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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

#301

Post by twofornone »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #291
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…

> 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 There used to be a 'verbatim' mode that would do exactly that. The quotes symbol were also a way to enforce verbatim mode. Sadly this behaviour of "let me assume what you want" is not exclusive of google as I also now experience this on ddg.

What I don't understand is that the verbatim option still exists, it just doesn't seem to do anything. And quotes don't seem to work anymore either. It's all very insulting.

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

#302

Post by gernb »

benstrumental wrote: post #212
deelly wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you show some examples of search results?

I have been trying Kagi for a few months and have found it better than Google in most cases, though not a silver bullet. Here are the queries from the original article in Kagi: how to fix a flat tire Top result: https://www.wikihow.com/Fix-a-Flat-Tire Also, it predicts a video is best to answer this question and gives 3 YouTube thumbnails listed at the top of the results. They all seem generally helpful based on the…

I get useful results from google for the same query

First result is

https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-gear/cars-trucks/how-t...

2nd, 3rd, and 4th resultsa are videos

5th is wikihow (which by the way IMO is often a really bad site. There is lots of junk content on wikihow)

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

#304

Post by sitkack »

Croftengea wrote: post #275
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.

google.stanford.edu :)

https://altavista.com it runs on the latest top end Alpha processors.

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

#305

Post by sitkack »

unabridged wrote: post #105
chii wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i would often use `site:news.ycombinator.com` to search a topic to see if it has been talked about, and what comments that topic has. It's good, but not really _that_ often useful.

Hacker News has a really good dedicated search engine: https://hn.algolia.com/

except the date picker is horribly, horribly broken.

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

#306

Post by timbit42 »

neuronic wrote: post #187
baggachipz wrote: post #13

Google is so unbearable because they are no longer interested in you finding the answer to your query; they're interested in selling your query and its context to the highest bidder. That conflict of interest manifests in what Google has become.

That's the free market for you. Delivering ever less value in exchange for ever increased cost.

It's not a free market when it is monopolized by one corporation.

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

#307

Post by sitkack »

s__s wrote: post #272
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…

DO is the best example of online content marketing.

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

#308

Post by stetrain »

stickfigure wrote: post #276
lozenge wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think that’s totally reasonable as far as the organic results go.

But clearly there are also a lot of motivations to de-emphasize the organic results on the search page in favor of ads, “algorithmic answers” that give you an answer without clicking away from Google, and redirects to Maps, Youtube, and Shopping which are revenue-generators for Google.

Maybe that also comes with a budget de-emphasis for fighting the war in the organic results vs surfacing relevant content from these other sources.

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

#309

Post by hidden-spyder »

chicob wrote: post #86

I use smart bookmarks most of the time, if not Duckduckgo (which has !bangs). I almost always go to Wikipedia first. If I don't find what I want right away, I usually assume I am not trying hard enough.

What do you mean by smart bookmarks?

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

#310

Post by davoneus »

more_corn wrote: post #282
Workaccount2 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, free has been an accepted paradym for for a long, long time. Simply think of a hundred years of radio advertising, and just short of that for tv.
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