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Ask HN: Why does Pinterest dominate Google text search results?

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Re: Ask HN: Why does Pinterest dominate Google text search results?

#301

Post by RobertKerans »

systemvoltage wrote: post #262
RobertKerans wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An image bookmarking app that can suggest similar images is a genuinely useful thing. That allows a user to rapidly collate a set of images based on some theme (so for example I use it for design/illustration projects). Despite the UI, it works, and I can't think of any other apps that do the same thing and have a better UI, so :shrug:. However I'd still agree with you 100% on its cancerous nature: it's an app with a…

Wanna start one? There is an interesting overlap between submission of links (HN/Reddit/Lobster), bookmarking them (Del.icio.us), image based collections (Pinterest), and push-pull feeds (RSS/Feedreader).

Yes, I think that would be a good project.

I think the major hurdle is that the thing that makes it useful is an extremely large bank of images, and ability to share within the app. So that implies a social aspect, and then that needs to be gated off from search results

This has existed several times before -- this is very vague because I'd forgotten about until now, but the one I used to use in the early 2010s (?) was an invitation-only site with very simple UI, almost bare HTML (similar to pinboard), a weird name and a logo that was I think a gorilla. Used to have very high quality results, albeit highly focussed on art/design, with a small, dedicated user base

Edit: it was FFFFOUND!, shuttered in 2017 (Pinterest seems to have killed most of those sites, so how does one go about breaking that monopoly?)

Re: Ask HN: Why does Pinterest dominate Google text search results?

#302

Post by Ekaros »

fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #128
blunte wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google should be asking from a product perspective if they are providing the search results the user is most likely seeking. I seriously doubt that most pinterest results are what users are seeking. As such, Google probably should consider changes to their algorithm to compensate (cat and mouse) for pinterest's gaming. That is assuming how pinterest does it is not against any google rules... because if it were agains…

Yeah, Pinterest is almost always disappointing as a result: their account requirements are annoying and it tends to obfuscate the source of the image or information you’re looking for.

Yes, Ointerest and Quora are types of site that Google should really punish hard. Account requirements is something that should move sites outside the few top pages...

Re: Ask HN: Why does Pinterest dominate Google text search results?

#303

Post by knuckleheads »

rarefied_tomato wrote: post #264
knuckleheads wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Everybody always talks about turning tech companies into public utilities without really explaining what the utility would be. A public index of the web would be an amazing utility for many of the reasons in this thread and would spur on a ton of new innovation and businesses. If you would like to read more about all this, please checkout https://knuckleheads.club

The pursuit of a public index is excellent. Some feedback: - A cost of membership runs contrary to establishing this group, especially at such a high recurring charge. - I'm not sure what your software/AWS situation looks like, but 20 million robots.txt files acquired from Common Crawl is something I can analyze on my PC. It doesn't seem to presently justify such high costs. - Prioritize building a mockup index with…

Thank you for the feedback!

I think the price for membership dues is reasonable and many people agree evidenced by them signing up. I think I might start a petition that is free to sign up on though, thank you for the inspiration!

It is possible to analyze those files on the pc, it just takes a much longer time. The analysis is an iterative process and so the faster the computers the faster the iterations and process go. I was analyzing them on my pc with python for the first year until it got too slow and my I am using an aws server with some rust and that is going much better. I also need to increase the number of files analyzed by about two orders of magnitude soon as well.

Great idea, very cool. That’s going on the todo list!

And I am going to be reaching out to and speaking with whoever is interested. One of the fun things about this is that it is an international dynamic, with some jurisdictions having abilities that others don’t. For example, the UK CMA has subpoena powers that the US Congress lacks and got a ton of information out of Google and Bing that shocked me. The US has the ability to get the CEO’s to show up to hearings while the UK does not in the same way. Why limit ourselves to one government when there are so many to mix and match from here?

Re: Ask HN: Why does Pinterest dominate Google text search results?

#304

Post by knuckleheads »

mslate wrote: post #268
knuckleheads wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is necessary though. Other search engine operators have cited this as one of the reasons their search engines fail or struggle to provide as good results. As far as the engagement data goes, it’s something that the Competition and Markets Authority in the UK has looked at as part of their investigation into google. See here for a very interesting analysis of Google’s and Bings click and query data: https:/…

Thanks--I learned some valuable vocabulary today! "Click-and-query data" was the phrase I did not have on hand. I have never worked for a search engine company (or devoted much time to SEO), but I would suggest the click-and-query data advantage is invaluable to cementing Google's supremacy over any newcomers.

It was new to me as well, I think it was a phrase that was invented to describe the data during the CMA investigation but I am not sure.

I’ve heard search engine operators complain about the index consistently while they seem spilt about the click and query data. For example, DuckDuckGo and StartPage have made pretty good businesses out of pointedly not collecting click and query data. For my part, I think it’s the dual lock on distribution via exclusive agreements on being the default search engine and the advantages it has when web crawling that cements Google’s dominance over the search engine market.

Re: Ask HN: Why does Pinterest dominate Google text search results?

#305

Post by thaumasiotes »

blunte wrote: post #13
hayksaakian wrote: post #3

There's no intentional or manual effort at Google to promote pinterest. Pinterest shows up because they understand how the Google algorithm works and built their website to display all the signals that Google looks for in relevant image content. They understand user intent and generate URLs that present content in a way that google expects to see. Examples of how they do this from their engineering team: https://medi…

Google should be asking from a product perspective if they are providing the search results the user is most likely seeking. I seriously doubt that most pinterest results are what users are seeking. As such, Google probably should consider changes to their algorithm to compensate (cat and mouse) for pinterest's gaming. That is assuming how pinterest does it is not against any google rules... because if it were agains…

> I seriously doubt that most pinterest results are what users are seeking.

Well, yeah, since even if you click through Pinterest won't actually show you the content.

Isn't that supposed to disqualify them from appearing in search results at all?

Re: Ask HN: Why does Pinterest dominate Google text search results?

#306

Post by intellirogue »

dgeiser13 wrote: post #288
ashleshbiradar wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly, if you use Brave, it lets you hop to the tor versions of sites, and since NYTimes has a tor version, if you visit that, it’s paywall free.

I use Brave. How do I hop to the Tor version of a site?

If you go to a site that advertises (via HTTP header) that it has a Tor version, you'll get an "Open in Tor" button at the end of the address bar.

Examples are nytimes.com and dw.com

Re: Ask HN: Why does Pinterest dominate Google text search results?

#307

Post by albertgoeswoof »

berkes wrote: post #290
grishka wrote: post #84

Related: in the last several years, there started appearing these StackOverflow mirrors. It's gotten to the point that you can't google a programming question without running into at least one. Some copy the questions and answers verbatim, some use machine translation to (crappily) translate them into my native language. Sometimes they even rank higher than the real StackOverflow. I really wish there was a non-hacky…

I presumed it was just DuckDuckGo lacking algorithms to detect such 'spammers'. But now I learned that Google is suffering the same poor detection. Another 'downside of using DDG debunked', I guess.

We are so biased towards google search being the perfect technology, that every flaw a competitor has is simply ignored on google.com

Re: Ask HN: Why does Pinterest dominate Google text search results?

#308

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau »

eitland wrote: post #162
DangitBobby wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a configuration, not per search.

I used to have a .txt file full of - options for google back in 2009 or so. Then Google started ignoring more and more of what I searched for and they also started blocking the worst offenders so I forgot about it. These days I mostly use DuckDuckGo for my programming searches.

Same here. Although do they have a way to block certain sites?

Re: Ask HN: Why does Pinterest dominate Google text search results?

#309

Post by tpxl »

9HZZRfNlpR wrote: post #214
tpxl wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google has begun to replace many search results with answers directly from them > Companies like Pinterest are parasitic Surely you mean companies like Google are parasitic?

Pinterest doesn't provide value with their image search spam hence they are parasites indeed.

I see my sarcasm didn't go over well. Replacing search results with quips from websites is parasitic as fuck.

Re: Ask HN: Why does Pinterest dominate Google text search results?

#310

Post by matthewdgreen »

edoceo wrote: post #157
matthewdgreen wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real answer? Because helpful technologists are the interface between less knowledgeable users and services like Google. We’re the power users and “mavens” who are both highly exposed to the product and have some understanding of what’s going wrong and how it might be made better. We also spend a lot more time talking to that product’s engineering staff than the typical user (see e.g. the fact that we’re here on HN.)…

How could a technologist, who's not in charge of the $BigTech be able to fix the problem? They can't. So, they offer the user a work-around. Then, the user never complains to $BigCo because of the Help and still nothing gets done. And later, we complain that we're not fixing $BigCo and we're all mad at "the help". How, really, could you improve the Google service for everyone?

How many Google Search* engineers saw this article on HN? I guarantee the number is greater than zero.

* Or people who talk to Search engineers regularly, etc.

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