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A search engine that favors text-heavy sites and punishes modern web design

search.marginalia.nu

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Re: A search engine that favors text-heavy sites and punishes modern web design

#331

Post by joegahona »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #299
jandrese wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sort of optimization is why simple recipes are typically found at the end of a rambling pointless blog post now. Still, the best way to break SEO is to have actual competition in the search space. As long as SEO remains focused on Google there is an opportunity for these companies to thrive by evading SEO braindamage.

>> This sort of optimization is why simple recipes are typically found at the end of a rambling pointless blog post now. I continue to be curious about this kind of complaint. If all you want is a recipe list, without any of the fluff, why would you click on a link to a blog, rather than on a link to a recipe aggregator? Foodie blogs exist specifically for the people who want a foodie discussion and not just an ingre…

I think the complaint is that those blogs rank higher than nuts-and-bolts recipes now. It wasn't that way a few years ago. Yes, scrolling down the results to Food Network or Martha Stewart or whatever is possible, as is going directly to those sites and using their site search, but it's noticeable and annoying.

Re: A search engine that favors text-heavy sites and punishes modern web design

#332

Post by OneLeggedCat »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #208
burkaman wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That query is too long apparently. But if you shorten to "haskell type inference", I think it delivers on its promise: > If you are looking for fact, this is almost certainly the wrong tool. If you are looking for serendipity, you're on the right track. When was the last time you just stumbled onto something interesting, by the way?

The search engine doesn't do any type of re-ordering or synonym stuff, it only tires to construct different N-grams from the search query. So if you for example compare "SDL tutorial" with "SDL tutorials". On google you'd get the same stuff, this search engine, for better or worse doesn't. This is a design decision, for now anyway, mostly because I'm incredibly annoyed when algorithms are second-guessing me. On the o…

Don't change it. It's good this way.

Re: A search engine that favors text-heavy sites and punishes modern web design

#333

Post by robrenaud »

PaulHoule wrote: post #317
BenoitP wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely; We could create a meta search engine that queries them all, in desktop application format. Let's name it after a famous old scientist, and maybe add the year to prove it's modern: Galileo 2021.

Meta search engines leave a bad taste in everyone's mouth because they've always failed. Here is why https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theore... You can't combine a few different ranked lists and expect to get results better than any of the original ranked lists.

> You can't combine a few different ranked lists and expect to get results better than any of the original ranked lists.

I am skeptical of this application of the theorem. Here is my proposal:

Take the top 10 Google and Bing results. If the top result from Bing is in the top 10 from Google, display Google results. If the top result from Bing is not in the top 10 from Google, place it at the 10th position. You'd have an algorithm that ties with Google, say 98% of the time, beats it say, 1.2% of the time, and loses .8% of the time.

Re: A search engine that favors text-heavy sites and punishes modern web design

#334

Post by BenoitP »

overkalix wrote: post #313
BenoitP wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely; We could create a meta search engine that queries them all, in desktop application format. Let's name it after a famous old scientist, and maybe add the year to prove it's modern: Galileo 2021.

... is this Galileo 2021 a reference that I am not understanding?

Yup, but so far no one got it.

There was such an app in the early 2000's, before Google went mainstream, and Altavista-like engines were not good: Copernic 2000.

I guess I'm officially old now.

Re: A search engine that favors text-heavy sites and punishes modern web design

#335

Post by lukas099 »

FractalHQ wrote: post #107

Ok this is great if all I want to do is read text, but often times that is very much not all I want to do. The web is much more than text and images these days. I can appreciate this as long as it’s branded as a search engine for blogs and articles specifically, as opposed to being touted as a drop-in replacement for the modern search engine.

Is this a criticism? It doesn't at all seem touted as a drop-in replacement for the modern search engine.

Re: A search engine that favors text-heavy sites and punishes modern web design

#336

Post by cormacrelf »

HaloZero wrote: post #311
silent_cal wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, those searches are pretty weird.

The pop culture one is fairly common. Me and my wife both search "who the fuck is that" in that TV show movie all the time. Or who is the author of X book?

It’s trying to surface long articles and you’re asking it for a one word answer. What did you expect? A long article consisting of “Emma Stone played Cruella” repeated 800 times?

Re: A search engine that favors text-heavy sites and punishes modern web design

#337

Post by ASalazarMX »

pjspycha wrote: post #297

This is really refreshing work, and we can all benefit from other search engines focused on improving the field. I tried a bunch of searches and some of them were quite wonderful, others were a little dry on results. But overall I enjoyed going through it. Here is some critiques if you don't mind: I did search for "Daria Bilodid" and the results were a bit troublesome. First the Wikipedia result did not work: https:/…

> Secondly the results matched a few judoinside.com results which is ok, including sites to her competitors, but seemed to miss the judoinside website for her: https://www.judoinside.com/judoka/92660/Daria_Bilodid.

The title says this search engine punishes modern websites (images, videos, MB of JS, I suppose), and this site looks scarce on text and heavy on images, maybe that's confusing the ranking.

I certainly find the results very refreshing, but you'll have to complement with other search engines if they're not enough. In fact, I think the days when we could use a single search engine have already passed.

Re: A search engine that favors text-heavy sites and punishes modern web design

#338

Post by foofoo4u »

rchaud wrote: post #322
foofoo4u wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good comparison. Reminds me of an analogy I like to make of today's web, which is it feels like browsing through a magazine store — full of top 10s, shallow wow-factoids, and baity material. I genuinely believe terrible results like this are making society dumber.

The context matters. I'd happily read "Top 10" lists on a website if the site itself was dedicated to that one thing. "Top 10 Prog Rock albums", while a lazy, SEO-bait title, would at least be credible if it were on a music-oriented website. But no, these stories all come from cookie-cutter "new media" blog sites, written by an anonymous content writer who's repackaged Wikipedia/Discogs info into Buzzfeed-style copy…

This got me thinking that maybe one of the other big reasons for this is that the algorithms prioritize newer pages over older pages. This produces the problem where instead of covering a topic and refining it over time, the incentive is to repackage it over and over again.

It reminds me of an annoyance I have with the Kindle store. If I wanted to find a book on, let's say, Psychology, there is no option to find all-time respected books of the past centenary. Amazon's algorithms constantly push to recommend the latest hot book of the year. But I don't want that. A year is not enough time to have society determine if the material withstands time. I want something that has stood the test of time and is recommended by reputable institutions.

Re: A search engine that favors text-heavy sites and punishes modern web design

#340

Post by zerd »

jandrese wrote: post #160
hdjjhhvvhga wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as few people use it, it will be great. Rest assured that the moment it becomes popular, the people who want to game it will appear.

This sort of optimization is why simple recipes are typically found at the end of a rambling pointless blog post now. Still, the best way to break SEO is to have actual competition in the search space. As long as SEO remains focused on Google there is an opportunity for these companies to thrive by evading SEO braindamage.

It's also because that's a way of trying to copyright protect recipes, which are normally not copyright protected.

> “Mere listings of ingredients as in recipes, formulas, compounds, or prescriptions are not subject to copyright protection. However, when a recipe or formula is accompanied by substantial literary expression in the form of an explanation or directions, or when there is a combination of recipes, as in a cookbook, there may be a basis for copyright protection.”

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