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Yahoo tops Google in US traffic

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Re: Yahoo tops Google in US traffic

#151

Post by thisisnotatest »

Dn_Ab wrote: post #50
pasbesoin wrote: post #15

I "Google" less and less for search results, as they become increasingly crap. They are mostly best for "big name" items; also, the prominence of StackOverflow means that some computer technology queries still work pretty well. These days, I'm fortunate when I know specifically enough what I want that I can jump straight into Wikipedia and hopefully find an adequate page. Whatever you are and aren't doing about it, G…

Very true, glad I'm not the only one to have noticed this. And I've got a suggestion for a search engine so intelligent - well relatively - it took google back to school and enrolled it in kindergarten. I find myself using it whenever Google gets stumped; it consistently gives better results in the sense that I feel it has a better understanding of my query. Take this example that prompted my above semi-hyperbole. Ba…

That's a great example for the search quality team. What's interesting is the synonym "insect"="bug". Note that the result you like is whatsthatBUG.com, which actually contains no instances of the original query term "insect" and only two isolated side navigation instances of "insects".

Yet it seems like the synonym "bug" on Google, plus the other terms like "junk" and "attached", leads to complaints about software.

In a way, you were lucky that the whatsthatbug.com result actually had the word "junk" and "attached". The letter-writer was using the word "junk" in the same meaning you were, but they were using "attached" in the phrase "see attached pics", whereas you were referring to the debris attached to the insect's back.

We're working hard on improving these kinds of challenging queries. I'm going to be remembering the insect with junk attached to its back for a while!

Re: Yahoo tops Google in US traffic

#152

Post by fatjokes »

stefap2 wrote: post #106
Dn_Ab wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very true, glad I'm not the only one to have noticed this. And I've got a suggestion for a search engine so intelligent - well relatively - it took google back to school and enrolled it in kindergarten. I find myself using it whenever Google gets stumped; it consistently gives better results in the sense that I feel it has a better understanding of my query. Take this example that prompted my above semi-hyperbole. Ba…

Never heard of samuru so I tried to google: samuru search engine The "samuru.com" did not come up on first five pages. Then it starts suggesting samurai. Contrary, searching duck duck go search engine has the https://duckduckgo.com/ as the first result.

Works fine for me on both counts.

Re: Yahoo tops Google in US traffic

#155

Post by r00fus »

AznHisoka wrote: post #141
thisisnotatest wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google engineer here. We run experiments that show ranking improvements before launching changes to how we interpret query words. I would guess that for every time you notice Google "ignoring the word you asked for," there were several times where we got you the right result even though it didn't have the exact words you asked for, and you didn't even notice. We're not perfect but we're always working on improvements…

Tip for you guys: Stop pushing "We couldn't find results. Here are results similar to these" whenever I type in a very long-tail semi-obscure query. it makes you guys look bad. Just display all the results you find, even the ones that aren't super relevant.

Tip for you: Google thinks that for every one of you, there are 10x as many folks who do exactly the opposite - and want those results.

For most of them there is no "try again", they simply give up and blame Google (and maybe try the query in Bing/Yahoo).

Re: Yahoo tops Google in US traffic

#156

Post by sigkill »

kbart wrote: post #124
sigkill wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they should have another metric that if you click on a second result after the first result, then the first result should get penalized a little. Repeat steps for 'n' clicked results.

Well, that might not be true as well. Sometimes you just want to to check information from more than one source or the result is correct but you want more on that topic and hope to find it in the next results etc. For example, you search for a technical term and (naturally) the first result is a definition in Wiki, but you already know the basics and want a deeper knowledge so you just skip to next results instead. I…

What I meant is, not the first result on the list, but the first result that you click, and then press back and then click on the second result.

Re: Yahoo tops Google in US traffic

#157

Post by Geee »

sigkill wrote: post #156
kbart wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that might not be true as well. Sometimes you just want to to check information from more than one source or the result is correct but you want more on that topic and hope to find it in the next results etc. For example, you search for a technical term and (naturally) the first result is a definition in Wiki, but you already know the basics and want a deeper knowledge so you just skip to next results instead. I…

What I meant is, not the first result on the list, but the first result that you click, and then press back and then click on the second result.

Most people I know just open every result in new tabs and continue recursing forward, pruning irrelevant or slow-loading tabs in the process.

Re: Yahoo tops Google in US traffic

#158

Post by rhizome »

cynwoody wrote: post #82
thisisnotatest wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google engineer here. We run experiments that show ranking improvements before launching changes to how we interpret query words. I would guess that for every time you notice Google "ignoring the word you asked for," there were several times where we got you the right result even though it didn't have the exact words you asked for, and you didn't even notice. We're not perfect but we're always working on improvements…

The old mode was, you put a + before a required term, and you quoted exact (multi-word) phrases. That worked reasonably well and was easy to understand. A + could apply to a single word or to a single phrase, as could a -. Verbatim was a regression, given it requires you to use the UI instead of typing inline, and it seems to interact with other search options in hard to predict ways.

That was the AltaVista innovation, and one I'm sure Google is happy to weed out of everybody's minds regardless of the fact that it works and works well.

Re: Yahoo tops Google in US traffic

#159

Post by rhizome »

thisisnotatest wrote: post #150
mistermann wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would very much like an expandable section below the search text where I could turn very specific portions of the google magic on and off. I also wish you would remove the multitude of sites that scrape content from the original sites and SEO the hell out of it to get to the top of search results. I assume the advertising revenue is too lucrative to do so.

Personally I would be a fan of giving users more "knobs" to turn in their search results. For example, we have the toggle switch to include personal results and personalized ranking, vs. showing un-personalized search results. However, it's a complicated product design problem whenever you want to add complexity to something used by a billion people. Remember that the thing that made Google so popular and iconic orig…

AV had a plain page, too.

Re: Yahoo tops Google in US traffic

#160

Post by cynwoody »

rhizome wrote: post #158
cynwoody wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The old mode was, you put a + before a required term, and you quoted exact (multi-word) phrases. That worked reasonably well and was easy to understand. A + could apply to a single word or to a single phrase, as could a -. Verbatim was a regression, given it requires you to use the UI instead of typing inline, and it seems to interact with other search options in hard to predict ways.

That was the AltaVista innovation, and one I'm sure Google is happy to weed out of everybody's minds regardless of the fact that it works and works well.

When Google first appeared on the scene, I remember being disappointed in its lack of tweaks, compared to AltaVista. However, the quality of Google's results quickly won me over.
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