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

In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

sparktoro.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 412 posts

Re: In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

#291

Post by SilverRed »

germanjoey wrote: post #118
sharkweek wrote: post #38

Many moons ago, I put a ton of work into a (now defunct) content site that provided specific information in a small vertical. Each post took hours, but I enjoyed writing the articles, and the revenue from the ads was enough to enjoy a little extra cash every month (we're talking just about enough to cover a car payment, for context). Google decided they liked a lot of the content and started providing it in their kno…

In my experience, "Google Instant Answers" are more often than not factually incorrect. It makes me queasy every time I see that... it speaks volumes that's so much more important to them that they keep you on the page that they'd rather give you wrong information than let you go.

That wrong info came from the pages which are listed in the search results. So much objectively, factually incorrect info is written in to blog posts which show up in google search results which then get copied to instant answers. Particularly historical info is filled with mistakes, people misunderstanding the context of some old news article and then taking it out of context to drop on wikipedia where it is taken as fact.

Re: In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

#292

Post by amelius »

gonehome wrote: post #63
BitwiseFool wrote: post #15

Google results have gotten dramatically worse over this last decade. Google now seems to fixate on the most common terms in my query and returns the most generic results for my geographic area. And, it seems like quotes and the old google-fu techniques are just ignored or are no longer functional. There are a whole host of factors behind this, but I'm certain that the switch to Natural Language Processing / Semantic…

When I search Google now I mostly get spam. “Product vs. Product” -> list of spam websites that just show them side by side with ads. “Product Review” -> same as above, spam. “Product referral code” -> sites with spam and no codes. Interesting web content is in Reddit (and youtube), Google exists as a tool to search Reddit since the “new” Reddit site is awful. Programming questions are mostly stack overflow, but occa…

According to Google search, 90% of the web is content farms.

Probably some financial positive feedback loop is responsible for this.

Re: In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

#293

Post by SilverRed »

freebuju wrote: post #98
thomascgalvin wrote: post #25

If Google ever started including copy-pasteable code from Stack Overflow, I might never follow a link from Google again. Which I think says a lot about how Google is used now. I don't use Google to find web pages , I use it to find an answer to a pressing question. When I'm looking for something to read, I go to a content aggregator like HN or Reddit. Of course this isn't sustainable. If Google is just presenting oth…

I don't see any reason why Google can't pay for using your website's content on their search engine. Looks to me exactly like the same deal they've been cutting with media owners from Australia & France. The law should cut this side too. For individual content owners as well.

You don't have to put your content on google, you can add yourself to robots txt and google will respect that.

You want to be able to force google to take your content, AND force them to pay for being forced to take it.

A better idea would be coming up with plans on how to break up googles market share to split it among multiple smaller search engines which may allow you to bargain for paid content with.

Re: In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

#294

Post by SilverRed »

Robotbeat wrote: post #42
allochthon wrote: post #9

Often I'm looking for a Wikipedia page, and it seems that in the past year or so Wikipedia pages have been moved way down on the first page of search results, especially if the topic is a medical one.

I just put “Wiki” into the Google search because Wikipedia usually has what I’m looking for.

Similarly I tend to apply "reddit" to searches about products to get to something that it at least somewhat real rather than paid blogspam.

Re: In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

#295

Post by bcrl »

gonehome wrote: post #63
BitwiseFool wrote: post #15

Google results have gotten dramatically worse over this last decade. Google now seems to fixate on the most common terms in my query and returns the most generic results for my geographic area. And, it seems like quotes and the old google-fu techniques are just ignored or are no longer functional. There are a whole host of factors behind this, but I'm certain that the switch to Natural Language Processing / Semantic…

When I search Google now I mostly get spam. “Product vs. Product” -> list of spam websites that just show them side by side with ads. “Product Review” -> same as above, spam. “Product referral code” -> sites with spam and no codes. Interesting web content is in Reddit (and youtube), Google exists as a tool to search Reddit since the “new” Reddit site is awful. Programming questions are mostly stack overflow, but occa…

Amazon search is similarly broken. Try to find an ECC DIMM on Amazon. Everything I try results in dozens of listings for non-ECC DIMMs. Even searching for " ECC" doesn't work all that well. It's sad that in these days of advanced neural networks, we can't get a simple binary attribute matched correctly in search results.

Re: In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

#296

Post by SilverRed »

colordrops wrote: post #122
Jerry2 wrote: post #76

Anyone have any opinions on the state of image search? What do you use? I find Google Image search, which I used to love, filled with absolute garbage now. 90% of links are to Pinterest which greets you with usual overlays, signup modals etc. I use DDG's image search because I find Google's search unusable. Also, Yandex image search is probably the best reverse image search on the market. It's crazy how much better i…

It's not that google isn't capable of providing much better search. It's that they are driven by interests other than the users actually doing the search. Google has some of the most advanced tech and engineers in the world. But they also have an endless list of issues they must address - no facial recognition, no racial bias, no sexual content, filtering specific politics, supporting partners, etc.

They also face huge amounts of legal pressure to make GI less useful and stripping out features so that more people follow through to the site and see the adverts.

Re: In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

#297

Post by [deleted] »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #15

Google results have gotten dramatically worse over this last decade. Google now seems to fixate on the most common terms in my query and returns the most generic results for my geographic area. And, it seems like quotes and the old google-fu techniques are just ignored or are no longer functional. There are a whole host of factors behind this, but I'm certain that the switch to Natural Language Processing / Semantic…

[deleted]

Re: In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

#298

Post by [deleted] »

gonehome wrote: post #63
BitwiseFool wrote: post #15

Google results have gotten dramatically worse over this last decade. Google now seems to fixate on the most common terms in my query and returns the most generic results for my geographic area. And, it seems like quotes and the old google-fu techniques are just ignored or are no longer functional. There are a whole host of factors behind this, but I'm certain that the switch to Natural Language Processing / Semantic…

When I search Google now I mostly get spam. “Product vs. Product” -> list of spam websites that just show them side by side with ads. “Product Review” -> same as above, spam. “Product referral code” -> sites with spam and no codes. Interesting web content is in Reddit (and youtube), Google exists as a tool to search Reddit since the “new” Reddit site is awful. Programming questions are mostly stack overflow, but occa…

[deleted]

Re: In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

#299

Post by twhb »

SilverRed wrote: post #291
germanjoey wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, "Google Instant Answers" are more often than not factually incorrect. It makes me queasy every time I see that... it speaks volumes that's so much more important to them that they keep you on the page that they'd rather give you wrong information than let you go.

That wrong info came from the pages which are listed in the search results. So much objectively, factually incorrect info is written in to blog posts which show up in google search results which then get copied to instant answers. Particularly historical info is filled with mistakes, people misunderstanding the context of some old news article and then taking it out of context to drop on wikipedia where it is taken a…

The error usually arises from Google misinterpreting and decontextualizing the page’s content, for example reading a table incorrectly then giving one stat as another stat. The page is correct, it’s Google that’s wrong.

Re: In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

#300

Post by _nalply »

_nalply wrote: post #205
gnulinux wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For my cat, I'd probably just call the pet poison line in my state/country. Dogs are relatively better at eating human food (except very obvious well known examples like alcohol, grapes, cooked bones etc) but most plants can be poisonous to cats, so I wouldn't risk it.

Simple rule: Chocolate is poisonous to cats. And what's poisonous to humans is usually poisonous to cats as well.

I retract my simple rule. It's bad. Sorry.
Post reply on HN