It seems that Google is forgetting the old web • Hacker News Board

Re: It seems that Google is forgetting the old web

#91

Post by kgersen75 » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 2:52 PM UTC

founderling wrote: post #53

degenerate wrote: post #13

This author is in his own little bubble and doesn't understand the vast amount of blog-repost spam that google has to deal with. The way their algorithm most likely deals with this is a mixture of domain rank + tenure... how long has this copy of this article existed on this domain, and can we be sure this is the original copy? The author says the article was removed in 2006 (" [...] posts, were not accessible anymor…

Here is an example: http://www.gnoosic.com/discussion/metallica__5.html No matter how you search for the content on Google, nothing comes up: https://www.google.com/search?q="Metallica+only+played+2+son... DuckDuckGo has it: https://duckduckgo.com/?q="Metallica+only+played+2+songs+fro... I checked the wayback machine and the content has constantly been on that url for over 10 years. This is the first example of an ol…

page 5 seems not indexed. Everything on others pages can be found with Google.

you can force the site with "site:... ": https://www.google.com/search?q="metallica+only+played+2+son...

it's doesn't find page 5 with these terms but find page 6.

There is probably an issue within the page 5 itself.

Re: It seems that Google is forgetting the old web

#92

Post by gypsy_boots » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 2:53 PM UTC

Author says:

> I also find misleading the title of BoingBoing’s report of this story: “Google’s forgetting the early web”. The two posts mentioned here are not “early web”, nor really “old”.

While the title of this author's post is "Indeed, it seems that Google IS forgetting the old Web"

Re: It seems that Google is forgetting the old web

#93

Post by asark » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 2:54 PM UTC

founderling wrote: post #53

degenerate wrote: post #13

This author is in his own little bubble and doesn't understand the vast amount of blog-repost spam that google has to deal with. The way their algorithm most likely deals with this is a mixture of domain rank + tenure... how long has this copy of this article existed on this domain, and can we be sure this is the original copy? The author says the article was removed in 2006 (" [...] posts, were not accessible anymor…

Here is an example: http://www.gnoosic.com/discussion/metallica__5.html No matter how you search for the content on Google, nothing comes up: https://www.google.com/search?q="Metallica+only+played+2+son... DuckDuckGo has it: https://duckduckgo.com/?q="Metallica+only+played+2+songs+fro... I checked the wayback machine and the content has constantly been on that url for over 10 years. This is the first example of an ol…

I've had this problem recently. I can craft a search for something just slightly obscure and specific that should, nonetheless, have had plenty of hits on the "old web", let alone now on the many-times-larger web. But "no pages found". Loosen up the search and it's nothing but Google-friendly blogspam that isn't remotely related to what I'm trying to find. I call bullshit.

Re: It seems that Google is forgetting the old web

#94

Post by kickscondor » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 2:54 PM UTC

en-us wrote: post #87

kickscondor wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely agree with you that whether Google is intentionally diabolical or not is up in the air. My reason for quoting Brad there is to succinctly recount a history where Google has been a menace (deliberate or not) to individual blogs and websites. Blog rolls were absolutely a great way to discover new blogs and were hardly “link farms” but were an incredibly valuable resource. (An equivalent to modern friend li…

> I spend a lot of my time cataloging the hidden corners of the Web and it is mostly individuals working on their personal Web projects. That sounds interesting. Do you have a list of some interesting projects that you're willing to share?

I catalog my findings on my blog: https://www.kickscondor.com/ and I have a directory of my favorites: https://href.cool/.

Thankyou for asking. If you know of any sweet links, pass them along!

Re: It seems that Google is forgetting the old web

#95

Post by andrewprock » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 2:55 PM UTC

api wrote: post #42

degenerate wrote: post #13

This author is in his own little bubble and doesn't understand the vast amount of blog-repost spam that google has to deal with. The way their algorithm most likely deals with this is a mixture of domain rank + tenure... how long has this copy of this article existed on this domain, and can we be sure this is the original copy? The author says the article was removed in 2006 (" [...] posts, were not accessible anymor…

So as with all other open systems, spam is destroying the web.

The web is fine, and search is fine. It's specifically Google search that's being destroyed by spam.

It's odd to put forward the hypothesis that DuckDuckGo is now better at search (aggregation) than Google is at search. But that seems to be where we have landed.

Re: It seems that Google is forgetting the old web

#96

Post by justbaker » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 2:56 PM UTC

founderling wrote: post #53

degenerate wrote: post #13

This author is in his own little bubble and doesn't understand the vast amount of blog-repost spam that google has to deal with. The way their algorithm most likely deals with this is a mixture of domain rank + tenure... how long has this copy of this article existed on this domain, and can we be sure this is the original copy? The author says the article was removed in 2006 (" [...] posts, were not accessible anymor…

Here is an example: http://www.gnoosic.com/discussion/metallica__5.html No matter how you search for the content on Google, nothing comes up: https://www.google.com/search?q="Metallica+only+played+2+son... DuckDuckGo has it: https://duckduckgo.com/?q="Metallica+only+played+2+songs+fro... I checked the wayback machine and the content has constantly been on that url for over 10 years. This is the first example of an ol…

Seeing Metallica on HN makes me feel much more welcome :)

Re: It seems that Google is forgetting the old web

#97

Post by asark » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 3:01 PM UTC

Ygg2 wrote: post #38

inetknght wrote: post #7

I have noticed that searching for exact quotes seems to have been broken on Google for a few years. But only minimally broken. And I've had no idea how to reason with it. This article completely corresponds with problems I've encountered with searching for results on StackOverflow or software documentation sites; it's especially perplexing that "site:..." combined with exact quotes does not work for many cases. Googl…

I too noticed that for some queries, Google is becoming really, really unwieldy. I can't recall the exact search term, but I kept looking for some site I visited some time ago, and no combination of words could get it to actually find the actual site. I finally just gave up and found it in my browser history.

I've "lost" a few sites that way. Forgot the address, can craft several searches that years ago definitely would have brought up the exact site I want. But... nothing. Or it's buried so far in the search results I'll never find it. I need a good search on top of Google search, these days.

To be fair DDG rarely works for me in that way, either. I think that kind of old-school, precise search engine's just dead now. It seems like everyone's indices are a lot "fuzzier" and full of holes, like they're discarding large parts of pages from the index if those parts don't look important to the algo. Not just deprioritizing, but tossing those pieces out entirely. Except the algo's very wrong.

Re: It seems that Google is forgetting the old web

#98

Post by xorand » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 3:01 PM UTC

yorwba wrote: post #84

xorand wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downvoted against the evidence given. Anybody cares to explain why? Thank you.

I didn't downvote, but you link to a comment by yourself that isn't much longer and links to a blog post by yourself, and you already made a comment with basically the same content elsewhere in the thread. That's close enough to spammy self-promotion to get you downvoted irrespective of whether people agree with you

The newer coment is one hour after the older one. I made it after I was downvoted. As for the spammy self-promotion, thank you, I linked to a HN comment (made yesterday, relevant to the matter but with no reactions at that moment) instead of the blog post directly exactly because I don't want to replicate links. Finally, while these comments will fade from attention, if not already, that blog post will remain, excuse me for giving first some evidence that's something wrong with Google Scholar. Obviously spam.

Re: It seems that Google is forgetting the old web

#99

Post by addicted » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 3:01 PM UTC

andrewprock wrote: post #95

api wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So as with all other open systems, spam is destroying the web.

The web is fine, and search is fine. It's specifically Google search that's being destroyed by spam. It's odd to put forward the hypothesis that DuckDuckGo is now better at search (aggregation) than Google is at search. But that seems to be where we have landed.

I think it may be a simple consequence of the fact that Google Search is increasingly less of a searching engine and more of an answering engine.

I think Google has been explicit about this (I may be wrong, but I seem to remember thinking about this because Google themselves said it). Essentially, I believe, they are no longer concerned about being a way to navigate all the material found on the internet. Instead, they are concerned with answering the question posed by each search attempt.

Re: It seems that Google is forgetting the old web

#100

Post by rsync » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 3:02 PM UTC

degenerate wrote: post #13

This author is in his own little bubble and doesn't understand the vast amount of blog-repost spam that google has to deal with. The way their algorithm most likely deals with this is a mixture of domain rank + tenure... how long has this copy of this article existed on this domain, and can we be sure this is the original copy? The author says the article was removed in 2006 (" [...] posts, were not accessible anymor…

"Google is not forgetting the old web unless we see evidence of content disappearing from the index that have been consistently hosted at the same domain & URL since their original posts."

I can, very loosely and anecdotally, confirm.

My personal website has been online for about 20 years and I just picked some deep strings of text and searched for them and google has the whole thing indexed just fine ...