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Why Google is so unbearable, and how to fix it

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

#281

Post by amf12 »

jeremyjh wrote: post #57
nikanj wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corollary: Web page creators are no longer interested in answering your query; they're interested in getting you to 1) view their page for ads 2) click on their affiliate links 3) buy the product they're selling. Google has an impossible task in trying to answer a query like "Portable air mattress reviews", because 99.99999% of the results are SEO-optimized crap

We don't know if the task is impossible because Google has no incentive to do it at all, so we can't assume they are really doing their best. They created this situation and they profit from it just the way it is.

> We don't know if the task is impossible because Google has no incentive to do it at all,

On the other hand, they have an incentive - increased competition, they can still monetize better pages, search is what makes them money.

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

#282

Post by more_corn »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #169
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 other side of the coin is that users are so used to the "free" model (read: ad model) that they refuse to pay for anything directly. Look at youtube. They show ads and there is a non-stop stream of complaints about how long/bad/annoying they are. They offer a paid subscription to remove all ads and people laugh at the audacity youtube has to ask for money. Users DO NOT want to see/watch ads. Users DO NOT want to…

We’re used to free because google decided free was the answer and they had so much clout, no other answer could compete. Now that their time is ending there will be room for other answers.

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

#284

Post by more_corn »

tome wrote: post #256
rg111 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not a Google problem Oh it is definitelt a Google problem. I was in mood yesterday and I tried Google versus Kagi and You Code. Results of N out of N queries in other search engines were miles better in other search engines than Google. I have now switched completely to code.you.com and Kagi from Google. They are ready.

Kagi is jaw-droppingly amazing. With Google search quality declining, Bing being on average 95% as good as Google, and DuckDuckGo being 90% as good, I was doubting there was any way that search engines would ever improve. Kagi has removed that doubt completely. I ask for stuff and it finds it. I couldn't believe there could be such a useful product.

Doesn’t DuckDuckGo use bing for the search backend?

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

#285

Post by stickfigure »

makecheck wrote: post #138

Well whether you add “site:.edu” or not, Google still does the thing where they just spit out a pile of extra “matches” that don’t contain your search phrase AT ALL . Just thrown into the list, as if they have any business being there (oh wait, they do have business: Google’s business). Frankly, if it’s not reliable as a tool, it has no real value and I can’t believe it has come to this. Imagine if every time you ran…

I would be willing to bet substantial sums of money that Google tracks metrics for these alternative results and has concluded that they add value to the user. Maybe not to you, but to most people.

Personally, I'm ok with a bit of "oh, this is what I think you meant" rather than a literal interpretation of my query. It's not perfect but neither are my queries.

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

#286

Post by closedloop129 »

frmdstryr wrote: post #128

I recently found https://commoncrawl.org/ and started working on my own personal search engine. I'm surprised how easy it is to actually get decent results with just metadata that show up nowhere in Google/DDG.

Heads up to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31410042

marginalia_nu, the author of another search engine, is looking for ways to cooperate.

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

#287

Post by aporetics »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #220
aporetics wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> well-meaning, seemingly harmless, engineering-oriented, and data-driven At some point I really hope that we can all recognize that “seemingly harmless”, “engineering-oriented”, and “data-driven” are not virtues.

If you believe they are neither vices as well, then I can see your point — they just are. Perhaps this is the point you are making: if one is data-driven and engineering-oriented without regard to the consequences, that could be seen as a vice. Despite the amazing engineering/science, it is hard to come to peace with von Braun or Teller (just to pick two examples).

Yes exactly. But until this is clear and accepted, these terms are apt to be misdirections—for example here, in a discussion trying to understand how things went so wrong at a leading tech company.

Hopefully we can get to the point of putting purpose (I think “mission” is a bit too hackneyed and neat to work here) first in discussions of culture, whether corporate or engineering culture.

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

#288

Post by strbean »

malfist wrote: post #277
colordrops wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Eh, there were a few periods of "glory days". Usually in the months after Google's latest crackdown on one of the SEO techniques you mentioned.

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

#289

Post by more_corn »

PaulHoule wrote: post #17
loloquwowndueo wrote: post #8

Or just use DuckDuckGo instead of google.

It's not really any better in terms of the results it serves up. If it had a filter to only show pages that didn't have cookie popups then maybe I'd look at it again.

It’s not more useful. It’s less annoying.

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

#290

Post by soco »

svnpenn wrote: post #99
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.

Please stop pushing some site thats still in beta, AND requires a login.

Not only requires a login, but also Joe Regular cannot use it - beta means here closed invite-only, so it's just an internal tool for some group of people. So any news about it should be taken with a grain of salt.
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