Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Google is so unbearable, and how to fix it

ixns.github.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 437 posts

Re: Why Google is so unbearable, and how to fix it

#271

Post by lozenge »

stetrain wrote: post #237
stickfigure wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes no sense. You make it sound like Google has no financial incentive to fix this problem, which is patently false. Google isn't selling the organic search results, which is what this article talks about. The problem is that Google is engaged in a war with SEO optimizers, and losing (or at least, barely breaking even). No business model will fix that. It's a hard problem that any successful search engine will…

But does Google care about the organic search result quality? For many search terms, the entire above-the-fold and sometimes multiple scroll heights are filled with: - Ads - Info cards - People Also Ask - Map/Business info - Videos - Related Products - More Ads The organic search results start after that and on mobile they may as well not exist. If everyone is clicking the directly or indirectly sponsored/algorithmic…

And when the organic result is filled with ads - like recipe sites, lyrics sites, ehow, quora - those also give Google ad revenue.

So why would Google serve the more direct and helpful result from the edu domain!

Re: Why Google is so unbearable, and how to fix it

#272

Post by s__s »

baxuz wrote: post #77

It's not a Google problem, it's a web problem. Everything is based around SEO spam. If someone has a website, and they're producing content, their point is to monetize the browsing of the website itself, or promote their main product via the website. This incentivizes a certain kind of content, which is marketing content. These days I'm back to searching social networks like Reddit or Hacker News for (at least somewh…

The SEO spam exists in part because Google does a really bad job at surfacing any site that isn’t content heavy. This leads to sites needing to churn out keyword rich fluff content in order to get any organic traffic.

I have first hand experience with this. My niche, hyper local online service (of which everyone loves) was completely undiscoverable through Google despite the niche having nearly zero relevant results of any kind, and zero competition of any kind. It seems Google didn’t like the concise, no BS one-pager for my service.

My options were to continue to spend on Facebook ads perpetually or to create SEO spam content. Within literally a month or so of generating fluff articles I was gaining a ton of organic traffic and could stop ad spending altogether.

A good example of larger company doing this is Digital Ocean. Fortunately they’ve been extremely ethical about it and the content is genuinely very good and helpful.

Re: Why Google is so unbearable, and how to fix it

#273

Post by Doctor_Fegg »

jszymborski wrote: post #265
greybox wrote: post #70

I switched to using kagi.com a while ago, and I've never looked back. I've tried to use duckduckgo before but just ended up using '!g' most of the time. Kagi is in a whole other league. It's on par with, if not better than google search. I highly recommend it. When they introduce the paid tier I'm sure as hell going to subscribe to it. At this point I would trade my Netflix subscription for it.

I really like what I've read about Kagi, and I'll likely end-up paying for it too, but I _hate_ the metered fee. I've never run a search engine, but I don't imagine that offering "Unlimited" searches where "unlimited" means "do not abuse" would meaningfully hurt their margins. As a benefit, you avoid losing customers that then need to ask "Do I make more than 5*80 searches a month? How many is that a day? What do I i…

They're not going to do a metered plan. From an email sent today:

> Kagi will come as a free version with limited use; and an unlimited use, paid option at $10 a month, both versions having great search results with less spam and completely ad-free, tracking free, and with none of your search data being retained

Re: Why Google is so unbearable, and how to fix it

#274

Post by jszymborski »

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #273
jszymborski wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really like what I've read about Kagi, and I'll likely end-up paying for it too, but I _hate_ the metered fee. I've never run a search engine, but I don't imagine that offering "Unlimited" searches where "unlimited" means "do not abuse" would meaningfully hurt their margins. As a benefit, you avoid losing customers that then need to ask "Do I make more than 5*80 searches a month? How many is that a day? What do I i…

They're not going to do a metered plan. From an email sent today: > Kagi will come as a free version with limited use; and an unlimited use, paid option at $10 a month, both versions having great search results with less spam and completely ad-free, tracking free, and with none of your search data being retained

Awesome! I was just going off of their FAQ

https://kagi.com/faq#cost

Re: Why Google is so unbearable, and how to fix it

#275

Post by Croftengea »

colordrops wrote: post #257
l33t2328 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Frankly, if it’s not reliable as a tool, it has no real value This is exactly the ridiculous kind of hyperbole I come to HN for. If you honestly can’t find any value in using Google despite its unreliability, you were probably expecting too much of it to begin with.

Your expectations are too low. We all remember google in it's heyday when it returned honest results, so we know what's possible.

google.stanford.edu :)

Re: Why Google is so unbearable, and how to fix it

#276

Post by stickfigure »

lozenge wrote: post #271
stetrain wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But does Google care about the organic search result quality? For many search terms, the entire above-the-fold and sometimes multiple scroll heights are filled with: - Ads - Info cards - People Also Ask - Map/Business info - Videos - Related Products - More Ads The organic search results start after that and on mobile they may as well not exist. If everyone is clicking the directly or indirectly sponsored/algorithmic…

And when the organic result is filled with ads - like recipe sites, lyrics sites, ehow, quora - those also give Google ad revenue. So why would Google serve the more direct and helpful result from the edu domain!

I am not a Googler, but I know some Googlers (including at least one that worked on search) and... Google doesn't seem to work like that? The search team doesn't make take direction from the adsense team.

I think they are genuinely struggling in an adversarial environment. Imagine every hacker in the world specifically focused on your system and the payoff is millions or even billions of dollars.

Re: Why Google is so unbearable, and how to fix it

#277

Post by malfist »

colordrops wrote: post #257
l33t2328 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Frankly, if it’s not reliable as a tool, it has no real value This is exactly the ridiculous kind of hyperbole I come to HN for. If you honestly can’t find any value in using Google despite its unreliability, you were probably expecting too much of it to begin with.

Your expectations are too low. We all remember google in it's heyday when it returned honest results, so we know what's possible.

Ah yes, the good ol' days of content farms copying from stack overflow, or did you mean the good ol' days of buying back links? Or the good ol' days of web rings?

Let's face it, the heyday of honest results are just as mythical as the political "good ol' days".

Re: Why Google is so unbearable, and how to fix it

#279

Post by more_corn »

baxuz wrote: post #77

It's not a Google problem, it's a web problem. Everything is based around SEO spam. If someone has a website, and they're producing content, their point is to monetize the browsing of the website itself, or promote their main product via the website. This incentivizes a certain kind of content, which is marketing content. These days I'm back to searching social networks like Reddit or Hacker News for (at least somewh…

It is a google problem as well as a web problem.
Post reply on HN