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Ask HN: Let's build an HN uBlacklist to improve our Google search results?

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Re: Ask HN: Let's build an HN uBlacklist to improve our Google search results?

#221

Post by endisneigh »

tyingq wrote: post #220
endisneigh wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't you give any examples of these queries? There's no point in comparing to say, 2008 Google, there are many of orders of magnitudes more sites. You can't expect old algorithms to keep up. The main thing that matters is how long it takes to find what you're looking for. Can't say I really get your point. You're willing to complain and go on this long tirade, but not to give a single query example? The one you…

I didn't give any query to be debunked. I gave an example of a query to see the copycat sites. It does that just fine. Re-read it with some benefit of the doubt maybe? Your rant seems to be based on the idea that my upthread post was something that it wasn't. I did note that one copycat site was ranking above SO, but that was secondary. As for a query with a shit ton of ads and widgets? Try vegas hotels, or anything…

All I’m saying is that claims should have proof

Re: Ask HN: Let's build an HN uBlacklist to improve our Google search results?

#222

Post by tyingq »

endisneigh wrote: post #221
tyingq wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't give any query to be debunked. I gave an example of a query to see the copycat sites. It does that just fine. Re-read it with some benefit of the doubt maybe? Your rant seems to be based on the idea that my upthread post was something that it wasn't. I did note that one copycat site was ranking above SO, but that was secondary. As for a query with a shit ton of ads and widgets? Try vegas hotels, or anything…

All I’m saying is that claims should have proof

Proof of what? That google didn't used to have ads above organic results? That they added more and more over time? That some queries (vegas hotels) have no organic results above the fold? Those are all common knowledge. Burden of proof of the opposite would be on you.

I don't happen to have a historical screenshot history of SERP results specific to StackOverflow copycats, no. I'll concede that.

Re: Ask HN: Let's build an HN uBlacklist to improve our Google search results?

#223

Post by endisneigh »

tyingq wrote: post #222
endisneigh wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All I’m saying is that claims should have proof

Proof of what? That google didn't used to have ads above organic results? That they added more and more over time? That some queries (vegas hotels) have no organic results above the fold? Those are all common knowledge. Burden of proof of the opposite would be on you. I don't happen to have a historical screenshot history of SERP results specific to StackOverflow copycats, no. I'll concede that.

> Burden of proof of the opposite would be on you.

What, lol. I'm not making any claims. You're the one saying Google is becoming complacent. I'm asking for proof of this, lol.

>> I believe they've become more complacent since there is no competitive pressure, yes.

Re: Ask HN: Let's build an HN uBlacklist to improve our Google search results?

#224

Post by tyingq »

endisneigh wrote: post #223
tyingq wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proof of what? That google didn't used to have ads above organic results? That they added more and more over time? That some queries (vegas hotels) have no organic results above the fold? Those are all common knowledge. Burden of proof of the opposite would be on you. I don't happen to have a historical screenshot history of SERP results specific to StackOverflow copycats, no. I'll concede that.

> Burden of proof of the opposite would be on you. What, lol. I'm not making any claims. You're the one saying Google is becoming complacent. I'm asking for proof of this, lol. >> I believe they've become more complacent since there is no competitive pressure, yes.

No post body was provided.

Re: Ask HN: Let's build an HN uBlacklist to improve our Google search results?

#225

Post by mikevin »

nottorp wrote: post #12
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #2

Isn't this Google's job? Are developers a small but lucrative target and so the suits at Google don't see the benefit of improving that experience by cleaning up the spam? Can we just nudge them to do so under the threat of an influential minority leaving due to their use case being affected?

> Isn't this Google's job? Have you searched anything on Google lately? The answer is "no". Their new job seems to be to stuff your results with anything even remotely related (and sometimes related in a way that only machine learning can see) so you have things to click on. Edit: with the lone exception of "find me this bussiness nearby".

It's very obvious Google is no longer the equivalent of grepping the web. There's some ML/NLP interpretation that's rewarded for returning the substring/interpretation that returns the most/highest ranking results.

It's very noticeable if your search contains a short keyword that has to interpreted in the context of the other keywords. As an example, if I search for 'ARM assembly' plus another keyword (macro, syntax etc) it will see 'ARM assembly' without the extra keyword has way more high ranking results and happily show me how much it knows about armchairs that don't require assembly. Ignoring the fact that the extra keywords are there specifically to limit the search results.

It's tiring, a lot of time I previously spent browsing the limited but valuable results it returned I now have to spend mangling the keywords enough to outsmart their ML/NLP interpretation and get it to admit I am actually asking for the thing I am asking for so I can finally get to the part where I have to solve the modern captcha: click all the results that are:

1. Not stolen/rehosted 2. Not a "Hello World" level Medium blog 3. Written by an actual human

Re: Ask HN: Let's build an HN uBlacklist to improve our Google search results?

#226

Post by [deleted] »

tyingq wrote: post #224
endisneigh wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Burden of proof of the opposite would be on you. What, lol. I'm not making any claims. You're the one saying Google is becoming complacent. I'm asking for proof of this, lol. >> I believe they've become more complacent since there is no competitive pressure, yes.

Quoted post unavailable.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Let's build an HN uBlacklist to improve our Google search results?

#227

Post by GreenWatermelon »

nixcraft wrote: post #157
burnished wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At first scan your site looks like one of those automated scrape and republish sites. I'm curious what got you on that blacklist (misspelling? bad first impression? automated tool gone awry?) though. Glad you said something though, I wouldn't have looked at it twice without a human attestation.

I kept it simple on purpose. As a result, it loads faster on both desktop and mobile and passes web.dev PageSpeed insight test too.

For me personally, the titles are what makes it suspicious for me. I've almost never, NEVER found something good in an article titled "(top) xy ways to z", I've come to immediately avoid any article with such a title.

Re: Ask HN: Let's build an HN uBlacklist to improve our Google search results?

#228

Post by skrtskrt »

ryanmcbride wrote: post #202
fowkswe wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DDG has no idea of the intent of your search based on your previous searches and unfortunately this generates abysmal results for me when searching for something like `ruby xxx`. Those terms rarely return results about the programming language. I unfortunately end up using Google in these situations, always to immediate success.

I'll take having to write verbose and specific searches over google guessing what I really want any day.

Google seems to have changed to using NLP + "what would the average person potentially mean by this", meaning anything actually specific is nearly impossible to find. I'll have half my search terms completely ignored

Re: Ask HN: Let's build an HN uBlacklist to improve our Google search results?

#229

Post by anigbrowl »

jhchabran wrote: post #5

That's an ambitious goal, I'm not sure to see how that would be maintainable on the long run. On a much smaller scale, if anyone is interested, I maintain a black list focused on those code snippet content farms that gets in the way when you're searching for some error message or particular function here https://github.com/jhchabran/code-search-blacklist .

Well there's only one way to find out

Re: Ask HN: Let's build an HN uBlacklist to improve our Google search results?

#230

Post by ffhhj »

nixcraft wrote: post #122
jhchabran wrote: post #5

That's an ambitious goal, I'm not sure to see how that would be maintainable on the long run. On a much smaller scale, if anyone is interested, I maintain a black list focused on those code snippet content farms that gets in the way when you're searching for some error message or particular function here https://github.com/jhchabran/code-search-blacklist .

May I know why my domain (cyberciti.biz) was added to that list? I created my site back in 2000, and there was no StackOverflow or anything. So much for creating original content and then getting labelled as a spammer. In fact, some of the top answers on StackOverflow were copied from my work without giving any credit to me. Some people do give credit tho. But, go ahead block a site that actual humans maintain over 2…

> some of the top answers on StackOverflow were copied from my work without giving any credit to me

That's really frustrating. I'm building a faster search engine for programming queries and just added your site cyberciti.biz as a recommended and curated source of Unix/Linux material. Hope more devs get aware of your work and you (and your collaborators) receive the credits deserved. Thanks for your work of many years.

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