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In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

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Re: In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

#191

Post by londons_explore »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #15

Google results have gotten dramatically worse over this last decade. Google now seems to fixate on the most common terms in my query and returns the most generic results for my geographic area. And, it seems like quotes and the old google-fu techniques are just ignored or are no longer functional. There are a whole host of factors behind this, but I'm certain that the switch to Natural Language Processing / Semantic…

Everyone please post examples of search terms that have gotten worse.

Specifically, it's handy to have the query, and the URL that you think would be the best result.

Google engineers can then peer in and see why that URL didn't rank highly.

The most common reason is it's behind an invisible captcha or blocked by robots.txt, so do check that.

Re: In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

#192

Post by marcodiego »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #15

Google results have gotten dramatically worse over this last decade. Google now seems to fixate on the most common terms in my query and returns the most generic results for my geographic area. And, it seems like quotes and the old google-fu techniques are just ignored or are no longer functional. There are a whole host of factors behind this, but I'm certain that the switch to Natural Language Processing / Semantic…

Probably a side-effect of SEO[0]. Its in the best interest of the vender, not of the user. I should be banned, forbidden of fought against by google themselves.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization

Re: In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

#193

Post by AlexandrB »

nitrogen wrote: post #165
eitland wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Dramatically worse... if that's true, then I wonder how good they were a decade ago. Oh, I forget some people doesn't know why Google enjoy their current position: Back before 2007 they completely blew competition out of the water: If something was accessible on the Internet and wasn't behind a noindex spell, Google would find it. Compared to other search engines that both then and now work more like Google does to…

somewhere in between there they messed up the + operator that used to mean "make sure this term is included" IIRC this one was driven by Google Plus marketing wanting "+" to mean "Go to this page on Google Plus" so they could do some co-marketing thing with +Pepsi.

Unbelievable. Google plus is the "gift" that keeps on giving, even after it's gone.

Re: In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

#194

Post by gnulinux »

dundarious wrote: post #143
gonehome wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I search Google now I mostly get spam. “Product vs. Product” -> list of spam websites that just show them side by side with ads. “Product Review” -> same as above, spam. “Product referral code” -> sites with spam and no codes. Interesting web content is in Reddit (and youtube), Google exists as a tool to search Reddit since the “new” Reddit site is awful. Programming questions are mostly stack overflow, but occa…

I have a cat that is always ravenous for anything edible, even if it's not exactly typical cat fare, e.g., my leftover salad, berries, etc. Trying to search for "can cats eat X" after he manages to get a few sneaky morsels is almost pointless. There are so many spammy sites for every value of X, and I have no idea if it's a sophisticated problem to systematically exclude this type of useless content, but Google's top…

For my cat, I'd probably just call the pet poison line in my state/country. Dogs are relatively better at eating human food (except very obvious well known examples like alcohol, grapes, cooked bones etc) but most plants can be poisonous to cats, so I wouldn't risk it.

Re: In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

#195

Post by sinemetu11 »

Do AMP clicks count as no click since the user didn't leave google?

And how many are no click because google has presented semi-correct but not really correct information at the top of the results so the user finds what they think they're looking for without actually clicking?

Seems like google is doing just fine so I'd imagine both of the above scenarios account for a significant portion.

Re: In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

#196

Post by eitland »

nitrogen wrote: post #165
eitland wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Dramatically worse... if that's true, then I wonder how good they were a decade ago. Oh, I forget some people doesn't know why Google enjoy their current position: Back before 2007 they completely blew competition out of the water: If something was accessible on the Internet and wasn't behind a noindex spell, Google would find it. Compared to other search engines that both then and now work more like Google does to…

somewhere in between there they messed up the + operator that used to mean "make sure this term is included" IIRC this one was driven by Google Plus marketing wanting "+" to mean "Go to this page on Google Plus" so they could do some co-marketing thing with +Pepsi.

My understanding as well.

It never made sense to me for Google+ but it broke that feature.

Lately it seems + might be working on DDG and maybe Google as well, only I have to use it in combination with double quotes like this:

+

Edit: Can't say for sure if it is a feature or if I just knock out the dumbifier somehow :-P

Re: In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

#197

Post by eitland »

AlexandrB wrote: post #193
nitrogen wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

somewhere in between there they messed up the + operator that used to mean "make sure this term is included" IIRC this one was driven by Google Plus marketing wanting "+" to mean "Go to this page on Google Plus" so they could do some co-marketing thing with +Pepsi.

Unbelievable. Google plus is the "gift" that keeps on giving, even after it's gone.

Most amazingly the worst thing about it is they killed it after it had become nice :-)

Re: In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

#198

Post by edoceo »

Shared404 wrote: post #174
axaxs wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is awesome, how did I not know it existed. Thank you!

Always happy to help! I try to "collect" search engines, so I'm always interested in finding more/sharing the ones I've found.

Now I'm waiting for your Show HN curated list of alternative search engines

Re: In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

#199

Post by typon »

londons_explore wrote: post #184
Spivak wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This in no way absolves their god awful mobile experience but if you're logged into Reddit with the new UI turned off or use the Old Reddit Redirect add-on it's basically as if nothing on Reddit changed since 2011.

The new UI is great! It keeps the programmers occupied so they stop messing with the old UI that I actually want to use.

Till one day they pull the old UI and theres nothing you can do about it

Re: In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

#200

Post by AlexandrB »

ImpressiveWebs wrote: post #119
BitwiseFool wrote: post #15

Google results have gotten dramatically worse over this last decade. Google now seems to fixate on the most common terms in my query and returns the most generic results for my geographic area. And, it seems like quotes and the old google-fu techniques are just ignored or are no longer functional. There are a whole host of factors behind this, but I'm certain that the switch to Natural Language Processing / Semantic…

Google doesn’t want people to find alternative sources for news, healthcare, and politics. They now force all the mainstream sources to the top, regardless of whether the search terms entered have any relation to the actual results. And this seems to have carried over to other subjects as well, because I can never find obscure pages any more. This should destroy Google, but for some reason it doesn’t, and it baffles…

> alternative healthcare

I don't blame Google for this. 99% of alternative medicine is quackery and it's almost impossible to separate wheat from chaff in an automated way.

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