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Why I hate search

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Re: Why I hate search

#71

Post by MichaelJW »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #62
mgkimsal wrote: post #9

He's not quite making the leap I thought he would, so I'll make it. Our browsers are dumb , and encourage 'search'. Google's made inroads by making a faster browser that makes it easier to 'search' (through them, of course), but keeping track of that information in the browser sucks. Browser bookmark tools are a joke, and web-based ones, while better, generally aren't much better. I envision a 'browser' that can trac…

It's sad to me only one person here seems to "get" his point. When I search for something, I still tend to have to open four or five pages to get the answer I'm looking for. "javascript remove part of an array" Why when I "search" for that, do I have to parse, in my brain, titles, descriptions (and so on) just to get my answer? I've searched for this a few times before,I know, because I'm terrible at remembering part…

It looks like Google are working on it. Here's what I see when I search for [regular expression], as I often do to double-check syntax: http://screencast.com/t/A9DoZXes6

Edit: It used to be the case that if you bookmarked the result (and had your bookmarks synced with Google), it'd star the result as well. Seems this feature has gone, though.

Re: Why I hate search

#72

Post by cromwellian »

ErikD wrote: post #54
cromwellian wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just tried this experiment and I get the same results. Firefox uses Google search on the backend, so I don't see how it could be otherwise.

He means using the auto-complete in your address bar, not actually searching with it.

Auto-completing against what, against Google ala Google Suggest, or you mean auto-completing against your Web History?

Re: Why I hate search

#73

Post by gcp »

cromwellian wrote: post #72
ErikD wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He means using the auto-complete in your address bar, not actually searching with it.

Auto-completing against what, against Google ala Google Suggest, or you mean auto-completing against your Web History?

Your web history, which is what the address bar searches in Firefox.

In Chrome these two aspects (history and Google search) are blurred, but it's not better for it. I'd say it is a good example of 2 half-assed features not making up for 1 good one.

Re: Why I hate search

#74

Post by cromwellian »

gcp wrote: post #73
cromwellian wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Auto-completing against what, against Google ala Google Suggest, or you mean auto-completing against your Web History?

Your web history, which is what the address bar searches in Firefox. In Chrome these two aspects (history and Google search) are blurred, but it's not better for it. I'd say it is a good example of 2 half-assed features not making up for 1 good one.

If you want to search your Web History explicitly, just hit Ctrl-H. This is a case of personal preference. I rarely search my Web History, so I want my Omnibox real estate to be web search. Some people will prefer history ranked above search, others will prefer it the other way. Chrome should give you a preference setting for it.

Re: Why I hate search

#75

Post by snowwrestler »

radarsat1 wrote: post #34

This guy seems to forget that the reason Google won was because they actually presented search in a usable, non-intrusive way. They were the first company to do search _well_, providing good, reliable results, and also the first company not to surround their search box with a border full of ads. To me this makes his assertion, > There's no more reason to expect search breakthroughs from Google than there is to expect…

Not to mention that he does not seem to understand the Google ad model. From the post:

> Serve up bad results and the user must search again and this doubles the number of sponsored links you get paid for.

Google gets paid when their search ads get clicked, not when they get displayed, so to maximize profit it is in their best interest to serve the absolute best results first.

Re: Why I hate search

#76

Post by taa »

I've worked at Google and they take search quality very seriously. In fact, the search quality guys are not allowed to talk to the ads guys to avoid exactly this type of influence.

Sure money matters, and there is an "apparent" conflict. But in reality, the better the search results are, the more likely that users will use the search engine, which leads to more $$$. There is plenty of literature that demonstrates how serving poor search results will actually result in less ad revenue.

So James, being a former Googler, did you find that Google held back on search quality in favour of ad revenue?

Re: Why I hate search

#77

Post by hammock »

lubutu wrote: post #36
gcp wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found the cases you describe to be one of these areas where Firefox seems to behave way superior than Chrome. It's not entirely as advanced as you describe of course, but usually just typing parts of a few key words returns a list of relevant sites you've ever been to, and the ranking is very good. The algorithm seems to even take into account whether you originally typed in the link etc. In general, if you've v…

This is the one reason I stick with Firefox. In Chrome if you search for the name of a YouTube video, with a string you know was in the title of the page, you're very unlikely to get that page as a result. If you're lucky you'll get another page with a link to the page you want in the suggestions list. In Firefox it'll almost always be an instant result, right at the top of the list. It seems strange, but Firefox's s…

Firefox has a name for it, it's called the AwesomeBar!

Re: Why I hate search

#78

Post by dcminter »

dredmorbius wrote: post #70
dcminter wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Google were the first to do search well - in my opinion that was DEC's AltaVista. But Altavista and the other keyword matchers suffered from the later pollution of their results by spammers and then compounded the problem by polluting their own search results with barely distinguishable adverts. We stopped trusting them. Google was giving better search results during their rise to prominence because Pag…

Altavista's search was fast . It was a showcase for DEC's 64 bit Alpha and Ultrix technologies, and the ability for the systems to place the entire search index in memory (as I recall). The search syntax was also pretty advanced. You had parenthetical grouping, logical operators, and if I recall, the +/- include/exclude syntax originated with (or was at least used by) AV. What AV wasn't was particularly relevant. You…

I don't really disagree with anything you're saying there - but if AV hadn't fouled their results I doubt I'd ever have bothered to try Google.
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