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Ask HN: Why doesn't anyone create a search engine comparable to 2005 Google?

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Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't anyone create a search engine comparable to 2005 Google?

#331

Post by loonster »

skyde wrote: post #295
lolinder wrote: post #290

The consistent theme every time this comes up is that dealing with the sheer weight of the internet is almost impossible today. SEO spam is hard to fight and the index gets too heavy. However, I wonder if this is a sign that we're looking at the problem wrong. What if instead of even trying to index the entire web, we moved one step back towards the curated directories of the early web? Give users a search engine and…

what you are suggesting would make the problem of echo chamber (bubble) worse than it is today!

Bubbles are great if you are on the outside looking in at how a specific group thinks. Bubbles are horrible if you are on the inside trying to explore your thoughts.

Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't anyone create a search engine comparable to 2005 Google?

#332

Post by vdqtp3 »

thisisnotatest wrote: post #228
kenny11 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get that for general-purpose searches this is a good idea, but it would be nice if there was an easy way to disable this when you know you don't want it - for example, for most programming searches, if I type SomeAPINameHere the most relevant results will always be those that include my search term verbatim. I don't need Google to helpfully suggest "Did you mean Some API Name Here?", which will virtually always ret…

I feel your pain. Two workarounds when Google gets it wrong are to put the term in quotation marks, or to enable Verbatim mode in the toolbelt. (I know various people have come up with ways to add "Google Verbatim" as a search engine option in their browser, or use a browser extension to make Verbatim enabled by default.) Disclaimer: I work on Google search.

Try this, go to Google and type in "eggzackly this".

Two results not containing "eggz" at all. Two results containing "eggzacklythis" Two results containing "eggzackly" but missing "this".

Google Search is broken. It no longer does what it's directed, it just takes a guess. I suspect part of this is because someone decided that "no results found" was the worst possible result a search engine could give.

Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't anyone create a search engine comparable to 2005 Google?

#334

Post by hyperpallium2 »

lolinder wrote: post #290

The consistent theme every time this comes up is that dealing with the sheer weight of the internet is almost impossible today. SEO spam is hard to fight and the index gets too heavy. However, I wonder if this is a sign that we're looking at the problem wrong. What if instead of even trying to index the entire web, we moved one step back towards the curated directories of the early web? Give users a search engine and…

I like the idea of a subset of the web, and for a niche purpose. Not sure about user-hosting.

Capital is the huge barrier to entry today:

Larry Page's genius was to extend google's tech, consumer-habit and PR barriers-to-entry into a capital-based advantage: massive geo server farms, giving faster responses. Consumers have a demonstrated huge preference for faster response.

Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't anyone create a search engine comparable to 2005 Google?

#336

Post by Nasrudith »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #225
pessimizer wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is far more likely to be in capability or expertise than principles.

Either way, capability for fuckery is not something I'd want to encourage.

Would you rather have a surgeon who knows how to kill you with a narrow slice to the right artery or one who doesn't even know where your kidneys appendix are located? Selecting for incompetence doesn't work well.

Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't anyone create a search engine comparable to 2005 Google?

#337

Post by kokanee »

lolinder wrote: post #290

The consistent theme every time this comes up is that dealing with the sheer weight of the internet is almost impossible today. SEO spam is hard to fight and the index gets too heavy. However, I wonder if this is a sign that we're looking at the problem wrong. What if instead of even trying to index the entire web, we moved one step back towards the curated directories of the early web? Give users a search engine and…

What if we allow users to upvote and downvote search results. Too many downvotes and you get dropped from the index.

Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't anyone create a search engine comparable to 2005 Google?

#338

Post by hardlianotion »

loonster wrote: post #323
supernovae wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's flawed from the get go if reddit is the basis.

As much as I like to hate on reddit (I'm a permanently suspended user), not every sub there is trash. There are some great subs there on very specific niche topics.

I'm a permanently suspended member too (permanent for technical reasons), and I have never posted on there.

Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't anyone create a search engine comparable to 2005 Google?

#339

Post by krapp »

kokanee wrote: post #337
lolinder wrote: post #290

The consistent theme every time this comes up is that dealing with the sheer weight of the internet is almost impossible today. SEO spam is hard to fight and the index gets too heavy. However, I wonder if this is a sign that we're looking at the problem wrong. What if instead of even trying to index the entire web, we moved one step back towards the curated directories of the early web? Give users a search engine and…

What if we allow users to upvote and downvote search results. Too many downvotes and you get dropped from the index.

Companies will simply hire people or purchase bots to downvote their competitors and upvote themselves, and then an entire economy will develop around gaming search engine algorithms, so that eventually search results will be completely useless.

Basically, SEO. SEO is the real problem, not search engine algorithms. Those algorithms are a result of the arms race between Google and black-hat SEO BS. Remove SEO and search engines work just fine.

Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't anyone create a search engine comparable to 2005 Google?

#340

Post by phendrenad2 »

The 2005 Google model only made sense in the 2005 internet. Google had the luck to become a search monopoly, and they quickly created Chrome to ensure that no one would ever switch away from Google search, so they could maintain the monopoly.

Now that Google exists, you can't create another one. There's only room for one.

Another thing is the rise of "content sites", like this one (Hacker News). I'm sure YCombinator doesn't like getting hit by dozens of crawlers. The impulse to ban everything that crawls except (Google|Bing|Baidu|VK) is too great.

A lot of alternative suggestions are being thrown into this discussion. Let me throw in mine: Reverse the concept of the "crawler". Instead of following links around the internet randomly, require sites to register with you and request to be crawled and/or submit a sitemap. It would be hard to get started, but once something like this gained momentum, I believe that there's room for several of these reverse-search-engines to compete.

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