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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

#71

Post by JBiserkov »

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…

I personally have to modes:

1. I already know what I'm looking for: a particular website, post, comment, the lyrics of a song that I know a part of.

2. I have a question, I don't know the answer, but I'll recognize it when I see it.

In my experience Google is getting better at type 1 '(re)discovery/popularity' search and worse at type 2 'exploratory/specificity' search. Depending on the ratio of type 1 vs type 2 in your search habits, Google results will get better/worse for you.

They introduced Verbatim search to solve the specifity problem, but in my experience it hardly ever works :(

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

#72

Post by molf »

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…

I have stopped using Google Search entirely very recently. The main reason is that Google too often misinterprets my search queries, and I got tired of typing quotes around the search terms.

I should stress that like any software developer (or any power user, probably), my queries tend to be very specific. I'm looking for particular information (which may or may not exist) that takes more than a couple of words to describe. It is with these queries that all too often Google simply decides that I meant something else and replaces one or two words with what it has decided are synonyms. Except they aren't.

Unfortunately I have not documented all these queries (I should have). But to give some examples, it would not be the first time that Google misinterprets a specific query about "sqlite" and only returns results related to SQL Server. Or it decides that a "scapegoat tree" is equivalent to an "AVL tree". They aren't synonyms. The results are actually worse than irrelevant.

It's like typing a query such as "honda brake problems" and getting results that are about "toyota brake problems". Yes, both are Japanese car manufacturers, but they are really not equivalent.

Of course correcting typing errors and searching for synonyms is useful. But I'd like to have control over that behaviour, and most of all: I want to understand what the search engine does. The best interfaces are those where a user can develop a mental model that helps them interact with it. It seems I'm no longer able to create a mental model for how Google works.

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

#73

Post by brudgers »

moultano wrote: post #70
brudgers wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>"Think of it as having poor proxies for quality"

I think of it as good proxies for revenue. It just makes more business sense, and seems more in line with the fiduciary responsibilities of Google's board in regard to Google's stock holders.

And that's why I don't doubt your statements that the algorithm doesn't do this or that. There are proxies. If Billy Beene could do it a decade ago in Oakland, it is hard to see the smart folks in Mountain View depending on dumb luck to generate revenue from search. And that's the only alternative to tweeking the algorithm to generate revenue.

"q=weather" shows an observable point where hand coding for business interests is accessible and the that holes in the wall are deliberately created. It further shows a correlation between the hole and revenue - note that weatherunderground.com generates revenue outside the ad model.

It's difficult to believe that this practice isn't automated.

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

#74

Post by DanBC »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #25
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…

> If you live in the US, do a google search for dmv. First of all, no, it doesn't give me the DMV for my state first. And second, why would I do that when I can easily search for "$statename dmv" and have that search universally do the right thing regardless of location? I don't want hidden inputs to my search based on my location; I want everything that determines the results encapsulated in the query.

You are not the typical user that Google is aiming for. I find the unasked for word substitutions and stemming and "corrections" and the bubble frustrating, but I recognise that I'm an edge case. Google really should have some kind of "what you type is what you get" mode, with user-definable stemming and word substitution and bubbles and etc.

(http://insidesearch.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/search-using-your...)

> we found that users typed the “+” operator in less than half a percent of all searches, and two thirds of the time, it was used incorrectly.

Check my arithmetic but that means only 1 in 600 searches used + correctly; 2 in 600 used it wrong, and the other 597 searches didn't use it at all.

0.5% == 3 in 600 2/3 == 66% = 2 in 3 are wrong

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

#75

Post by mladenkovacevic »

molf wrote: post #72
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…

I have stopped using Google Search entirely very recently. The main reason is that Google too often misinterprets my search queries, and I got tired of typing quotes around the search terms. I should stress that like any software developer (or any power user, probably), my queries tend to be very specific. I'm looking for particular information (which may or may not exist) that takes more than a couple of words to de…

> "The main reason is that Google too often misinterprets my search queries, and I got tired of typing quotes around the search terms. I should stress that like any software developer (or any power user, probably), my queries tend to be very specific."

So who do you think should invest the extra effort into performing searches (aka adding quotations.. or "taking them off"): the hackers with specific, but edge-case search requirements, or the 99% of casual users who just want to learn about "how do helycopters fly"

P.S. I tried both the sqlite and the scapegoat tree searches without the quotes and Google seemed to "know" what I meant... but if you encountered that problem perhaps it's an algorithm that unnecessarily "kicks in" depending on some other circumstances of the search. I would definitely classify this as a problem, but one that should again be easily solved with the use of quotation marks

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

#76

Post by moultano »

brudgers wrote: post #73
moultano wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

> "Think of it as having poor proxies for quality" I think of it as good proxies for revenue. It just makes more business sense, and seems more in line with the fiduciary responsibilities of Google's board in regard to Google's stock holders. And that's why I don't doubt your statements that the algorithm doesn't do this or that. There are proxies. If Billy Beene could do it a decade ago in Oakland, it is hard to see…

Ranking tries to make money by returning good search results so that people use Google. Ads tries to make money by showing good ads so that people click on them. Ranking only cares about revenue in that they want to make a product worth using.

Look, I've worked in search at Google for over 5 years. I know all of the signals that determine how results are ranked and most of the details about how they are used. I know all of the metrics that are used to evaluate and tune ranking. I know nearly everyone who works in ranking, and I've seen a decent fraction of the launch decisions and the metrics supporting them.

I'm telling you, with no caveats, that we don't make ranking decisions based on statistics related to revenue. If that doesn't convince you, then I don't know what would.

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

#77

Post by DanBC »

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 there are two problems.

1) Google focuses more on commercial sites, especially branded sites, than research or personal sites.

2) Sturgeon's law (90% of everything is garbage) and a much bigger world wide web means that there's a lot more garbage indexed, and returned, by Google searches.

I remember that I'd try a search phrase, and I'd be taken to some Web 1.2 site with black text on a grey background; some university professor or doctor would have written a really interesting article and linked to other sites or research. Now I get some reputable site selling stuff, or a bunch of shitty link farms offering me god-awful "reviews", or awful awful blogs.

I remember when search terms would return less than a gajillion hits; you could tell by the extra 'o' in Goooogle how many hits you'd got. When was the last time GoogleWhacking was possible? A result of "zero hits" is important. It doesn't mean the search failed and that Google should feel free to substitute words and try different stemming and remove the quotes. "Zero hits" information for me.

I strongly agree that I'm an edge case, and that Google is great for most people.

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

#78

Post by molf »

mladenkovacevic wrote: post #75
molf wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have stopped using Google Search entirely very recently. The main reason is that Google too often misinterprets my search queries, and I got tired of typing quotes around the search terms. I should stress that like any software developer (or any power user, probably), my queries tend to be very specific. I'm looking for particular information (which may or may not exist) that takes more than a couple of words to de…

> "The main reason is that Google too often misinterprets my search queries, and I got tired of typing quotes around the search terms. I should stress that like any software developer (or any power user, probably), my queries tend to be very specific." So who do you think should invest the extra effort into performing searches (aka adding quotations.. or "taking them off"): the hackers with specific, but edge-case se…

I agree 100% with you that there is a large difference between search engine use by hackers/power users and by casual users. But given the frequency of the problems that I have, I definitely believe that 1) I can impossibly be the only one that experiences this and 2) therefore there may be a lot of room for improvement. Room for Google, or for a competitor. (I just don't expect it will be Google, since they are the ones that made it worse.)

By the way, the scapegoat tree search query was "scapegoat tree inorder append". Try that and observe 90% AVL tree results on the first page.

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

#79

Post by 6ren »

The Dr. Frankenstein in me loves the idea of an automated data-driven business: generic algorithm + A-B testing + payment mechanism. If you could also automate litigation... running many in parallel, a useful monster might one day emerge. Evolution has worked well elsewhere. The real problem is an exponential search space, and time/experiments needed to explore it.

The problem of giving people what they want is also the problem of markets and democracy in general. Fortunately for us buyers/citizens, we usually eventually realize what we really want - unfortunately for the vendor/politician catering to what we previously thought we wanted.

There's an appeal to Jobs' approach: make what they will want once they've see it. Far superior to creating/governing by numbers.

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

#80

Post by replax »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #25
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…

> If you live in the US, do a google search for dmv. First of all, no, it doesn't give me the DMV for my state first. And second, why would I do that when I can easily search for "$statename dmv" and have that search universally do the right thing regardless of location? I don't want hidden inputs to my search based on my location; I want everything that determines the results encapsulated in the query.

I could not agree more.

That becomes even more frustrating when you (temporarily) are in another country and suddenly get smacked in your face by incorrect location based search results. If google wants to really retain traction with people who want to search for what they type (don't even get me started on the "showing results for: $bshere, if you want to see results for what you searched for, click here"), then they will soon have to provide a switch for it.

I really hope that google goes that way but I think it only crop up when people working at google find themselves using a different search engine to find (esp. programming related) specific topics.

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