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New ways we're tackling spammy, low-quality content on Search

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Re: New ways we're tackling spammy, low-quality content on Search

#61

Post by Joel_Mckay »

dotnet00 wrote: post #50
Joel_Mckay wrote: post #41

Simply add a user call-back rating system, then subtract a factor of 10 for anomalous feedback traffic inconsistent with unique regional ISP blocks and human users. They can't do this as 95% of the internet would disappear overnight including a lot of Google ad revenue. The proposed project has a paradoxical use-case defined, and as such will not function as expected. Where do we send the invoice for stating the obvi…

It'll cause a slew of even more direct manipulation services to pop up to either up-rate the current site or down-rate competitors. Not to mention further fueling cancel culture. What they should do is let people set preferences for how they want domains ranked in their personal results, and then use longer term trends on how those lists evolve.

Indeed, initially the stats are random, but Google already blacklists domains that hammer their services. People have tried the click-army approach many times.... only to discover their efforts are fleeting due to cross-checking the rank with CDN and DNS traffic.

Re: New ways we're tackling spammy, low-quality content on Search

#62

Post by aaomidi »

iamthepieman wrote: post #35

The best way to improve Google search results is to stop and use Kagi[0]. Seriously. If you are reading this article and these comments then you must be somewhat interested in search results. Do yourself (and the search world) a favor and subscribe. [0] https://kagi.com

There is so much Kagi references on HN that I’m slowly beginning to feel sus about it.

I’m not saying this is happening (I’m not saying anyone is a shill). It’s just making me feel a little “hmm” about it.

Re: New ways we're tackling spammy, low-quality content on Search

#63

Post by amf12 »

ajhurliman wrote: post #49
iamthepieman wrote: post #35

The best way to improve Google search results is to stop and use Kagi[0]. Seriously. If you are reading this article and these comments then you must be somewhat interested in search results. Do yourself (and the search world) a favor and subscribe. [0] https://kagi.com

Kagi is head and shoulder better at finding things that are useful. Google is going the way of AOL.

How do they plan to monetize it? How many people will pay for Search? Will they have an ad-supported version? If so how would their direction be any different when they face the same problems?

Re: New ways we're tackling spammy, low-quality content on Search

#64

Post by ajhurliman »

amf12 wrote: post #63
ajhurliman wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kagi is head and shoulder better at finding things that are useful. Google is going the way of AOL.

How do they plan to monetize it? How many people will pay for Search? Will they have an ad-supported version? If so how would their direction be any different when they face the same problems?

It’s a monthly subscription that apparently a lot of people are willing to pay for, feels like an honest business which is shocking in tech.

Re: New ways we're tackling spammy, low-quality content on Search

#65

Post by frizlab »

iamthepieman wrote: post #35

The best way to improve Google search results is to stop and use Kagi[0]. Seriously. If you are reading this article and these comments then you must be somewhat interested in search results. Do yourself (and the search world) a favor and subscribe. [0] https://kagi.com

I’ve subscribed just yesterday. Cannot be happier.

Re: New ways we're tackling spammy, low-quality content on Search

#66

Post by beej71 »

iamthepieman wrote: post #35

The best way to improve Google search results is to stop and use Kagi[0]. Seriously. If you are reading this article and these comments then you must be somewhat interested in search results. Do yourself (and the search world) a favor and subscribe. [0] https://kagi.com

I trust the non-ad-based company that I'm paying for quality results more than Google, that's for sure.

Edit: but I'm glad Google is noticing their results are getting to be shit.

Re: New ways we're tackling spammy, low-quality content on Search

#67

Post by itsdrewmiller »

aaomidi wrote: post #62
iamthepieman wrote: post #35

The best way to improve Google search results is to stop and use Kagi[0]. Seriously. If you are reading this article and these comments then you must be somewhat interested in search results. Do yourself (and the search world) a favor and subscribe. [0] https://kagi.com

There is so much Kagi references on HN that I’m slowly beginning to feel sus about it. I’m not saying this is happening (I’m not saying anyone is a shill). It’s just making me feel a little “hmm” about it.

It's not just hacker news! They were up in arms about some actual analysis of search quality here: https://danluu.com/seo-spam/

Another common response is

>Your table is wrong. I tried these queries on Kagi and got Good results for the queries [but phrase much more strongly]

I'm not sure why people feel so strongly about Kagi but, all of these kinds of responses so far have come from Kagi users. No one has gotten good results for the tire, transistor, or snow queries (note, again, that this is not a query looking for a daily forecast, as clearly implied by the "winter 2023" in the query), nor are the results for the other queries very good if you don't have an ad blocker. I suppose it's possible that the next person who tells me this actually has good results, but that seems fairly unlikely given the zero percent correctness rate so far.

For example, one user claimed that the results were all good, but they pinned GitHub results and only ran the queries for which you'd get a good result on GitHub. This is actually worse than you get if you use Google or Bing and write good queries since you'll get noise in your results when GitHub is the wrong place to search. Of course you make a similar claim that Bing is amazing is you write non-naive queries, so it's curious that so many Kagi users are angrily writing me about this and no Google or Bing users. Kagi appears to have tapped into the same vein that Tesla and Apple have managed to tap into, where users become incensed that someone is criticizing something they love and then write nonsensical defenses of their favorite product, which bodes well for Kagi. I've gotten comments like this from not just one Kagi user, but many.

Re: New ways we're tackling spammy, low-quality content on Search

#68

Post by dotnet00 »

aaomidi wrote: post #62
iamthepieman wrote: post #35

The best way to improve Google search results is to stop and use Kagi[0]. Seriously. If you are reading this article and these comments then you must be somewhat interested in search results. Do yourself (and the search world) a favor and subscribe. [0] https://kagi.com

There is so much Kagi references on HN that I’m slowly beginning to feel sus about it. I’m not saying this is happening (I’m not saying anyone is a shill). It’s just making me feel a little “hmm” about it.

I think it's just that search engine quality comes up often, and through the recent very popular Kagi threads, a lot of HN users have ended up at least giving it a try.

In a sense it's targeted advertising, since HN users are very likely to be power users who care about a paid search engine for one reason or another. But it's still organic in the sense that the articles posted are ultimately just the regular search engine discourse or otherwise not content specifically crafted for the purpose of advertisement.

Re: New ways we're tackling spammy, low-quality content on Search

#69

Post by dotnet00 »

itsdrewmiller wrote: post #67
aaomidi wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is so much Kagi references on HN that I’m slowly beginning to feel sus about it. I’m not saying this is happening (I’m not saying anyone is a shill). It’s just making me feel a little “hmm” about it.

It's not just hacker news! They were up in arms about some actual analysis of search quality here: https://danluu.com/seo-spam/ Another common response is >Your table is wrong. I tried these queries on Kagi and got Good results for the queries [but phrase much more strongly] I'm not sure why people feel so strongly about Kagi but, all of these kinds of responses so far have come from Kagi users. No one has gotten goo…

I'm not really a fan of this person's dismissive attitude, they're trying to avoid dealing with domain rank adjustments, understandably so the results are comparable, but the adjustments are part of the value add.

The testing methodology is also odd, looking specifically for yt-dlp when asking for "download youtube video", when the web based downloaders that most of the big engines turn up on top make more sense for the average user, both due to not having to install a command line tool and due to not necessarily being on a device the tool can be installed on. I've often used the top Kagi result, and it has worked fine, yet has been labeled as scammy by the evaluator. IIRC that site also ranks high in Google's results. For adblock they expect specifically ublock origin, and consider ABP to not count despite it also being a very popular blocker.

Them complaining about why it's only Kagi users reaching out to him also seems unnecessarily aggressive, eg I've found their article through you, in the context of Kagi, so if I were to comment, it'd obviously be in that context.

However, how likely is this article to be brought up in the context of Bing, Google, ChatGPT or DDG, where there are many more carefully thought out and less dismissive comparisons and discussions out there?

Re: New ways we're tackling spammy, low-quality content on Search

#70

Post by [deleted] »

iamthepieman wrote: post #35

The best way to improve Google search results is to stop and use Kagi[0]. Seriously. If you are reading this article and these comments then you must be somewhat interested in search results. Do yourself (and the search world) a favor and subscribe. [0] https://kagi.com

[deleted]
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