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Paul Graham, the Commons, and How Google Stopped Being Google

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Re: Paul Graham, the Commons, and How Google Stopped Being Google

#61

Post by spc476 »

keltex wrote: post #57
spc476 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did a Google search for "dmv". The first result, an ad, is for Florida, where I live. The next three non-ad based results are for California, Virginia and New York. The fourth (and on) non-ad results are for Florida. A Google search for "florida dmv" returned Florida-based results. What I am tired of seeing are Eames chair ads all over the place. Do one search for Eames chairs, and click on one paid result, and now…

This is called google "remarketing". Basically what happened is when you visited the Eames chair site, you received a remarketing cookie. Then when you visit other google properties, google automatically gives you ads from that Eames chair site. http://www.google.com/ads/innovations/remarketing.html

I did the search from my home computer. The Eames chair ads are showing up not only at home, but on my computer at work as well. Seeing how I've never logged into any Google property at work, I find that interesting.

Re: Paul Graham, the Commons, and How Google Stopped Being Google

#62

Post by brudgers »

moultano wrote: post #60
brudgers wrote: post #3

> "They make changes to the user interface and collect more data, analyzing what they've got to see what users "liked" more." I find this so utterly naive that I am incredulous. Google is a business. They don't tweek results based in favor of user preferences. They tweek results based on the amount of revenue they are likely to bring in. It's not an accident that [in the US] http://www.google.com/search?q=weather pro…

"They tweek results based on the amount of revenue they are likely to bring in." This is entirely false, and I wish misinformed people would stop parroting it. There's an extremely rigid firewall between the ad side of the company and the search side. People working on search don't even see metrics on how their changes effect ads, let alone make decisions based on them. When I want change the way ranking works, there…

I'll believe it when someone can explain why a search for "weather" returns the results it does.

The Weather channel utilizes Google search.

The Weather Underground...well name a Google service they could use and don't.

Accuweather provides plausible deniablity.

On the other hand, weather.gov employs some of the best meteorologists anywhere, provides the official hazardous weather warnings the other sites rely on, and has a wonderfully informative hourly weather graph for any given location.

In other words, Google doesn't provide the most relevant results first when it comes to local weather in the US, it provides the most profitable.

But I'm willing to read your statistical explanation for why this is so. Go ahead and make your case.

Be sure to explain how the special format for the weather page is based on statistical data and not hard coded.

Re: Paul Graham, the Commons, and How Google Stopped Being Google

#63

Post by mayanksinghal »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #13
vibrunazo wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Serving personalized results to users may increase click-through rates but it degrades the idea we form of what Google is and what it does. If it serves me better results, then how so?

Who says it serves you better results? If I type in "tea", am I searching for Tealuxe in Harvard Square or am I searching for the botanical and scientific material on a common drink or am I searching for recipes? The new "social+local" Google biases my results towards the former. A search engine used to be a tool for reaching out into the world and finding something new. Now it searches through what I already know? W…

Search engines were never a content discovery tool for me. I use HN, Twitter, Facebook for that. Some others use Digg, Pinterest and Reddit. When I search on a search engine, I am looking for a solution to a question that I have.

Re: Paul Graham, the Commons, and How Google Stopped Being Google

#64

Post by mayanksinghal »

marshray wrote: post #54
stanleydrew wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is not an ad company. People just like to say that because they think it's clever or surprising or something. Google does not produce ads. They sell ad space. So does Facebook. So does NBC. These are product companies selling ad space.

Are you aware that Google runs an entire ad network? It's said to dominate the field of online advertising. Anyone know what proportion of their revenue comes from ad placement on their own product pages?

I didn't understand the reasoning behind the retort.

>Are you aware that Google runs an entire ad network?

Which would mean that they would want to keep such third party sites interesting, fast and high quality as well. Chrome, Analytics and their other similar products/services are hence justified.

Re: Paul Graham, the Commons, and How Google Stopped Being Google

#65

Post by brudgers »

robrenaud wrote: post #14

> It isn't that anymore, though. Searches are geospecific and social network-dependent. All of which is fine and useful, but that's not what made us love Google's search engine. What makes you love Google is Google giving you the right answer. If you live in the US, do a google search for dmv. Did it pull the one from your state? Do you really want an averaged across all searchers answer? California is probably the s…

>Do you really want an averaged across all searchers answer? California is probably the state the generates the most Google searches for dmv, but the California DMV is likely relevant iff you are in California."

My state has a Motor Vehicle Division.

"DMV" gives me California's.

This page which does not appear on Google's first page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMV - though perhaps it should.

Re: Paul Graham, the Commons, and How Google Stopped Being Google

#66

Post by moultano »

brudgers wrote: post #62
moultano wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"They tweek results based on the amount of revenue they are likely to bring in." This is entirely false, and I wish misinformed people would stop parroting it. There's an extremely rigid firewall between the ad side of the company and the search side. People working on search don't even see metrics on how their changes effect ads, let alone make decisions based on them. When I want change the way ranking works, there…

I'll believe it when someone can explain why a search for "weather" returns the results it does. The Weather channel utilizes Google search. The Weather Underground...well name a Google service they could use and don't. Accuweather provides plausible deniablity. On the other hand, weather.gov employs some of the best meteorologists anywhere, provides the official hazardous weather warnings the other sites rely on, an…

I get weather.gov at #3 after weather.com, and sfgate.com/weather (probably because I'm in the bay area.) Where does it rank for you?

I can't get into detail explaining what goes into our rankings to you. I can tell you that I can bring up a debug view that shows all the signals that enter in to this ranking, and none of them involve "uses google products."

We love for people to complain about queries. That feedback is very useful, and we always need more of it. But when our search results suck, the reason is that our system is too stupid, not that it's perversely smart at funneling you into money making opportunities.

Re: Paul Graham, the Commons, and How Google Stopped Being Google

#67

Post by bartwe »

mladenkovacevic wrote: post #55

I feel like there's a recent anti-Google sentiment among the hacker/techie community which seems very unsubstantiated by solid reasoning or logic. The argument in particular, that search quality is getting worse, is a little lost on me because, for me or anyone I talk to at least, this is simply not true. In fact, I find myself spending less and less time on "Google the Search Engine" because it's gotten so damn good…

For me the feeling of reduced quality is that when i don't find the answer on the first page, that i have less luck with additional keywords and more pages then i think i used to have. These queries are mostly trying to cast a wide net with some errorcodes or stacktraces and seeing if others reported similar problems.

Re: Paul Graham, the Commons, and How Google Stopped Being Google

#68

Post by brudgers »

moultano wrote: post #66
brudgers wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll believe it when someone can explain why a search for "weather" returns the results it does. The Weather channel utilizes Google search. The Weather Underground...well name a Google service they could use and don't. Accuweather provides plausible deniablity. On the other hand, weather.gov employs some of the best meteorologists anywhere, provides the official hazardous weather warnings the other sites rely on, an…

I get weather.gov at #3 after weather.com, and sfgate.com/weather (probably because I'm in the bay area.) Where does it rank for you? I can't get into detail explaining what goes into our rankings to you. I can tell you that I can bring up a debug view that shows all the signals that enter in to this ranking, and none of them involve "uses google products." We love for people to complain about queries. That feedback…

At the risk of appearing cynical, I'll bet on money driving the ranking of potentially profitable sites above obviously non-profitable ones before I attribute it to stupidity at Google.

The "weather" page is hand coded - the term triggers a unique piece of code that isn't used for any other search term.

"Pickles" doesn't draw a bunch of icons across the top of the search results and offer short form links to "Mt Olive," "delmonte" and "vlasic." The top link doesn't give me subdomains for MtOlivepickles.com in the way Google search does for weather.com.

When I query "weather," google sends my location to the commercial sites, but not to weather.gov. Explain that with statistics.

[edit] At the risk of further cynicism, I'll explain it with the relationship between WeatherUnderground.com and Google: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_Underground_%28weather_...

Re: Paul Graham, the Commons, and How Google Stopped Being Google

#69

Post by toddnessa »

The article points out reasons as to why many of us are leaving Google for other search engines that protect our private data by not recording our search information. Startpage for instance does not track your private data. You will not have your IP address recorded or have tracking cookies put on your computer. I know we now live in a world where it is difficult to get away from Google altogether. It seems like they want to collect data on everybody in various ways. However, many of us are beginning to try. My gmail account may be the next to go.

Re: Paul Graham, the Commons, and How Google Stopped Being Google

#70

Post by moultano »

brudgers wrote: post #68
moultano wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get weather.gov at #3 after weather.com, and sfgate.com/weather (probably because I'm in the bay area.) Where does it rank for you? I can't get into detail explaining what goes into our rankings to you. I can tell you that I can bring up a debug view that shows all the signals that enter in to this ranking, and none of them involve "uses google products." We love for people to complain about queries. That feedback…

At the risk of appearing cynical, I'll bet on money driving the ranking of potentially profitable sites above obviously non-profitable ones before I attribute it to stupidity at Google. The "weather" page is hand coded - the term triggers a unique piece of code that isn't used for any other search term. "Pickles" doesn't draw a bunch of icons across the top of the search results and offer short form links to "Mt Oliv…

>At the risk of appearing cynical, I'll bet on money driving the ranking of potentially profitable sites above obviously non-profitable ones before I attribute it to stupidity at Google.

Then don't think of it as stupidity then. Think of it as having poor proxies for quality that we have to mash together into a reasonable but imperfect system.

Here's a video that shows how all decisions about ranking changes get made: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtRJXnXgE-A I've been in that room many times over the years, and I have never heard anyone mention or display any statistics that involve ads or revenue.

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