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Three areas where Google Search lags behind competitors: code, cooking, travel

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Re: Three areas where Google Search lags behind competitors: code, cooking, travel

#341

Post by bobro »

ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #295
superasn wrote: post #249

There are some sites that are so useless and they have never ever helped me once, yet somehow they are always in the top 10 results 1. w3schools 2. pinterest 3. microsoft answers and all microsoft websites actually (it always looks like the person asking the question is asking exactly what i want, but unlike stackexchange, there are seldom any useful answers) 4. all the code clones for SO 5. all alternative to / revi…

W3schools is wonderful, it's got great primers on a whole lot of languages and libraries with concise, clear explanations and examples.

No post body was provided.

Re: Three areas where Google Search lags behind competitors: code, cooking, travel

#342

Post by rmbyrro »

culi wrote: post #321
rmbyrro wrote: post #257

Google is not great for code search, but I dislike this "rich snippet" thing. These engines are stealing the sites traffic. The whole point was to be a search engine, not an encyclopedia. If you want to be the latter, produce your own content. It's my opinion. I don't use those engines because of that. They jeopardize their sources. It's unsustainable.

Yeah I think coders should give up on search engines to meet their needs and instead rely on coder-specific search engines like - https://searchcode.com/ - http://symbolhound.com/ - https://publicwww.com/ etc

IMHO, the options you listed still miss the point.

When I do a code-related search, most often I'm looking for a documentation entry.

So, for example, if I search for "python string replace", Google returns me a bunch of crappy pages.

I can fix it with "site:python.org string replace".

SearchCode does a terrible job [1]. So does Public WWW [2].

Now, Google nails with the first result, pointing to Python's built-in types page. But it would be perfect if it could just add a #str.replace fragment to the URL [3] and save me some scrolling. Instead, it sends me to the top of the page...

[1] https://searchcode.com/?q=python+string+replace

[2] https://publicwww.com/websites/python+string+replace/

[3] https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#str.replace

Re: Three areas where Google Search lags behind competitors: code, cooking, travel

#343

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

Not convinced. The example of a blueberry pancake recipe has a big button titled "jump to recipe" a few lines in and the ads covering the page is what 99% of the internet looks like without an adblocker. That doesn't sound like the fault of the search engine (but it is probably the fault of Google itself).

As to this:

>> Google rating: “This search result page is just okay. I don't like the first search result (I already know what exceptions are in programming, so the official Python documentation is way more than I need). I have to scroll halfway down before finding the information that I want.

The Python documentation is the primary source for what is being searched for. I don't think it's too much to ask to "scroll halfway down". That comes across as a bit petulant, to be honest.

Re: Three areas where Google Search lags behind competitors: code, cooking, travel

#344

Post by Giorgi »

beachy wrote: post #54

The one thing I wish that Google offered would be the ability to blacklist sites for a period (coud be fixed - say 6 months). So damn annoying when the top search results all lead to shitty SEO-optimised sites that use a whole page to blather on and on, leading to a tiny information nugget at the end. No value, just excellent SEO scamming. As these scam artists get better and better at this, Google gets less and less…

This will create Perverse incentive, SEO "ninjas" will just mass-block competitors.

Re: Three areas where Google Search lags behind competitors: code, cooking, travel

#345

Post by big_blind »

It is especially frustrating to use when Google while coding. I've noticed an increase in SEO sites on Google that seem to just scrape Q&As from the internet and regurgitate them[0]. I've recently started trying other search engines like DuckDuckGo and You.com and thankfully haven't had any issues with these sorts of sites popping up as results. It makes debugging 10x faster not having to sift through so many fake answer sites.

[0] https://quick-adviser.com/how-do-i-use-google-calendar-in-dj...

Re: Three areas where Google Search lags behind competitors: code, cooking, travel

#346

Post by bigcat123 »

beachy wrote: post #54

The one thing I wish that Google offered would be the ability to blacklist sites for a period (coud be fixed - say 6 months). So damn annoying when the top search results all lead to shitty SEO-optimised sites that use a whole page to blather on and on, leading to a tiny information nugget at the end. No value, just excellent SEO scamming. As these scam artists get better and better at this, Google gets less and less…

No post body was provided.

Re: Three areas where Google Search lags behind competitors: code, cooking, travel

#347

Post by PokestarFan »

id02009 wrote: post #328
superasn wrote: post #249

There are some sites that are so useless and they have never ever helped me once, yet somehow they are always in the top 10 results 1. w3schools 2. pinterest 3. microsoft answers and all microsoft websites actually (it always looks like the person asking the question is asking exactly what i want, but unlike stackexchange, there are seldom any useful answers) 4. all the code clones for SO 5. all alternative to / revi…

I remember W3schools being an excellent resource closer to the beginning of my career (a decade ago?), but now I barely ever enter. But I always thought it's me who outgrew it not that it became worse...

I feel like their site hasn't been overhauled in about 8 years.

Re: Three areas where Google Search lags behind competitors: code, cooking, travel

#348

Post by PokestarFan »

big_blind wrote: post #345

It is especially frustrating to use when Google while coding. I've noticed an increase in SEO sites on Google that seem to just scrape Q&As from the internet and regurgitate them[0]. I've recently started trying other search engines like DuckDuckGo and You.com and thankfully haven't had any issues with these sorts of sites popping up as results. It makes debugging 10x faster not having to sift through so many fake an…

Some of these are so bad it's hilarious. My favorite so far is https://quick-adviser.com/how-do-i-turn-my-android-into-a-be...

Re: Three areas where Google Search lags behind competitors: code, cooking, travel

#350

Post by Gollapalli »

KMag wrote: post #47
BitwiseFool wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"if there are not many good results, maybe I'm not asking the right questions" I used to think this way too, but I've come to realize that Google has turned from a search engine that returns results based on my input to an answer engine that actively tries to reframe whatever I enter into some other more generic query - usually with the intent of selling me something or returning SEO spam. I've also found that the o…

Back when I started at Google, they at least said they actively targeted "long-tail" queries to gain market share. The thinking was that people would use a search engine until they hit some query that their usual search engine failed on. Then they'd give another search engine (perhaps Google) a try, so if you really targeted those tough queries and were at least decent at the common queries, you'd gain market share.…

They taught us the search engine operators in elementary school computer class. It’s a shame that they’ve gone away now, and the internet is so much worse than it was then.
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