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Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it

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Re: Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it

#241

Post by duped »

makecheck wrote: post #70
flenserboy wrote: post #49

Google broke itself over a decade ago when they began giving you results either that their algorithms assumed you wanted or that they wanted you to have , period. Verbatim search hardly produces anything useful anymore, either. Search has been coopted, making the prime thing (past general connectivity) that made the internet so useful now all but worthless.

Yep; I can’t believe what used to be bar-none the most useful set of search results will now seemingly scatter results into the list that have zero matches for my search term, as well as some with boldfaced words that I did not even type. And also, for some reason the “zero-click results” stuff really bothers me. I don’t want some crappy AI summary of a Wikipedia page, I want the Wikipedia link first , for example. I…

> And also, for some reason the “zero-click results” stuff really bothers me.

It's often inaccurate too. I've had a lot of issues with menus, hours, and phone numbers being completely incorrect when searching for businesses.

The one that really bothered me was when I needed to change flights and the reported number for an airline was just some fake support line scam.

Re: Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it

#242

Post by cratermoon »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #155
hoppyhoppy2 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is Consumer Reports in the US: http://cr.org They are a nonprofit that has been independent for decades and have strict policies against accepting gifts, sponsorships, ads, etc, and take other steps to remain free from influence. For example, when they review new cars they send an undercover individual to buy it at normal price from a random dealer so the company and the dealer don't know the buyer is CR (and m…

CR also tends to limit itself to middle-of-the-range items. If you're actually interested in the best, their surveys don't always cover it, since they prefer to review things that most people can/would purchase. This has changed a bit in the last few years, but it's still the case that if you want to find solid unbiased reviews of, for example, high end ranges or washing machines, CR is not always the most helpful.

My dad was a big CR subscriber. After a while I realized that they focus on what might be termed "best value", although that's still not quite right. Their picks always emphasized mundane things like TCO, reliability, durability. For cars they were very explicit about this, each year issuing data on vehicles with categories like reliable, held their value, and low-maintenance, etc.

The prefect example of a CR-friendly car, in my mind, is the Toyota Camry. Completely unremarkable.

Everything else I remember them reviewing – watches, TVs, stereos, calculators, cameras – always ended up recommending some middle-of-the road "it works but it's not fancy and doesn't have many bells-and-whistles" product. I have a vague memory of them putting a Minolta camera at the top of the list of best 35mm SLRs in the 70s.

Re: Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it

#243

Post by lumost »

cratermoon wrote: post #240
lumost wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No general AI required. Simply count the number of ads in the text. For a top ten site I’d also expect a certain degree of interesting vocabulary which loops in industry jargon. I’d also expect spam sites to use similar syntax/sentence structure for all products. Lastly if I can follow the links and get references to the final products, then I can estimate how similar the product description is to the product. I’d ex…

> Simply count the number of ads in the text. What is an ad?

Something served from double click or other major ad network

Re: Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it

#245

Post by cratermoon »

lumost wrote: post #243
cratermoon wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Simply count the number of ads in the text. What is an ad?

Something served from double click or other major ad network

That does absolutely nothing to address the affiliate problem, nor does it catch advertorial or "native ads" as they sometimes called. Ignoring all content served by ad brokers is no more sufficient than browser ad blocking extensions. It helps, but you don't get an ad- and distraction-free result.

Re: Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it

#246

Post by UnFleshedOne »

dylan604 wrote: post #158
delecti wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible in Chrome and Firefox (and I assume other browsers, though can't say for sure) to add search shortcuts for other websites. If I know I want the wikipedia link, rather than searching google for the thing, I type "wp ", and it takes me either directly to the wikipedia page, or to the search results. I think the default is the domain followed by a space, so "wikipedia.org ", but that can be changed.

this has always befuddled me. why use google at all to search a specific site rather than searching on the site directly? why give google the traffic? because lazy/convenience of google being the default page for new browsers and/or google the default search associated with the location bar?

Unfortunately on some sites even generic google search (not limited to that site) is better than on-site search...

Re: Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it

#247

Post by UnFleshedOne »

mwigdahl wrote: post #202
oblio wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because of how aggressively it tries to use synonyms That's a double edged sword. One of the main reasons regular people fail to find stuff on Google, or at least failed in the past, was that you'd need to be a walking thesaurus to do it effectively (which techies generally are, for example). They needed to help the less educated, too.

Does it help the less educated to flat out ignore exclusion terms that are _explicitly_ provided?

Doesn't seem to ignore it for me -- on the first page I only see "headphones" word in the search string itself, in "related searches" and in google maps listing shops that sell them.

Re: Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it

#248

Post by justnotworthit »

flenserboy wrote: post #49

Google broke itself over a decade ago when they began giving you results either that their algorithms assumed you wanted or that they wanted you to have , period. Verbatim search hardly produces anything useful anymore, either. Search has been coopted, making the prime thing (past general connectivity) that made the internet so useful now all but worthless.

If you google "how do i search the web without e commerce results", you get "how to improve search in your ecommerce site".

If you search "examples of bougainvillea not pruned", you get pruning tips.

Often the first page of results will already have the tag "Without: --keyword that changes everything but is inconvenient for the algorithm--. Force include this word?"

Re: Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it

#249

Post by cratermoon »

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #74
mustacheemperor wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve found DuckDuckGo can be better at some searches, and at others far worse. I was recently trying to search up how to do something in Excel and every result from DDG was some “excel-help” website that was actually just parroting common search terms as the headers on non-articles full of ads. The entire search space has apparently been hijacked by what is essentially a fake help site. I see results like that on goo…

Isn't the phenomenon you're describing (and I agree it's a real trend) more due to SEO efforts than to any defects in the search engine itself? It seems like there are millions of how-to informational articles now that are inherently designed to be clickbait. It's not that they don't have useful information, but they make you dig through a lot more verbiage than is necessary, because apparently some search engines th…

¿Por que no los dos? Google has increasingly favored results that work in concert with the overall revenue-generating aspects of the web. Selling things has overtaken providing information, and SEO exists to push pages to the top of search results with the explicit purpose of making sites better at earning money. Google's business is selling ads and, perhaps more importantly, selling information about user preferences that allow businesses to better target potential buyers.

Just a random example I tried a bit ago. A search of "guitar tuner" gave results like Fender's online tuner site (stuff with plenty of upsells for Fender gear) a site that had a basic online tuner page – filled with ads, and a tutorial at the web site of a company that sells music lessons and runs music camps.

Re: Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it

#250

Post by gundmc »

WesolyKubeczek wrote: post #157
JohnBooty wrote: post #112

I reject the author's conclusion. Either this is a non sequiter, or I'm missing a major piece of the puzzle. How is it that a search giant like Google, with thousands of brilliant minds, can’t help me find good products to buy? I think the answer is because it’s not in their best interest to do so. They like that most consumers will look at these reviews, click through to Amazon and make their purchase with little he…

> So as far as I can see it's definitely in Google's interest to provide good and useful search results. A shame Google didn't get this memo, or buried it somewhere.

It's almost as if it's a really hard problem to solve.
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