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Google Memory Loss

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Re: Google Memory Loss

#491

Post by Bartweiss »

terminalcommand wrote: post #463
userbinator wrote: post #93

I've noticed this many times too, particularly recently, and I call it "Google Alzheimer's" --- what was once a very powerful search engine that could give you thousands (yes, I've tried exhausting its result pages many times, and used to have much success finding the perfect site many dozens of pages deep in the results) of pages containing nothing but the exact words and phrase you search for has seemingly degraded…

I also get very angry at Google trying to stop me from making advanced queries. Even if I only chain a couple of Google's very limited operators together it shows me captchas and after a while the captchas do not stop. I keep solving them and it just wants more. Lately I've also been noticing that the behaviour of some google search operators are broken. " something " "otherthing" is not considered as an AND " someth…

I'm enormously frustrated that Google has been killing off advanced-search tools.

The loss of '+' is annoying, particularly since quoted and non-quoted mixtures are unreliable. Searching on "freebsd" "meltdown" might have solved your problem, but it's too unpredictable to be sure. My experience suggests that Google is doing something with site-level search, such that a site with only 'freebsd' won't appear but a site with 'freebsd' and 'meltdown' on different pages still might.

'-', meanwhile, seems to simply be disabled some of the time.

Re: Google Memory Loss

#492

Post by tripzilch »

JohnStrange wrote: post #306
userbinator wrote: post #93

I've noticed this many times too, particularly recently, and I call it "Google Alzheimer's" --- what was once a very powerful search engine that could give you thousands (yes, I've tried exhausting its result pages many times, and used to have much success finding the perfect site many dozens of pages deep in the results) of pages containing nothing but the exact words and phrase you search for has seemingly degraded…

Yandex is pretty good but I haven't found a use case for DDG yet. Whenever I set it for "privacy" reasons (not that I really believe them), I have to go back to Google to get reasonable results. I can confirm the memory loss, though, ego-surfing confirms it for me. Much of my older stuff is gone and all the top links for my name are related to my current work. (So in my case, it's kind of beneficial.)

That's because you're not using DDG's !bang syntax to its full power. I have it as my default address bar search engine so I can redirect straight to Wikipedia (using !w), Discogs or whatever of the 1000s of !bang abbreviations are defined.

Just the amount of times where you know the most useful (and probably top) result on Google will be Wikipedia makes DDG worth it. Saves a click. But for me it saves a click very often.

If I need Google occasionally I just append !g, but it's just one of the many other places I use !bangs for finding stuff.

Re: Google Memory Loss

#493

Post by Cyberdog »

terminalcommand wrote: post #463
userbinator wrote: post #93

I've noticed this many times too, particularly recently, and I call it "Google Alzheimer's" --- what was once a very powerful search engine that could give you thousands (yes, I've tried exhausting its result pages many times, and used to have much success finding the perfect site many dozens of pages deep in the results) of pages containing nothing but the exact words and phrase you search for has seemingly degraded…

I also get very angry at Google trying to stop me from making advanced queries. Even if I only chain a couple of Google's very limited operators together it shows me captchas and after a while the captchas do not stop. I keep solving them and it just wants more. Lately I've also been noticing that the behaviour of some google search operators are broken. " something " "otherthing" is not considered as an AND " someth…

I'm primarily a DDG user, and I get annoyed that it often drops terms from my query as well. However, if you prefix the term with a +, such as `+freebsd +meltdown`, it will reliably keep that term in my query and show me what I want. So my queries often get overwritten, but at least I can reliably override it.

Re: Google Memory Loss

#494

Post by detaro »

tripzilch wrote: post #492
JohnStrange wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yandex is pretty good but I haven't found a use case for DDG yet. Whenever I set it for "privacy" reasons (not that I really believe them), I have to go back to Google to get reasonable results. I can confirm the memory loss, though, ego-surfing confirms it for me. Much of my older stuff is gone and all the top links for my name are related to my current work. (So in my case, it's kind of beneficial.)

That's because you're not using DDG's !bang syntax to its full power. I have it as my default address bar search engine so I can redirect straight to Wikipedia (using !w), Discogs or whatever of the 1000s of !bang abbreviations are defined. Just the amount of times where you know the most useful (and probably top) result on Google will be Wikipedia makes DDG worth it. Saves a click. But for me it saves a click very o…

But browsers already have that functionality built in, why go through DDG for that? (well, Chrome and Firefox do, not sure about others)

Re: Google Memory Loss

#495

Post by zyndaras »

userbinator wrote: post #386
telltruth wrote: post #252

I'm wondering if rackless Ruth, Google's bean-counter-in-chief, is behind all these. At Bing, bean counters often had calculated that if you cut down index to half (after certain size), you reduce half of the cost but don't lose half of the revenues. So there is a sweet spot where you can maximize revenue if you are willing to let go few demanding customers. When quarterly results needs a little push, everything is a…

I bet Sundar Pitchai doesn't want to look bad as "CEO" who can't meet analyst expectations. Whenever I see horrible search results, I often wonder if those people who work at Google, and surely use their own search engine as much as anyone else, have noticed the degradation and what they think of it --- especially those who are in charge of or even working on the search engine themselves. Does Sundar search, get horr…

At his level (any C-Exec really) I'd say he probably doesn't notice because it'll be his assistant (or assistants) doing most of the searching...

Re: Google Memory Loss

#496

Post by woobar »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #381
dandare wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Startup idea: a service that will let you search your inbox. Aka google for searching. Seriously, this is egregious. You rely on your email provider to accurately search your inbox - some emails are important business, tax, and legal documents that are relevant for years, even decades. Or at least be fucking transparent about the fact that you are not really searching all emails. I know Gmail is a free service and in…

Apple has the opposite problem. On my version of OSX, Spotlight searches in the Finder return email results too, which increases the noise-to-signal results dramatically. You can turn it off but this requires you to enter your search term as a formula every time --there's no way to make it the default. If I want to search my email, I'll switch to the Mail program and search there. I neither want nor need to search my…

> I neither want nor need to search my mail in the Finder.

Just exclude Mail from Spotlight search in Settings.

Re: Google Memory Loss

#497

Post by stcredzero »

Declanomous wrote: post #101
userbinator wrote: post #93

I've noticed this many times too, particularly recently, and I call it "Google Alzheimer's" --- what was once a very powerful search engine that could give you thousands (yes, I've tried exhausting its result pages many times, and used to have much success finding the perfect site many dozens of pages deep in the results) of pages containing nothing but the exact words and phrase you search for has seemingly degraded…

> has seemingly degraded into an approximation of a search engine that has knowledge of only very superficial information, will try to rewrite your queries and omit words (including the very word that makes all the difference...) I think the biggest irony is that the web allows for more adoption of long-tail movements than ever before, and Google has gotten significantly worse at turning these up. I assume this has s…

I think the biggest irony is that the web allows for more adoption of long-tail movements than ever before, and Google has gotten significantly worse at turning these up. I assume this has something to do with the fact that information from the long tail is substantially less searched for than stuff within the normal bounds.

Google wants you to be mainstream now. If everyone thinks the same and wants the same things -- even if contextually as a member of one of a couple of hundred disparate "marketing cohort" categories -- it will be far easier to target advertising to you. It's in Google's interest for you to conform now. Be easy to categorize. Be easy to predict. So think the same as the members of your peer group, so they can sell hyper-targeted advertising to other corporations. (Have you noticed that social media tends to motivate you to conform?) Google has no use for the long tail anymore -- no use for quirky and inscrutable scenes and subcultures. Instead, it now has the cultural power to transform you (the product) into an even better product.

Remember: 1. If you're not paying for the service, you are not the customer. You are the product. 2. Given sufficient quantity and concentration, Power corrupts. Always.

Re: Google Memory Loss

#498

Post by buckminster »

Spearchucker wrote: post #470
Spooky23 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft does this too. I have a massive mailbox going back 15 years and O365 doesn’t handle it well with full text search... you need to scope it to a person.

My email arching ve going back more than 20 years is stored in a single .PST file, and I search it using Outlook. Never had a problem. Every 3 months I copy everything older than 2 months from Exchange Online into that .PST.

Just in case you are not aware, PST files can go horribly wrong when they get to 2GB in size.

Re: Google Memory Loss

#499

Post by jxramos »

emmelaich wrote: post #342
paulcole wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://web.archive.org/robots.txt

That's unfortunate. But understandable in a way. # robots.txt web.archive.org 2013-10-02 User-agent: * Disallow: / User-agent: ia_archiver Allow: /

touche, I don't suppose the old non commercial websites mentioned in the article suffer the same problem though right? Maybe an accidental robots.txt file was mistakenly left around?
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