched for that (without the quotes) and this was the 2nd result: https://www.postgresqltutorial.com/postgresql-tutorial/postg... The first result was the official documentation. What else are you expecting?

Typical. Some people always complain about Google search results nowadays but I very rarely see actual bad examples.

Re: The Age of PageRank Is Over

#312

Post by prox »

ukd1 wrote: post #138
widdershins wrote: post #18

I've been using Kagi the last few months. I've never had a reason to complain about its search results - they seem to work plenty well enough day to day that I don't really 'notice' them. Like most, I now search reflexively, as an extension of the mind, so I only 'notice' search when it's bad. What really excites me is that is that I'm paying them. That sounds odd, but seriously. It's incredibly refreshing to know th…

I'm with you; I'm a paid Kagi user for a while now, and unlike various attempts at switching to duck duck go (et al), Kagi is actually fully working for me. I do not switch back to Google more than once a month, and each time I've gotten "worse" results so far. I'm sold, literally.

Do you stay under 30 searches a day? On their pricing plan it seems users searched a lot more in their beta program than anticipated. 240 searches cost them around 3 dollars.

Re: The Age of PageRank Is Over

#313

Post by prox »

ipaddr wrote: post #216
widdershins wrote: post #18

I've been using Kagi the last few months. I've never had a reason to complain about its search results - they seem to work plenty well enough day to day that I don't really 'notice' them. Like most, I now search reflexively, as an extension of the mind, so I only 'notice' search when it's bad. What really excites me is that is that I'm paying them. That sounds odd, but seriously. It's incredibly refreshing to know th…

"At USD $10/month, the price does not even cover our cost for average use" 240 searches cost them over $10.00. They will need to find additional revenue or reduce costs to even reach a break even point. They will have to raise prices or make you pay per search or sell your data or better yet all three.

Or give notice to power users that they are exceeding quotas by a lot. Have a power user subscription perhaps. Many people don’t download a lot and ISPs are good, but you have outliers, datahoarders perhaps who take a lot of bandwith.

Re: The Age of PageRank Is Over

#315

Post by DoingIsLearning »

andyfleming wrote: post #239
fardo wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's incredibly refreshing to know that the company providing my search results has an incentive to make things better for _me_ and not a legion of advertisers Cable television and netflix have made it quite clear that payment does not mean “no ads”, it just means “no ads, yet”. It still might be a better alternative in the short term, but the moment growth starts to peak, companies follow where the incentives lead…

I'm a little tired of the rhetoric about Netflix adding ads. It's only on an entry-level account that is subsidized from the normal pricing (IIUC, correct me if I'm wrong). You could argue that they've artificially inflated the price of the normal plan or that it's a slippery slope, but it's not like they've forced ads on the existing plans. I think what's more interesting/concerning/insidious is hidden ad content li…

Chromecast screensavers _are_ an add for other shows in Netflix.

I am paying and have no way to disable that visual pollution nonsense.

Extremely exasperating when you are trying to choose something adequate for toddlers and they keep seeing flashy stuff on the screen and saying they want to watch that.

Re: The Age of PageRank Is Over

#316

Post by ur-whale »

ReptileMan wrote: post #306
fardo wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's incredibly refreshing to know that the company providing my search results has an incentive to make things better for _me_ and not a legion of advertisers Cable television and netflix have made it quite clear that payment does not mean “no ads”, it just means “no ads, yet”. It still might be a better alternative in the short term, but the moment growth starts to peak, companies follow where the incentives lead…

Well ... I also made Netflix clear that my subscription means "no torrents, yet"

Counter-powers is what makes the world go round.

Re: The Age of PageRank Is Over

#317

Post by wruza »

kqr wrote: post #278
wruza wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can causes me to live in a bubble, blinding me of possible opposing opinions. It is feeding my ignorance. This made internet completely unusable for discovery. A big shiny window into another tiny room. Absolute BS. Recently I discussed it here on HN and was advised to like, dislike, subscribe and so on on youtube (things I rarely have done on my old account) to break out of this bubble. Well, it doesn’t work. It…

I think many platforms optimise for interactions, with no regard for whether they are positive or negative.

As a result, I often find myself closing youtube tab because there is not only nothing to watch, but nothing to scroll through even. On a platform with billions of videos, at least thousands of which I might like to watch if given a chance. I find this incredibly stupid.

Same for google search, really. It turned from “I’ll find you that if it exists” into “Look, if you change your query to ‘cool products if at all barely relevant to …’, I have literally billions of results for that”.

Re: The Age of PageRank Is Over

#318

Post by totorovirus »

Google doesn't use page rank anymore. They have a signal called navboost which is the strongest signal in ranking and retrieval. And that idea originates from Yahoo paper in which they revealed the gems of search engine algorithms: https://www.kdd.org/kdd2016/papers/files/adf0361-yinA.pdf

Re: The Age of PageRank Is Over

#319

Post by Double_a_92 »

andyfleming wrote: post #239
fardo wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's incredibly refreshing to know that the company providing my search results has an incentive to make things better for _me_ and not a legion of advertisers Cable television and netflix have made it quite clear that payment does not mean “no ads”, it just means “no ads, yet”. It still might be a better alternative in the short term, but the moment growth starts to peak, companies follow where the incentives lead…

I'm a little tired of the rhetoric about Netflix adding ads. It's only on an entry-level account that is subsidized from the normal pricing (IIUC, correct me if I'm wrong). You could argue that they've artificially inflated the price of the normal plan or that it's a slippery slope, but it's not like they've forced ads on the existing plans. I think what's more interesting/concerning/insidious is hidden ad content li…

It's not about the user having to see ads. It's about Netflix trying to sell ad spots to advertisers, which might affect all (even paying) users. I.e. by getting pressured into censoring or promiting certain shows, to close the advertising deal.

Re: The Age of PageRank Is Over

#320

Post by vintermann »

andyfleming wrote: post #239
fardo wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's incredibly refreshing to know that the company providing my search results has an incentive to make things better for _me_ and not a legion of advertisers Cable television and netflix have made it quite clear that payment does not mean “no ads”, it just means “no ads, yet”. It still might be a better alternative in the short term, but the moment growth starts to peak, companies follow where the incentives lead…

I'm a little tired of the rhetoric about Netflix adding ads. It's only on an entry-level account that is subsidized from the normal pricing (IIUC, correct me if I'm wrong). You could argue that they've artificially inflated the price of the normal plan or that it's a slippery slope, but it's not like they've forced ads on the existing plans. I think what's more interesting/concerning/insidious is hidden ad content li…

It's not really about Netflix. The point is merely that "just because you pay them, doesn't mean you're not also a product to them". Companies love nothing more than to charge both ends of a deal.

Take Spotify as another example. I pay them, along with 188 million other people. Does that mean they won't turn around and ask artists, record companies and rights-owning conglomerates for money (or rebates) for putting their stuff in front of me? Of course not. Paying them means they have some interest in pleasing me, but it's far from the only way.

On the off chance that Spotify was being scrupulous about not taking payola in any form, it would be impossible for me to verify. Which is in itself a reason for them to cheat; they don't get much economic benefit from goodwill if no one can actually see them being honest.

This is not a reason to not use Kagi, it's just a reminder of what forces we're up against. Kagi will need an unusual amount of transparency in everything they do, in order to stand a chance in the long term.

And it IS a reason to not get warm fuzzy feelings merely from the fact that you're paying them.

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