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Is Google Search Deteriorating? Measuring Google's Search Quality in 2022

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Re: Is Google Search Deteriorating? Measuring Google's Search Quality in 2022

#81

Post by elcamino44 »

literallyaduck wrote: post #72
AlbertCory wrote: post #14

I've been gone from G for 4 1/2 years now. When I was there, the weekly meetings often featured "search quality" measurements that were rigorous in their objectivity (I thought). They bent over backwards to be non-self-deluding. I distinctly remember Udi Manber saying "if the web is slow, it's our fault" (actually, the speech was that everything is "our fault"), meaning, really, "take responsibility for problems and…

Go to image search and type in "white people" without quotes. Now repeat the search but with "black people" without quotes. Try the same for "white couple" without quotes. Try the same for "black couple" without quotes. Do you have any insight to this phenomenon?

But if you just search for “person” or “couple” you get results showing mostly white people and couples. I don’t think what you’ve observed is saying what you think it is…

Re: Is Google Search Deteriorating? Measuring Google's Search Quality in 2022

#82

Post by bobbylarrybobby »

literallyaduck wrote: post #72
AlbertCory wrote: post #14

I've been gone from G for 4 1/2 years now. When I was there, the weekly meetings often featured "search quality" measurements that were rigorous in their objectivity (I thought). They bent over backwards to be non-self-deluding. I distinctly remember Udi Manber saying "if the web is slow, it's our fault" (actually, the speech was that everything is "our fault"), meaning, really, "take responsibility for problems and…

Go to image search and type in "white people" without quotes. Now repeat the search but with "black people" without quotes. Try the same for "white couple" without quotes. Try the same for "black couple" without quotes. Do you have any insight to this phenomenon?

For the first two, I think that black people use the phrase “white people” more than white people use the phrase “black people”, so “white people” includes black people in the results due to using quotes associated with people in the search ranking. (Whether things people have said should factor into image search is another question.)

Re: Is Google Search Deteriorating? Measuring Google's Search Quality in 2022

#83

Post by freediver »

The article mostly talks about IA (instant answers) which are notoriously hard. The recent advances in machine learning have made the technology more approachable, so startups like Kagi Search (disclaimer: founder) can also leverage latest advances in NLP and compete on this ground.

To give just a few examples:

Query 1: how many stars in the usa flag

Google: https://cln.sh/63sVzh

Kagi: https://cln.sh/bFEHsD

Pretty surprising that Google would get something like this wrong.

Query 2: when did moon explode

Google https://cln.sh/fUhdJS

Kagi https://cln.sh/5wDvXG

Both engines feature the same article but for some reason Google decides this is not fiction, and gives a (wrong) answer.

Query 3: do most rabbits have short or long ears

Google: https://cln.sh/JuOeqq

Kagi: https://cln.sh/BkZi6O

Both engines use the same article for source, but Google completely misses the context.

These examples show that a search startup has a chance to go neck-to-neck with Google and compete even in technology as sophisticated as instant answers. We invested considerable resources in the Kagi Search AI capabilities, discussed in some detail here https://kagi.ai/last-mile-for-web-search.html

What is mind boggling though from a product management perspective is that Google had nearly a decade head start and a cash purse of hundreds of billions of dollars to get this right.

To be fair, it is likely that the vast majority of queries are answered correctly, but only the outliers get the public attention. Also Kagi is not without its own share of silly mistakes too, but just being able to be considered in the same basket as Google is already a huge thing for us.

Re: Is Google Search Deteriorating? Measuring Google's Search Quality in 2022

#84

Post by KarlKemp »

qiqitori wrote: post #71
elondaits wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I get the same results on Safari on iOS (iPhone) so I have to eliminate the possibility of malware. Google results are personalized, based on location, search history, etc. The fact that I'm in Argentina has been adding a lot of noise to results on searches where my location is not relevant at all. In this case, I suspect that Google thinks these hacked sites with developer target content are relevant to me, beca…

Rule #1 of Google usage: turn off results based on search history. Think about it, how could that possibly improve your search results when you search for something you have never searched for before? I (sort of) remember the day that was announced, almost everyone turned it off immediately.

Almost nobody turned if off. And, to answer your question: If your history shows hundreds of queries for Java, PHP, and Ruby, odds are your query about Perl or Crystal or Go isn't about the species or stone or game.

Re: Is Google Search Deteriorating? Measuring Google's Search Quality in 2022

#85

Post by exikyut »

literallyaduck wrote: post #72
AlbertCory wrote: post #14

I've been gone from G for 4 1/2 years now. When I was there, the weekly meetings often featured "search quality" measurements that were rigorous in their objectivity (I thought). They bent over backwards to be non-self-deluding. I distinctly remember Udi Manber saying "if the web is slow, it's our fault" (actually, the speech was that everything is "our fault"), meaning, really, "take responsibility for problems and…

Go to image search and type in "white people" without quotes. Now repeat the search but with "black people" without quotes. Try the same for "white couple" without quotes. Try the same for "black couple" without quotes. Do you have any insight to this phenomenon?

"Do what I mean not what I say" becomes Very Interesting™ when politics are involved!

Re: Is Google Search Deteriorating? Measuring Google's Search Quality in 2022

#86

Post by kingcharles »

literallyaduck wrote: post #72
AlbertCory wrote: post #14

I've been gone from G for 4 1/2 years now. When I was there, the weekly meetings often featured "search quality" measurements that were rigorous in their objectivity (I thought). They bent over backwards to be non-self-deluding. I distinctly remember Udi Manber saying "if the web is slow, it's our fault" (actually, the speech was that everything is "our fault"), meaning, really, "take responsibility for problems and…

Go to image search and type in "white people" without quotes. Now repeat the search but with "black people" without quotes. Try the same for "white couple" without quotes. Try the same for "black couple" without quotes. Do you have any insight to this phenomenon?

tl;ds:

white people -> images of mostly blacks

black people -> images of mostly blacks

white couple -> mostly white couples with a decent percentage of mixed ethnicity couples

black couple -> black couples

Re: Is Google Search Deteriorating? Measuring Google's Search Quality in 2022

#87

Post by whakim »

JimDabell wrote: post #55
whakim wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems weird to me that Google would take "search quality" seriously for 15+ years (including nearly a decade as one of the biggest companies in the world) and then suddenly stop. Are you able to share any of those objective measures of quality? Because it seems to me that most of the discussions around the declining quality of Google search amount to anecdata backed up by reasoning that doesn't really make a lot o…

> It seems weird to me that Google would take "search quality" seriously for 15+ years (including nearly a decade as one of the biggest companies in the world) and then suddenly stop. Is anybody claiming that it’s sudden? Everybody I’ve seen complain about Google search results has seemed to think that it’s been getting slowly worse over a long period of time.

> Is anybody claiming that it’s sudden?

I mean, there are two ex-Googlers in this thread claiming firsthand that search quality was considered sacrosanct as of a few years ago, so it seems like it'd have to have been sudden if indeed it has happened at all.

Re: Is Google Search Deteriorating? Measuring Google's Search Quality in 2022

#88

Post by pottertheotter »

jeffbee wrote: post #29
ramoz wrote: post #25

When I search “tim lee food blogger age” Google actually shows results with “age” striked out (so it shows top results as if age wasn’t part of the queried string). Trying to think why/how it’d conclude that age wasn’t necessary for good results.

Censoring terms of the search vector to find relevant results is a legitimate approach that works well. In this example, the article author gives a Wikipedia page as the desired top result. That document does not include the term "age" anywhere. Therefore you can see how the term is not necessary to the search.

As a user, I can’t think of a time when censoring a term has given me relevant results. It just serves to frustrate me. If Google doesn’t want to return a blank page, they ought to have a small section at the top that says something like, “No results found for [search terms]” and then another section following that clearly states it is excluding a term.

FaceBook Marketplace and Craigslist do something similar when there are no local results. They show results from outside your area but clearly call it out.

Re: Is Google Search Deteriorating? Measuring Google's Search Quality in 2022

#89

Post by IAmEveryone »

pottertheotter wrote: post #88
jeffbee wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Censoring terms of the search vector to find relevant results is a legitimate approach that works well. In this example, the article author gives a Wikipedia page as the desired top result. That document does not include the term "age" anywhere. Therefore you can see how the term is not necessary to the search.

As a user, I can’t think of a time when censoring a term has given me relevant results. It just serves to frustrate me. If Google doesn’t want to return a blank page, they ought to have a small section at the top that says something like, “No results found for [search terms]” and then another section following that clearly states it is excluding a term. FaceBook Marketplace and Craigslist do something similar when th…

Could you all stop misusing the word "censoring" like that? It's almost worse than the way it's usually misused.

Also, at least for me, Google does exactly what you describe at the right approach.

Re: Is Google Search Deteriorating? Measuring Google's Search Quality in 2022

#90

Post by kebman »

If you search for anything political on Google, you'll notice that the results are clearly slanted in one direction, towards the opinion of a handful of pre-approved news outlets. This leads me to seek alternatives whenever I need neutral sources, for instance Yahoo search.
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