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Most promoted and blocked domains among Kagi Search users

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Re: Most promoted and blocked domains among Kagi Search users

#391

Post by jquery »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #294
nine_k wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you miss he point. The usefulness of a per-user block list is not fighting outright spam. The statistical filters, etc, as applied by the search engine, work best here, as you correctly state. The point is to remove certain well-known sites with information about well-known topics, which is unhelpful for the particular user , me. That information is technically not spam, but it's on a wrong level, badly prese…

> The point is to remove certain well-known sites Like pinterest. Goddamn pinterest. Just the amount of times i've used "-pinterest" in search is staggering.

Totally get where you're coming from about removing certain domains from Google search. But let's take a step back for a sec and consider what this could look like in a different light. Imagine if Reddit got the axe - a site that, despite its redesign snafus and sometimes annoying mobile login walls, a lot of us here on HN still find pretty useful.

Now, I'm not blind to the fact that Reddit's user demographic has a lot in common with us HN folks, while Pinterest... well, not so much. It leans towards a non-techy crowd, with more women users. But the way I see it, if Google keeps popping Pinterest up in search results, someone out there must be finding it helpful.

Perhaps what this all boils down to is a bit of a demographic reality check, rather than a definitive statement on any one platform. And just to be clear, I'm not standing on a soapbox championing for Pinterest, but I reckon we could probably nudge Google to get a bit smarter with its algorithms.

So, what if instead of giving domains the chop, we pushed for Google to up its game on the personalization front? Like, if I'm consistently booting Pinterest from my searches with "-pinterest", Google could take the hint and drop it down the ranks for me. Wouldn't that make more sense than completely blacklisting sites that some folks might still want to use? In the end, we all win if Google gets better at tuning into our search habits, right?

Re: Most promoted and blocked domains among Kagi Search users

#392

Post by carlosjobim »

OJFord wrote: post #354
maccard wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively, you're only willing to pay roughly the cost of a coffee per month for something you deem as a killer feature for everyday use.

I didn't say it was a 'killer feature', I said 'now I know I want it'. There are very many things I want but not at the price they cost! I don't think coffee's a great analogy - it has far more utility for me, I don't buy it as a service, and it costs me roughly £24 (what, $30ish) a month in beans. I'm not seriously suggesting it because I think comparing prices of different things to determine value very quickly get…

People always compare with Netflix, but that makes no sense at all to me. Is Kagi comparable to Netflix because they are both presented to you on a digital screen? I see nothing else that makes them comparable.

Laundry detergent and breakfast cereal both come in a box in the supermarket, but it doesn't make the products comparable. A house and a car both have a door and you usually sit inside, but it doesn't make the products comparable.

Netflix is a great bargain (for those who enjoy their offerings), and I think people are shooting themselves in the foot by dismissing other great services because they've somehow tricked themselves to thinking they should be compared to Netflix only because they're offered through a digital screen.

Re: Most promoted and blocked domains among Kagi Search users

#394

Post by Karunamon »

rchaud wrote: post #193
pokeymcsnatch wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a paid service and all their competitors are 'free'. Enshittification doesn't fit their business model, they'd go under in a heartbeat.

Cable TV didn't use to have ads, until somebody figured out you could charge the customer and have other streams of revenue as well. For Kagi, it's a matter of when, not if. Capitalism guarantees it.

Capitalism is the only reason they exist in the first place.

Don't confuse an entire economic system with the unique problems caused by public ownership or investing (i.e. growth at all costs). Plenty of smaller organizations would be quite happy to operate with modest profits for their owners and never scale beyond that point.

Re: Most promoted and blocked domains among Kagi Search users

#395

Post by ajsnigrutin »

jquery wrote: post #391
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The point is to remove certain well-known sites Like pinterest. Goddamn pinterest. Just the amount of times i've used "-pinterest" in search is staggering.

Totally get where you're coming from about removing certain domains from Google search. But let's take a step back for a sec and consider what this could look like in a different light. Imagine if Reddit got the axe - a site that, despite its redesign snafus and sometimes annoying mobile login walls, a lot of us here on HN still find pretty useful. Now, I'm not blind to the fact that Reddit's user demographic has a l…

I'm not saying we need a global chop/removal, I'd be happy if i had personalized filters for me (using my logged-in account + removal settings) to remove pinterest just for me. Same for Quora and ExpertSexChange or whatever that other technical site was.

Same for youtube, a simple blacklist would make my search results much nicer, but youtube seems to push a few large media companies as hard as possible.

Re: Most promoted and blocked domains among Kagi Search users

#396

Post by ricardo81 »

data-ottawa wrote: post #375
ricardo81 wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pinterest could simply tell robots to 'noindex,follow' the page to help search engines understand there is no utility in it appearing for a search. But agree, perhaps it shouldn't rank first anyway. Guess it depends on whether it's UGC entirely or whether the CMS could note these kind of pages. Again, shouldn't be hard if it's just a simple link as the main content of the page.

Why would Pinterest do that? They’ve conquered image search SEO, and I expect most sites on the internet want to play as greedily as possible. Google are the ones who should be looking at the situation and asking if this is the state they really want.

There's precedent that would make it in Pinterest's best interest. IIRC Google's "Panda" algo update basically wiped out search referrals to certain content farms overnight, can't recall specific examples but there were some at the time. They were labelled as low quality and subsequently faded into obscurity.

//added EHow is an example of a site that was flagged

Re: Most promoted and blocked domains among Kagi Search users

#397

Post by user3939382 »

freediver wrote: post #24
MrVandemar wrote: post #13

The top-ranked sources really show Kagi's current demographic. It obviously is attractive to programmers and IT professionals. I wonder if they are interested in attracting users with more diverse searching requirements, and if so, how they would be able to actually reach them.

> It obviously is attractive to programmers and IT professionals. I would say this is a blessing as it allows us to focus on things that matter to tech-savvy users (Kagi founder here). > I wonder if they are interested in attracting users with more diverse searching requirements, Yes, we are :) > if so, how they would be able to actually reach them Through our family plan [1], most likely. This is how I got my family…

> parent controls, which was never a thing in the last 25 years for some reason.

IE tried to setup a rating scheme for websites to adopt for this purpose but it never got any traction. Someone wrote an interesting post about it once but I can’t find it.

Re: Most promoted and blocked domains among Kagi Search users

#398

Post by user3939382 »

I like Kagi but I’m willing to pay like 10-15$ for unlimited (actually unlimited) searches so I don’t have the emotional overhead of counting and worrying about how much I’m searching.

I don’t like how they told people on older unlimited plans they’d be grandfathered in and then didn’t honor that.

Re: Most promoted and blocked domains among Kagi Search users

#399

Post by memefrog »

sundarurfriend wrote: post #286
MrVandemar wrote: post #13

The top-ranked sources really show Kagi's current demographic. It obviously is attractive to programmers and IT professionals. I wonder if they are interested in attracting users with more diverse searching requirements, and if so, how they would be able to actually reach them.

> The top-ranked sources really show Kagi's current demographic. It obviously is attractive to programmers and IT professionals. And specifically, American programmers and IT professionals.

Specifically, American web programmers. MDN is the second-most-pinned website.

Re: Most promoted and blocked domains among Kagi Search users

#400

Post by VHRanger »

danpalmer wrote: post #365

This seems like a useful feature, but from looking at the data it suggests a strong bias towards a few disciplines. That makes me wonder whether this is just the marketing so far, or a more fundamental limitation on the market that will actually draw value from Kagi. Does Kagi work as a business if it doesn’t grow to millions of users?

> Does Kagi work as a business if it doesn’t grow to millions of users?

You're paying for the service. One would hope the unit economics are immediately positive, unlike ad-driven businesses or VC-scale-at-all-cost growth businesses

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