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Google 2000 vs. Google 2011

mattcutts.com

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Re: Google 2000 vs. Google 2011

#31

Post by gloob »

citricsquid wrote: post #29
tibbon wrote: post #12

I don't get people who say Google is getting worse myself. If any of you know search engine building so well and aren't working for another search engine (like DuckDuckGo) why not take your expertise to Google and help fix the problem?

FYI DDG just uses the bing API and then does some fancy stuff on top of it, so technically they're not a "better search engine" they're just a prettier bing.

DDG does its own crawling in addition to using the Bing API. I'm unclear on how the meme that they don't do any crawling has gotten widespread enough to be brought up every time the site is mentioned.

Re: Google 2000 vs. Google 2011

#32

Post by barista »

vaporstun wrote: post #23

While I also agree that Google's search results have gotten better, I just feel (this is very subjective of course) that they should be far better today than they currently are. I don't think they're leaps and bounds better and I think they should be. I'm not one to constantly point to yesteryear and claim they were better but I do look at where they are today and think they should be further along than they are. I g…

Well for 10 years I think the search results have only marginally gotten better. Besides, 10 years ago, what google was doing was revolutionary. No other search engine had such vast coverage or better intent determination. Now the competitionn is intense, Bing is almost as good as Google if not better in some scenarios, other guys are blekko are coming up with different approach (and have a better way to handle spam by avoiding it completely).

I think Google is spreading itself too thin. Search is what they do the best and its their bread and butter. They should stay focused on it.

Google is too engrossed in thinking about generating more ad dollars rather than making their core technology better.

Re: Google 2000 vs. Google 2011

#33

Post by barista »

citricsquid wrote: post #29
tibbon wrote: post #12

I don't get people who say Google is getting worse myself. If any of you know search engine building so well and aren't working for another search engine (like DuckDuckGo) why not take your expertise to Google and help fix the problem?

FYI DDG just uses the bing API and then does some fancy stuff on top of it, so technically they're not a "better search engine" they're just a prettier bing.

Unless ofcourse Bing is a better search engine to begin with. (Well that's arguable so I concur :) )

Re: Google 2000 vs. Google 2011

#34

Post by btilly »

redstripe wrote: post #13

I think Groucho Marx could sum up this article as "Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?" I didn't keep a record of my searches from 2000, but I do remember that I was extremely impressed and satisfied with google back then. That is no longer the case. I am frustrated on daily basis by the results of many searches. It's not really your fault though. I blame it on mono culture. Google has such a huge hold…

My experience is entirely different.

I do a lot of Perl. It used to be that as soon as something on CPAN matched my search, I'd get a handful of results, then it would find the CPAN match, then I'd get pages and pages of the same result from different CPAN mirrors. Now that no longer happens, and my searches for half-remembered Perl discussions are much, much less likely to end in frustration.

But that's me, and YMMV.

Re: Google 2000 vs. Google 2011

#35

Post by aw3c2 »

cryptoz wrote: post #14
redstripe wrote: post #13

I think Groucho Marx could sum up this article as "Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?" I didn't keep a record of my searches from 2000, but I do remember that I was extremely impressed and satisfied with google back then. That is no longer the case. I am frustrated on daily basis by the results of many searches. It's not really your fault though. I blame it on mono culture. Google has such a huge hold…

> I am frustrated on daily basis by the results of many searches. I have some speculation on this. Are you sure that your frustration comes from unusually poor results? Could it be that we're so used to things being perfect now, that a page of mediocre results looks like the end of the world? Look at 2000. No Shazam. If you heard a song on the radio, that was the end of the story. There were some services you could c…

I would say the noise ratio for the whole internet increased because people found out that they could make easy money with content-void or misleading websites.

Re: Google 2000 vs. Google 2011

#36

Post by citricsquid »

epi0Bauqu wrote: post #30
citricsquid wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI DDG just uses the bing API and then does some fancy stuff on top of it, so technically they're not a "better search engine" they're just a prettier bing.

FYI: no, actually we are a hybrid search eninge. We have our own crawling and indexing that is merged with about 15 external APIs.

"hybrid search engine" is just worthless words, what does it even mean? If you want people to stop saying you're just syndicating others data publish the amount of others data you do use, but when I've compared bing.com searches with yours they're very similar whereas google is different, which would imply you're heavily taking from bing, whether or not you crawl yourself...

Re: Google 2000 vs. Google 2011

#37

Post by bad_user »

barista wrote: post #32
vaporstun wrote: post #23

While I also agree that Google's search results have gotten better, I just feel (this is very subjective of course) that they should be far better today than they currently are. I don't think they're leaps and bounds better and I think they should be. I'm not one to constantly point to yesteryear and claim they were better but I do look at where they are today and think they should be further along than they are. I g…

Well for 10 years I think the search results have only marginally gotten better. Besides, 10 years ago, what google was doing was revolutionary. No other search engine had such vast coverage or better intent determination. Now the competitionn is intense, Bing is almost as good as Google if not better in some scenarios, other guys are blekko are coming up with different approach (and have a better way to handle spam…

      Bing is almost as good as Google
It's easier to be a follower (or ahem, copy search results). Also if I'm going to switch away from Google it must be something truly better (like the difference I experienced when trying out Google after using Altavista).

      and have a better way to handle spam by avoiding it completely
I like Blekko, but avoiding spam is an impossible dream. If there are search engines (or any filtering method, automatic or based on peer reviews) out there with less spam, that's because right now only Google matters. The only way to fight it is to be a moving target, which is what Google is doing.

Unfortunately spammers are also very creative, so it's a tough battle.

Re: Google 2000 vs. Google 2011

#38

Post by epi0Bauqu »

citricsquid wrote: post #36
epi0Bauqu wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI: no, actually we are a hybrid search eninge. We have our own crawling and indexing that is merged with about 15 external APIs.

"hybrid search engine" is just worthless words, what does it even mean? If you want people to stop saying you're just syndicating others data publish the amount of others data you do use, but when I've compared bing.com searches with yours they're very similar whereas google is different, which would imply you're heavily taking from bing, whether or not you crawl yourself...

So I'm required to divulge information to stop you from spreading false claims?

You said "they're just a prettier bing." I have ~100K lines of code in front of me right now that has nothing to do with UI, although I think UI is tremendously important and has been a primary focus as well.

Nevertheless, I've talked about all of this at length numerous times -- in videos, on HN, my blog, etc. Bottom line though is you can compare for yourself. We do certainly draw on Bing, but its importance will heavily vary per query and for many queries we'll look completely different. It really depends.

Re: Google 2000 vs. Google 2011

#39

Post by maxklein »

For me personally, google is much, much worse than before. I don't find what I need.

What I think is sad is that alternative search engines still work almost the same as google.

Of course he's going to find spam if he searches for the most spamable content. But that's now what I usually search for - mostly I search for programming related topics or trouble shooting. The old google would give me the right result straight away, the new google gives me some page on the main vendors site that is unrelated.

There are many ways niche search engines could come up to solve this problem, but none of them seem really interested.

Re: Google 2000 vs. Google 2011

#40

Post by nooneelse »

Someone wrote: post #22
blehn wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what Matt is trying to say is that your memory of what Google was like in 2000 could be inaccurate. So he's demonstrating what Google was actually like in 2000. Of course you were impressed and satisfied with Google back then — it was so much better than the alternatives. I'm sure you would have been just as (perhaps more) satisfied if 2011 Google existed in 2000. We've had 11 years to pinpoint the deficienci…

A reason could be that it would slow down searches too much. Firstly, all your searches would have to hit a server storing your blacklist. Secondly, it makes caching results of popular queries neigh impossible. Finally, some people will build blacklists so large and convoluted that the top hit on some of their searches would only be on Google's page 20.

How about they build it in as a feature of Chrome? The servers can still send the canonical list, using cached results and all, but then it gets filtered down (and perhaps in the future reranked a bit) on the user's machine. As a bonus, it increases the value of switching to Chrome.
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