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Google search results have more human help than you think, report finds

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Re: Google search results have more human help than you think, report finds

#51

Post by matt4077 »

danielfoster wrote: post #4

I’ve been pretty frustrated with Google lately. Maybe it’s me, but they seem to keep skewing their algorithm to ignore precise queries and always show broad matches. For example I recently searched “US ambassador Germany” on Google News and the top results were all stories about Ukraine and the impeachment hearings. Google completely ignored “Germany.” Similar things happen to me all the time on Google Search. Perhap…

In my attempt right now, I do get many articles about Ukraine, but every single one of them includes the word "Germany" in some form.

I belief this is an effect of Google News emphasising recency in its ranking algorithm.

Interestingly, your complaint is almost the opposite of the one often made on HN, namely that people would prefer a somewhat dumber but very literal search interface. It also shows why that wish's fulfilment might end up disappointing people: In the snippets I get, "Germany" gets included in these articles in all sorts of irrelevant ways, including navigational links that really aren't part of the story ec.

Re: Google search results have more human help than you think, report finds

#52

Post by matt4077 »

spurgu wrote: post #11
danielfoster wrote: post #4

I’ve been pretty frustrated with Google lately. Maybe it’s me, but they seem to keep skewing their algorithm to ignore precise queries and always show broad matches. For example I recently searched “US ambassador Germany” on Google News and the top results were all stories about Ukraine and the impeachment hearings. Google completely ignored “Germany.” Similar things happen to me all the time on Google Search. Perhap…

It's not just you. I find myself increasingly encapsulating words in my queries with quotes because Google outright ignores relevant words in my searches. In some cases it has even lead to queries looking like this: "us" "ambassador" "germany"

That's actually not what's happening in OP's search (at least when I run it): Germany is included in every single snippet I see, it just isn't relevant for most of them. "ambassador to germany" works, though.

Re: Google search results have more human help than you think, report finds

#53

Post by skybrian »

ppod wrote: post #47
thedevil wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, I looked for their policies on misinformation. I could see some potential risks here but it still seems reasonable to me: > Demonstrably inaccurate content > YMYL content that contradicts well-established expert consensus > Debunked or unsubstantiated conspiracy theories This part, I imagine, is a bit more controversial: > pages that potentially spread hate, cause harm, or misinform or deceive users…

I think the first few are problematic too. Which conspiracy theories? Moon landing, pizzagate, Epstein? No idea where to draw a line there. Demonstrably inaccurate? I doubt they remove young earth creationists. It seems easy at first, but it doesn't take long to find a lot of gray areas.

This is going to be based on conventional wisdom. The evaluators are a biased representation of general public. What do most people think are conspiracy theories?

Despite all the policy guidelines, in the end it's not just a legalistic decision but more like a survey to see what people think.

If you're running a search engine, you need to track of what people think somehow, or you'll totally miss things like cultural issues.

Re: Google search results have more human help than you think, report finds

#54

Post by matt4077 »

pascalxus wrote: post #48

Just do the following search on google and see what the auto complete shows you: Men can... (you get things like: men can have periods, men can have babies, men can get pregnant, etc) Then look at what women can do: Women can...(do it, fly, do anything, can vote, can work, etc) There's a very particular agenda that seems to be present. it's kinda scary how strongly biased their search results are.

Suggestions are based on what people search on phrases that appear in text. People don't search and/or write down what everyone knows already.

Those suggestions aren't there because Google believes men can get pregnant, it's because that's something confused teenagers search.

I also don't get why you consider "Men can get pregnant" to be insulting or biased? It's mostly just nonsense, but if you want to find meaning in it, the potential to become pregnant has historically been regarded an almost holy facet of humanity.

Another fun one I just found, and which you might appreciate: "[idiots can]'t get cold".

Re: Google search results have more human help than you think, report finds

#55

Post by dsl »

machbio wrote: post #7
danielfoster wrote: post #4

I’ve been pretty frustrated with Google lately. Maybe it’s me, but they seem to keep skewing their algorithm to ignore precise queries and always show broad matches. For example I recently searched “US ambassador Germany” on Google News and the top results were all stories about Ukraine and the impeachment hearings. Google completely ignored “Germany.” Similar things happen to me all the time on Google Search. Perhap…

So much this - you have to go from least popular to most popular terms to get accurate results - there is a weightage penalty of how further the word is from the start of the query. if you search "Javascript issues Rshiny" (this is just an example not the actual query) - you only get javascript results for 4 to 5 pages of results.. when you reverse it to "Rshiny Javascript issues" - the results are better

I have found as of late that using natural language search terms works much better over the old keyword soup you'd have to feed in to AltaVista or something.

i.e. "how do I change a ford taurus headlight" vs "taurus service manual headlight"

Re: Google search results have more human help than you think, report finds

#56

Post by nickfromseattle »

danielfoster wrote: post #4

I’ve been pretty frustrated with Google lately. Maybe it’s me, but they seem to keep skewing their algorithm to ignore precise queries and always show broad matches. For example I recently searched “US ambassador Germany” on Google News and the top results were all stories about Ukraine and the impeachment hearings. Google completely ignored “Germany.” Similar things happen to me all the time on Google Search. Perhap…

Google uses a metric called termination of search.

Did the user visit a page and cease searching for a given query? Great, the page answered the users question.

Did they visit a page, bounce, and keep on searching?

Well that page didn't answer the users query.

Maybe there has been an uptick in people googling "US ambassador Germany" and looking for news articles about Ukraine and the impeachment hearings.

Re: Google search results have more human help than you think, report finds

#57

Post by dsl »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #22
spurgu wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just you. I find myself increasingly encapsulating words in my queries with quotes because Google outright ignores relevant words in my searches. In some cases it has even lead to queries looking like this: "us" "ambassador" "germany"

The quote used to enforce "must include expression" but this is no longer true with google queries. My guess is that, by now, resource intensive 'power users' are not worth the effort for google. For technical queries I moved on to ddg, it's not perfect but a hell of a lot less time waisted.

Do you have any evidence to support that? The Google documentation indicates quotes are still the exact match operator https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2466433?hl=en

Re: Google search results have more human help than you think, report finds

#58

Post by magicalist »

tyingq wrote: post #19
harikb wrote: post #5

Somewhat click-baity. They are not implying runtime / live intervention (which isn’t possible anyways). Top bad results are tweaked. That is part of making the “algorithm”. Who says that is immoral or illegal?

Not immoral or illegal, but using human raters to seed an algorithm can make the results worse. For example, it could skew to favoring websites where the rater is familiar with the brand. Which might rank mediocre branded content over less well known sites with much higher quality content. That seems to match what I've seen over the last 10 years with Google.

> Not immoral or illegal, but using human raters to seed an algorithm can make the results worse

...versus asking an oracle what the "good" results are? It's not clear what you'd propose as an alternative.

Re: Google search results have more human help than you think, report finds

#59

Post by tyingq »

cinnamonheart wrote: post #42
tyingq wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not immoral or illegal, but using human raters to seed an algorithm can make the results worse. For example, it could skew to favoring websites where the rater is familiar with the brand. Which might rank mediocre branded content over less well known sites with much higher quality content. That seems to match what I've seen over the last 10 years with Google.

I worked for Leapforce for a while doing this sort of rating work using Google's guidelines. The guidelines were linked elsewhere in this thread and, at a glance, they are the same ones I used: https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/guidelines.raterh... If you're doing something that would skew the results to favour a certain brand, you'd be going against Google's guidelines and your contract would be terminated…

I'm not suggesting it would be on purpose. Trust must have some subconscious effect.

Re: Google search results have more human help than you think, report finds

#60

Post by PhasmaFelis »

pascalxus wrote: post #48

Just do the following search on google and see what the auto complete shows you: Men can... (you get things like: men can have periods, men can have babies, men can get pregnant, etc) Then look at what women can do: Women can...(do it, fly, do anything, can vote, can work, etc) There's a very particular agenda that seems to be present. it's kinda scary how strongly biased their search results are.

Those seem like they could at least plausibly be representative of actual searches. "Men can..." is probably not a terribly common search outside of sex/gender discussion.
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