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Tell HN: Tweets no longer seem to be properly indexed by Google

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Re: Tell HN: Tweets no longer seem to be properly indexed by Google

#21

Post by unshavedyak »

LarryMullins wrote: post #19

I never use general-purpose search engines if I already know which website the thing I'm looking for is on (assuming that website has it's own search functionality.) If I am looking for a wikipedia article, I go to wikipedia and search for it there. If I am looking for a tweet, I go to twitter and search for it there. If I'm searching for something on HN, then it's algolia. Search keywords in firefox make this easy.…

Oh, man. My issue is that so many in-app searches are just.. bad.

Reddit is the easy example. I learned ages ago to never use reddit search, always use a proper search engine bound to the reddit domain (or even a subreddit).

With that said i don't use Google. I generally agree that it's an adversarial relationship but at the same time Search Engines often have focused tech that is just way, way better than some random search of some content site.

Re: Tell HN: Tweets no longer seem to be properly indexed by Google

#22

Post by [deleted] »

LarryMullins wrote: post #19

I never use general-purpose search engines if I already know which website the thing I'm looking for is on (assuming that website has it's own search functionality.) If I am looking for a wikipedia article, I go to wikipedia and search for it there. If I am looking for a tweet, I go to twitter and search for it there. If I'm searching for something on HN, then it's algolia. Search keywords in firefox make this easy.…

[deleted]

Re: Tell HN: Tweets no longer seem to be properly indexed by Google

#23

Post by JustLurking2022 »

LarryMullins wrote: post #19

I never use general-purpose search engines if I already know which website the thing I'm looking for is on (assuming that website has it's own search functionality.) If I am looking for a wikipedia article, I go to wikipedia and search for it there. If I am looking for a tweet, I go to twitter and search for it there. If I'm searching for something on HN, then it's algolia. Search keywords in firefox make this easy.…

Not if they have a better search engine than most sites internal one...

Re: Tell HN: Tweets no longer seem to be properly indexed by Google

#24

Post by CaveTech »

pifm_guy wrote: post #16
ge96 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> counters are often wrong, I heard about "optimistic rendering" -1 does seem bad. Reddit has fluctuating numbers I thought it was to fight bots or maybe using the eventually correct type db.

I never really saw how making the counters random helped fight bots. Anyone who wants to know if their bot armies upvotes are counted can just choose 2000 articles, upvote a random half, then see if the half they upvoted have higher vote tallies than the half they didn't. No amount of delay, quantizing, or adding noise will defeat that tactic. So why try at all?

You can't efficiently tell which accounts work and which don't, so

a) you'll quickly accumulate more invalid accounts than valid ones, but have the burden of maintaining all of them.

b) you'll continue to provide more signal to reddit from your invalid accounts that can be used to burn your valid accounts.

Re: Tell HN: Tweets no longer seem to be properly indexed by Google

#25

Post by JustLurking2022 »

ge96 wrote: post #7
salusinarduis wrote: post #2

Some other interesting things I've noticed is counters are often wrong, sometimes even with insane values such as -1. Replies missing from retweet views, missing search results, people have reported that replies sometimes don't work or never appear.

> counters are often wrong, I heard about "optimistic rendering" -1 does seem bad. Reddit has fluctuating numbers I thought it was to fight bots or maybe using the eventually correct type db.

I would expect it's a database consistency issue across some distributed NoSQL store.

Re: Tell HN: Tweets no longer seem to be properly indexed by Google

#26

Post by 29athrowaway »

bthrn wrote: post #20
LarryMullins wrote: post #19

I never use general-purpose search engines if I already know which website the thing I'm looking for is on (assuming that website has it's own search functionality.) If I am looking for a wikipedia article, I go to wikipedia and search for it there. If I am looking for a tweet, I go to twitter and search for it there. If I'm searching for something on HN, then it's algolia. Search keywords in firefox make this easy.…

It’s heavily dependent on the quality of the search offered. For example — Reddit’s search functionality is terrible. I’ve found that Google is much better for searching Reddit.

Or Amazon. Amazon's search sucks.

Results are often completely irrelevant, or dismissive of the search terms.

You search for a refrigerator filter from a known refrigerator manufacturer and the first results you get are the toxic offbrand refrigerator filters from companies with randomly generated company names that poison your entire family.

Re: Tell HN: Tweets no longer seem to be properly indexed by Google

#27

Post by unglaublich »

LarryMullins wrote: post #19

I never use general-purpose search engines if I already know which website the thing I'm looking for is on (assuming that website has it's own search functionality.) If I am looking for a wikipedia article, I go to wikipedia and search for it there. If I am looking for a tweet, I go to twitter and search for it there. If I'm searching for something on HN, then it's algolia. Search keywords in firefox make this easy.…

Many websites just redirect to `https://google.com/search?q=site%3Awebsite.com+`.

Re: Tell HN: Tweets no longer seem to be properly indexed by Google

#28

Post by rchaud »

andy_ppp wrote: post #14
salusinarduis wrote: post #2

Some other interesting things I've noticed is counters are often wrong, sometimes even with insane values such as -1. Replies missing from retweet views, missing search results, people have reported that replies sometimes don't work or never appear.

There are now always exactly 35 new tweets to load... on web anyway. Seems to be an increasingly buggy mess. Isn't it $1bn in interest payments Twitter owes, on what regularity is that paid, every 3 months?

Yes, they made a $300m payment about a week ago.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-30/twitter-s...

Re: Tell HN: Tweets no longer seem to be properly indexed by Google

#29

Post by spacetime_cmplx »

LarryMullins wrote: post #19

I never use general-purpose search engines if I already know which website the thing I'm looking for is on (assuming that website has it's own search functionality.) If I am looking for a wikipedia article, I go to wikipedia and search for it there. If I am looking for a tweet, I go to twitter and search for it there. If I'm searching for something on HN, then it's algolia. Search keywords in firefox make this easy.…

Reddit search is somehow worse than a simple `WHERE markdown LIKE '%query%' ORDER BY upvotes DESC` so you can understand where that sentiment comes from.
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