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Tell HN: Google search sucks even more during Reddit blackout

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Re: Tell HN: Google search sucks even more during Reddit blackout

#11

Post by IvyMike »

addaon wrote: post #8
IvyMike wrote: post #6

Google should probably just buy Reddit and run it at a loss. This may not be good for us the users, and might end up killing Reddit in the long run, but it's better for both Google and Reddit than the current situation.

What's the difference for users between Google buying Reddit and Reddit just shutting down now? One promo cycle? Less? There's no "long run" any more for Google's touch of death, like there was for Google Groups; they've gotten quite good at speed-running value destruction.

It feels like it's more core to Google's search business than the projects normally shut down by Google. Maybe not quite on par with YouTube, but it could be close.

Re: Tell HN: Google search sucks even more during Reddit blackout

#12

Post by addaon »

IvyMike wrote: post #11
addaon wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the difference for users between Google buying Reddit and Reddit just shutting down now? One promo cycle? Less? There's no "long run" any more for Google's touch of death, like there was for Google Groups; they've gotten quite good at speed-running value destruction.

It feels like it's more core to Google's search business than the projects normally shut down by Google. Maybe not quite on par with YouTube, but it could be close.

It seems almost exactly as good a match to Google's search business as Google Groups was...

Re: Tell HN: Google search sucks even more during Reddit blackout

#13

Post by gregw134 »

IvyMike wrote: post #6

Google should probably just buy Reddit and run it at a loss. This may not be good for us the users, and might end up killing Reddit in the long run, but it's better for both Google and Reddit than the current situation.

They would probably love to buy Reddit but would be blocked by regulators.

Re: Tell HN: Google search sucks even more during Reddit blackout

#14

Post by basch »

neovialogistics wrote: post #9
2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote: post #4

It's really disturbing just how bad Google search has become. For so many cases Google actually is only useful as a search interface for Reddit, StackOverflow, and other sites that accumulate (and actually garbage collect) knowledge. Without such a qualifier Google will just give you absolute SEO trash results for many types of searches.

I'd love the following combination: * A search engine that only crawls and searches a whitelist of sites. * Community functionality to vote on the contents of the whitelist.

Ive wondered, with 200,000 employees, how close you could get to something useful, by tasking them all with part time wiki editing/building. Hand build an internal ranking of web quality, keeping in mind that different posts being high quality, don't automatically make all posts at that host domain quality. The surfacing of information could still be very automated.

Re: Tell HN: Google search sucks even more during Reddit blackout

#15

Post by napsterbr »

2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote: post #4

It's really disturbing just how bad Google search has become. For so many cases Google actually is only useful as a search interface for Reddit, StackOverflow, and other sites that accumulate (and actually garbage collect) knowledge. Without such a qualifier Google will just give you absolute SEO trash results for many types of searches.

> It's really disturbing just how bad Google search has become

I just want to be (yet another person) to echo this sentiment. For the first time in my life I had to resort to Bing (!) instead.

The lower quality of results must make business sense somehow, I suppose...

Re: Tell HN: Google search sucks even more during Reddit blackout

#16

Post by IvyMike »

addaon wrote: post #12
IvyMike wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels like it's more core to Google's search business than the projects normally shut down by Google. Maybe not quite on par with YouTube, but it could be close.

It seems almost exactly as good a match to Google's search business as Google Groups was...

Google Groups was never at the level that Reddit currently is, at least in terms of search results.

Re: Tell HN: Google search sucks even more during Reddit blackout

#17

Post by buildbot »

Actually though, is SEO/spam so out of control that allegedly the best software engineers in the world are unable to counter it?

Are bad results actually good for google in some perverse ad-based way?

Do people at google actually use their products at all?

Re: Tell HN: Google search sucks even more during Reddit blackout

#18

Post by bigdict »

napsterbr wrote: post #15
2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote: post #4

It's really disturbing just how bad Google search has become. For so many cases Google actually is only useful as a search interface for Reddit, StackOverflow, and other sites that accumulate (and actually garbage collect) knowledge. Without such a qualifier Google will just give you absolute SEO trash results for many types of searches.

> It's really disturbing just how bad Google search has become I just want to be (yet another person) to echo this sentiment. For the first time in my life I had to resort to Bing (!) instead. The lower quality of results must make business sense somehow, I suppose...

People run more queries which leads to more ad inpressions?..

Re: Tell HN: Google search sucks even more during Reddit blackout

#19

Post by yuy910616 »

I never worked in search, curious what are the technical difficulties of implementing a YouTube-style "Don't Recommend This Channel" are? From the outset, the YouTube recommendation can be an offline process, and much easier to scale.

Google pretty much has "F-you" level developer man-power to throw at this problem, so I'm somewhat surprised they haven't implemented it yet (the "bad result is good for Google" reasoning never quite made sense to me). I'm curious if the functionality is not worth it or if the technical challenge is insurmountable at Google's scale.

Re: Tell HN: Google search sucks even more during Reddit blackout

#20

Post by slig »

neovialogistics wrote: post #9
2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote: post #4

It's really disturbing just how bad Google search has become. For so many cases Google actually is only useful as a search interface for Reddit, StackOverflow, and other sites that accumulate (and actually garbage collect) knowledge. Without such a qualifier Google will just give you absolute SEO trash results for many types of searches.

I'd love the following combination: * A search engine that only crawls and searches a whitelist of sites. * Community functionality to vote on the contents of the whitelist.

Have you seen https://search.brave.com/help/goggles ?
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