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Google Removed 749M Anna's Archive URLs from Its Search Results

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Re: Google Removed 749M Anna's Archive URLs from Its Search Results

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure. I understand they used to do search though. (Love the username, BTW.)

Yeah they’re pretty terrible now. Reminds me, this is an interesting article about search engines getting worse and failing, but the author didn’t get into the spam aspect iirc: https://archive.org/details/search-timeline

Is there a good search engine which does not execute any JavaScripts on files that it scans? (This is not the same as excluding web pages that use JavaScripts (I have seen some search engines that do this); I still want to be able to search for them, but I do not want the search queries (or the summaries of the results) to include anything that is only displayed due to JavaScripts.)

Re: Google Removed 749M Anna's Archive URLs from Its Search Results

#62
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been playing around with a variety of search engines such as Kagi, Startpage, Ecosia, DDG. All of them are better than google in finding relevant results. Lol Google is way too "personalized".

Google hides the most relevant results on the 3rd page. It was confirmed in trial disclosures a few months ago. Their concern isn’t public search.

Doesn't https://www.google.com/search?q=your+search+query&ei=...&sta... give you page 3? Or at least, try jittering it a bit and compare to frontpage results.

> &start= parameter. This parameter controls which result number the page starts with. Google displays 10 results per page by default. For page 1, start=0 For page 2, start=10 For page 3, start=20

Re: Google Removed 749M Anna's Archive URLs from Its Search Results

#63
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been playing around with a variety of search engines such as Kagi, Startpage, Ecosia, DDG. All of them are better than google in finding relevant results. Lol Google is way too "personalized".

You can turn off personalization. (Operating under the assumption that most people search for facts, I personally don't see why one would ever want personalized results.)

Some people search for shopping, or business details, in which case personalization can improve (or disimprove) result relevance based on knowing where you currently are, what day and time it is, what you tend to order etc. etc.

And some people search for songs/images/videos/books/articles.

Re: Google Removed 749M Anna's Archive URLs from Its Search Results

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Location based personalization is pretty useful - if I search for 'Bob's Discount Linguine' I want the one in my neighborhood. Lots of niche things (like programming) also reuse common english words to mean specific things - if I search e.g. 'locking' it's nice to get results related to asynchronous programming instead of locksmiths because google knows I regularly search for programming related terminology. Of cours…

Can you show me what results you see for “locking”? I see dancing move in all profiles I have.

Wow you're right. Locking dance moves and videos.

Weere you expecting to see padlocks or doorlocks or what?

Re: Google Removed 749M Anna's Archive URLs from Its Search Results

#65
post #34

Feels weird to say but I have found using Yandex of all places an excellent search engine for content that get taken down by DMCA requests. Eg if you want to watch a movie that's not on Netflix using a web stream the search results are far better. Feels like Google circa 2005.

yep Yandex all days when I wanna wear an eye patch and pirate the seas.

Hmm, Yandex Ad Network is allowed monetize western e-commerce sites, they divested their Russian assets by 2024.

Re: Google Removed 749M Anna's Archive URLs from Its Search Results

#66
post #9

Google does search now? I mean, it's great to see but I'm not sure how this is going to challenge the convenience of my chosen brand of chatbot being able to find the same info without being scammed by 100 seo optimised junk sites.

I have heard that chatbots aren’t affected by spam as much as Google when you ask them to search, is that true?

As much, yet. There’s still time and the OpenAI roadmap seems to promise ‘26 as the year.

Re: Google Removed 749M Anna's Archive URLs from Its Search Results

#67
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did Anna's Archive also organize much of the world's information and made it universally accessible, for some time?

They’re… yes. Yes, that’s exactly what they have done and continue to do. Are you familiar with it?

That phrase is Google's mission statement.

Re: Google Removed 749M Anna's Archive URLs from Its Search Results

#68

Feels weird to say but I have found using Yandex of all places an excellent search engine for content that get taken down by DMCA requests. Eg if you want to watch a movie that's not on Netflix using a web stream the search results are far better. Feels like Google circa 2005.

[flagged]

Where I am, both yandex and Google are services from a foreign land.

I can't say about Yandex because I haven't used it much, but I have used Google and its services enough to know that it may appear neutral but its services do reflect politics of its origin country. For an outsider, I doubt Yandex is going to be any different than Google in those matters.

Re: Google Removed 749M Anna's Archive URLs from Its Search Results

#69

Google does search now? I mean, it's great to see but I'm not sure how this is going to challenge the convenience of my chosen brand of chatbot being able to find the same info without being scammed by 100 seo optimised junk sites.

1. Your chatbot doesn't have its own internet scale search index. 2. You're being given information that may or may not be coming in part from junk sites. All you've done is give up the agency to look at sources and decide for yourself which ones are legitimate.

I’m quite happy trading off the agency of wading through trash to an LLM. In fact, I would say that’s something they’re pretty good at.

Re: Google Removed 749M Anna's Archive URLs from Its Search Results

#70

Feels weird to say but I have found using Yandex of all places an excellent search engine for content that get taken down by DMCA requests. Eg if you want to watch a movie that's not on Netflix using a web stream the search results are far better. Feels like Google circa 2005.

[flagged]

> Ah yes, using a Russian service, what could go wrong.

Nothing if you know what you're doing.

> Weekly Yandex astroturfers strike again.

People doing things you don't like doesn't mean they don't exist.

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