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It seems that Google is forgetting the old web

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Re: It seems that Google is forgetting the old web

#151

Post by ummonk »

puzzle wrote: post #50
0815test wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The index only has to be on "low latency storage" if low-latency results to any query are required. While that's definitely true of the modal "Google Search", most of these queries for "long-tail, old content" as discussed in the OP don't really need that sort of quick response.

Interview questions: How would a search engine distinguish between the two kinds of queries, tens of thousands of times a second? And how would one architect such a two-tiered system, particularly with an eye toward cascading failures?

Progressive loading is a thing.

Re: It seems that Google is forgetting the old web

#152

Post by ryanstorm »

kickscondor wrote: post #17

While it's become impossible to browse the wider Web with Google, it's getting a bit easier elsewhere. A few helpful search engines: * https://millionshort.com/ * https://wiby.me/ * https://pinboard.in/search/ A recent movement to build personal Yahoo!-style directories: * https://href.cool/ (my own project) * https://indieseek.xyz/ * https://districts.neocities.org/ * https://the.dailywebthing.com/ The above resourc…

Your href.cool project is rad, and has inspired me to make my own! Thanks for sharing.

Re: It seems that Google is forgetting the old web

#153

Post by kickscondor »

revvx wrote: post #133
kickscondor wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the problem is that their algorithm has become weighted against blogs and personal websites. > Rumors spread that large link pages (for surfing) might be considered “link farms” (and yes on SEO sites they were but these things eventually trickle down to little personal site webmasters too) so these started to be phased out. Then the worry was Blogrolls might be considered link farms so they slowly started to…

It's not Google's fault this time. The problem is that Blogspam is now a (legitimate) industry much bigger than Google can manage. Google Search became a playground for marketing firms to dump content made by low-paid freelancers with algorithmically chosen keywords, links and headers. It's SEO on large scale. Everything is monitored via analytics and automatically posted to Wordpress. Every time Google tweaks its al…

Well, I disagree. (Though I think your record of things is correct!) Certainly if you look at this as a bot war then Google's actions make sense: we need our bots to outsmart the 'bots' (human bots even!) that are writing blogs.

But look at it another way: you have lots of humans writing - and it's all of varying quality. Why not let the humans decide what's good? The early Web was curated by humans, who kept directories, Smart.com 'expert' pages, websites and blogrolls that tried to show where quality could be found. Google's bot war (and the idea that Google is the sole authority on quality) eliminated these valuable resources as collateral damage.

Re: It seems that Google is forgetting the old web

#154

Post by aeorgnoieang »

typon wrote: post #66
puzzle wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interview questions: How would a search engine distinguish between the two kinds of queries, tens of thousands of times a second? And how would one architect such a two-tiered system, particularly with an eye toward cascading failures?

Make it opt-in. Instead of requiring every search to be finished in less than 0.5 seconds, allow users to tick a box that says "Take your time" and pull indices from slow storage in that case. If I know I want something niche, I am willing to wait the extra few seconds or even a minute.

Hell, even waiting an entire day (e.g with results sent via email) might be reasonable for some searches.

Re: It seems that Google is forgetting the old web

#155

Post by hokus »

kyrra wrote: post #90
founderling wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is an example: http://www.gnoosic.com/discussion/metallica__5.html No matter how you search for the content on Google, nothing comes up: https://www.google.com/search?q="Metallica+only+played+2+son... DuckDuckGo has it: https://duckduckgo.com/?q="Metallica+only+played+2+songs+fro... I checked the wayback machine and the content has constantly been on that url for over 10 years. This is the first example of an ol…

https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awww.gnoosic.com+Metal... Looks like only page 6 is indexed for some reason. The site owner would be able to check the webmaster tools on Google to see why.

there are 3 parties:

the end user searching for the content

the webmaster or author of the content

the search provider

If I'm searching for something that I know exists and I cant find it there is no excuse. The search provider failed to do its job.

There is not but the webmaster should have done this and that. He was hit by a bus 10 years ago and we should be happy the content is still available.

A good search provider would link a vanished website to archive org if the content is exactly what the customer wanted.

Long long ago when posting interesting links in comments didn't trigger commercial hysteria people would cite bits of texts and have a link to the full text. Later this became simply citing a chunk of text. I use to drop a few lines from the citation into the search engine and find the original work.

Just look!

https://www.google.com/search?q=Looks+like+only+page+6+is+in....

As i'm writing this there are exactly 45 search results above the one that should have been displayed.

There is no excuse like HN not ranking enough, they didn't not index the page, the other results didn't match the query better.

If we do this with 4 exact lines from a less popular site it will end up some place on page 20 of the search results.

Another example, I really don't care for indexing but here is an article that I always (jokingly) refer to as my greatest work.

The exact title:

https://www.google.com/search?q=%22the+wrath+of+the+book%22

A really weird result. Safe to say nothing matching is there.

The first many words from the text:

https://www.google.com/search?q=I+think+someone+%28you%29+sh...

It doesn't find it.

Then we check if it is even indexed...

https://www.google.com/search?q=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.go-here.nl...

And there it is! Why does it even crawl the page?

It also lists websites that have the number 8616 on them and ones with both the word "blog" and "here" in the text.

I'm not suppose to laugh?

Re: It seems that Google is forgetting the old web

#156

Post by JohnFen »

Liquix wrote: post #104
founderling wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is an example: http://www.gnoosic.com/discussion/metallica__5.html No matter how you search for the content on Google, nothing comes up: https://www.google.com/search?q="Metallica+only+played+2+son... DuckDuckGo has it: https://duckduckgo.com/?q="Metallica+only+played+2+songs+fro... I checked the wayback machine and the content has constantly been on that url for over 10 years. This is the first example of an ol…

Anecdotally and perhaps unrelated - has anyone else noticed a decrease in the accuracy and general quality of Google search over the past 2-4 months? They've had to have been utilizing ML to 'improve' searches for some time now, but the quality of the results has decreased suddenly and inexplicably (for me).

> Anecdotally and perhaps unrelated - has anyone else noticed a decrease in the accuracy and general quality of Google search over the past 2-4 months

Yes. Not just over the past 2-4 months, but over the past five years or so.

It's become so bad that Google is no longer the most useful search engine for me.

Re: It seems that Google is forgetting the old web

#157

Post by jpswade »

Google has, for quite some time now, preferred magazine style websites that grow exponentially.

Their search engine algorithm is designed to favour rich media content and websites that are growing, because this is how Google grows and learns.

Favouring the "old web" would not help Google's business model which favours growth.

Re: It seems that Google is forgetting the old web

#158

Post by kickscondor »

ryanstorm wrote: post #152
kickscondor wrote: post #17

While it's become impossible to browse the wider Web with Google, it's getting a bit easier elsewhere. A few helpful search engines: * https://millionshort.com/ * https://wiby.me/ * https://pinboard.in/search/ A recent movement to build personal Yahoo!-style directories: * https://href.cool/ (my own project) * https://indieseek.xyz/ * https://districts.neocities.org/ * https://the.dailywebthing.com/ The above resourc…

Your href.cool project is rad, and has inspired me to make my own! Thanks for sharing.

Sweet! Let me know where it ends up and I'll link to it. I'm excited to see what you come up with.

Re: It seems that Google is forgetting the old web

#159

Post by lnanek2 »

Liquix wrote: post #148
wyck wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, i'm having to go several pages deep and even then not finding anything relevant, I've started to use other search engines and reddit to actually find useful info.

Google poured billions into their search engine for two decades to make it better . Now that have a ridiculous amount of money and power, the search results get.... objectively worse . Which brings us to the elephant in the room: what are Google's motives behind this (clearly intentional) change? Could something as innocent as training a new neural net or testing a buggy version of the algorithm on subsets of users.…

Maybe bad organic results lead to more ad clicks.

Re: It seems that Google is forgetting the old web

#160

Post by inetknght »

gowld wrote: post #147
inetknght wrote: post #7

I have noticed that searching for exact quotes seems to have been broken on Google for a few years. But only minimally broken. And I've had no idea how to reason with it. This article completely corresponds with problems I've encountered with searching for results on StackOverflow or software documentation sites; it's especially perplexing that "site:..." combined with exact quotes does not work for many cases. Googl…

What is your estimate of how much it would cost to respond to every piece of feedback from a >1Billion-user user-base?

What's your point? That google is a for-profit company? Why should the people who utilize the services take a back seat to profits?

I didn't make an estimate because I literally do not care about the monetary cost. Why should Google be exempted from basic standards of customer service just because it's profitable to do so? That's the exact opposite of being a productive member of society.

Fact is, users aren't perfect and will always need help to use services provided by others. A company which does not help its own users because it's less profitable to do so is an unethical company and should not have any business whatsoever in a civil society.

If that makes the company not profitable then perhaps the company should actually sell their services for a cost instead of "free", or perhaps become a non-profit (and reduce taxes), or become absorbed by the government (and citizens' taxes provided the "clearly beneficial but not profitable" services), or... you know... stop being profitable and stop being an unethical business.

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