Google’s top search result is Google • Hacker News Board

Re: Google’s top search result is Google

#261

Post by 6510 » Tue, Jul 28, 2020, 9:33 PM UTC

magicalist wrote: post #239

onion2k wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once it is an arguably better product, then yes, Google should definitely link to it first. Google Search should list the websites that best match the user's search terms ordered by a fair Pagerank score that doesn't emphasise Google's own properties. That's it. Google shouldn't be making subjective decisions about "site quality" (objective factors like speed, mobile optimization, malware etc are OK..). If I search f…

> Google Search should list the websites that best match the user's search terms Ok, but define "best match". > ordered by a fair Pagerank score that doesn't emphasise Google's own properties Even ignoring link farming (which already ruined a lot of the web the first time around), inbound links to content is a proxy for quality of content, not an actual measure of quality of content. It's just offloading the subjecti…

I have the perfect formula. Just ignore how unrealistic it is.

We divide the knowledge and information into disciplines. We create awards in each discipline. If you accumulate enough awards you are offered the option to dedicate your life to the topic without exit strategy. (Quitting would cost 100 million) unless the topic is no longer of public interest.

You get: a house that you must live in, access to research facilities if (applicable), travel is pre-paid for if (applicable), a personal assistant who has to sign off on all of your expenses.

You yourself are not allowed to have cash or a bank account, no vacation and contact with friends and relatives is forbidden unless they can prove they have relevant expertise or are also in such committee.

Picture it, high priest of pokemon go. In charge of ordering search results and designing the portal widget.

No discrimination for artificial humans, we do full robotmancipation.

Re: Google’s top search result is Google

#262

Post by wazoox » Tue, Jul 28, 2020, 9:36 PM UTC

chimen wrote: post #23

Many of them save me extra clicks which is convenient. Google translate, maps and search has no competitors that even come close in terms of quality. I will get mad when those products have better alternatives but it's not the case. Build better alternatives and I'm on board. In the end, Google is a business - I would promote my own shit on the first vertical as well. One thing that pisses me off is the AMP ordeal bu…

Deepl crushes Google Translate in quality. Depending upon your needs (bike, anyone? -> https://cycle.travel - minimal gas consumption? try https://maps.openrouteservice.org/ ) there are better alternatives to Google Maps. DuckDuckGo is much less annoying than Google and for a few years arguably as good.

Re: Google’s top search result is Google

#263

Post by hombre_fatal » Tue, Jul 28, 2020, 9:46 PM UTC

vinay427 wrote: post #100

Slartie wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, on text translations, DeepL nowadays outclasses Google Translate IMHO. The only downside is that they don't appear to offer some kind of transparent website translate feature ("put a URL in and it translates the entire site, with layout kept intact"), at least not for free. But if I happen to have a paragraph or so in some foreign language and want that translated to some language I can understand, DeepL ha…

I would be prepared to switch over completely for the languages they support if DeepL didn't insert their advertisement at the bottom of some results (I've had this accidentally included in an email before), and if they had a mobile app with a text selection action on Android to highlight text and see a popup with the translation. As it is, I use it most of the time but still rely on Google Translate being more acces…

One weird quirk of DeepL is that when you become a $5/mo subscriber, you can't use their free /translator page while logged in.

Re: Google’s top search result is Google

#264

Post by renewiltord » Tue, Jul 28, 2020, 9:48 PM UTC

calcifer wrote: post #255

renewiltord wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s the same thing as with ads and ad blocking, etc: your business model is not my problem.

Well, let's just hope your business model doesn't get co-opted by a giant company one day. That would be horrible.

If it does, my business dies. That's life. My problem to solve.

Re: Google’s top search result is Google

#265

Post by 6510 » Tue, Jul 28, 2020, 9:51 PM UTC

jefftk wrote: post #195

ksk wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how does one know that Google even has a maps service to go to? Google maps didn't start out great or even good (Its pretty good now). Google promotes their beta-level products over other mature products to the point the competition is starved of visitors, while Google iterates their own product. So now, after the fact, you can go "Well, there's no one else, I guess Google does the right thing in showing me Googl…

> Google maps didn't start out great or even good That is not my memory. Google maps used AJAX to let you pan around. It was fluid, and really nice. What I had been using up until then was MapQuest, where you needed to click an arrow to move around, with long delays. Disclosure: I work for Google

Google Earth was originally developed at Intrinsic Graphics in the late 1990s. October 2004, Google acquired Keyhole. Google maps started February 8, 2005.

It would have been easy to offer kml links and "force" the users into Google Earth. Before it was tinkered into a steaming pile of shit Keyhole was a truly fantastic product, with a lovely community, arguably the greatest thing since web browsers (with picasa & hello as a close 3rd and 4th)

For a web based thing the ajax maps was quite nice but today I really hate using it. The data is great tho and you cant complaint about the price.

Re: Google’s top search result is Google

#266

Post by kilburn » Tue, Jul 28, 2020, 9:53 PM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #193

john-shaffer wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many government websites use reCAPTCHA. I do not have any choice in using it. If I were to block Google to avoid tracking, I could not function in society.

I had to use a reCAPTCHA on a government web site last week, and Google's stupid AI refused to accept that a picture of a wheelchair is not a bicycle. They both have spokes, so I must be a bot. Note to self: Never get in a vehicle steered by Google AI.

It gets even funnier for non-english speakers. ReCaptcha gets translated to your language, and sometimes it doesn't make sense.

For instance, let's say that the thing makes you mark images of "toes". If you get the captcha in spanish, it will say imagenes de "dedos".

The funny part is that "dedo" in spanish means both "finger" and "toe". The only way you can distinguish is by saying "dedo de la mano" or "dedo del pie" (which would literally translate to "finger of the hand" or "finger of the foot").

Hence, you click on both images containing "toes" and "fingers", and the freaking thing decides you must be a bot. If you can speak english you'll figure out eventually, but if you only speak spanish you are screwed.

Re: Google’s top search result is Google

#267

Post by bconnorwhite » Tue, Jul 28, 2020, 10:00 PM UTC

pb7 wrote: post #87

dredmorbius wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's both tired and inaccurate. DuckDuckGo gets its results from over four hundred sources. These include hundreds of vertical sources delivering niche Instant Answers, DuckDuckBot (our crawler) and crowd-sourced sites (like Wikipedia, stored in our answer indexes). We also of course have more traditional links in the search results, which we also source from multiple partners, though most commonly from Bing (and n…

No, this answer is tired and inaccurate. They successfully fool you into thinking they are much more complex than they really are. They use Bing and Bing alone for the SERP links (without this, you don’t have a search engine) and their crawlers fill in the handful of “onebox” results for certain queries. They keep changing this statement but it used to say “multiple sources like Bing, Yahoo, Oath”... all of which are…

I don't think DDG is quite as simple as a wrapper on Bing, just open both in private windows. Same search => different results.

The reason to use DDG isn't that its results are superior to Google/Bing (although imo this is true in many cases), the reason to use DDG is that its so clean. Google and Bing just feel spammy/garish in comparison

Re: Google’s top search result is Google

#268

Post by ocdtrekkie » Tue, Jul 28, 2020, 10:16 PM UTC

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #259

tristan957 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: 9/10 searches in the US come from Google. There are lots of great search engines. But when Google has the largest share of web analytics and can literally track you around the internet, how can other search engines who respect you as a user even have a chance? Give search engines a level playing field. Google is the default search engine on the most popular web browser. Google is the default search…

When ATT was a monopoly, your choice for a phone provider, across the U.S, was ATT. There was no way to switch, and they used this power to raise prices (hurting the consumer is generally a requirement for anti-trust cases in the US). It'll be very challenging to win a serious court case where the Google search monopoly could be conquered by a user typing bing.com at the top of the screen. Never before has a 'monopol…

Ah, but you don't understand where the monopoly is. It's on the other side: Businesses must support Google Search and run Google Ads to stay in business. It is effectively impossible to operate any business in the US without a Google presence.

Re: Google’s top search result is Google

#269

Post by segfaultbuserr » Tue, Jul 28, 2020, 10:37 PM UTC

carstenhag wrote: post #244

segfaultbuserr wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't underestimate the technical illiteracy here. A significant number of people don't really understand how the address bar or an URL works in a web browser. Use web searching as a substitute of typing an URL is common, and some can't distinguish the "search" function of an address bar and the "enter an URL" function of an address bar. Searching "Google" in the address bar to access Google in Google Chrome is not u…

Back when I was in high school (~5 years, not even that much), Firefox still had separate URL and search input fields. Of course the teachers used Chrome at home and were confused on why they couldn't search on the URL field.

Similar experience here.

Re: Google’s top search result is Google

#270

Post by jsjohnst » Tue, Jul 28, 2020, 10:51 PM UTC

magicalist wrote: post #143

hnlmorg wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google translate, maps and search has no competitors that even come close in terms of quality. There certainly did used to be competition to Google Translate but Google crushed them by promoting their own services (which came later)[1]. I often see the argument made that these monopolies just happen to have the best software but often those arguments miss how those monopolies had already killed the competition and…

> There certainly did used to be competition to Google Translate but Google crushed them by promoting their own services (which came later)[1]. Yahoo was the search engine that crushed altavista, then ultimately bought babelfish and let it rot, all several years before google translate came out.

> Yahoo was the search engine that crushed altavista

If you mean “bought Altavista and then squandered it”, then sure, but they definitely never crushed Altavista from my POV.