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Ask HN: Has the quality of Google search declined for anyone else, or just me?

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Ask HN: Has the quality of Google search declined for anyone else, or just me?

#1

Post by ornxka »

Google search used to be one of the wonders of the modern digital world, but (and I admit this is subjective) it feels like the quality of results has decreased drastically over the years. I just can't find stuff as easily as I used to. It still comes out on top for e.g. querying for technical information but for other things (image search) I don't even bother with it anymore. It also feels like certain kinds of queries are subject to malicious SEO practices where it becomes impossible to find results that aren't from the same group of tabloids/media outlets.

What happened? Did they let their golden goose starve to death? Or is this all in my head and Google is actually fine for everyone else?

Re: Ask HN: Has the quality of Google search declined for anyone else, or just me?

#2

Post by pddpro »

For one, like you said, there are so many spam websites out there that it's extremely difficult for Google (or any search engine for that matter) to gather genuine results. I also think that it's a matter of incentive. As long as traffic doesn't decline, does Google really have any incentive to fix or improve things?

Also, I presume the search algorithm is not how it used to be too, what with ML models being used left and right. I wonder if anyone really knows how we get the results anymore. There are a few initiatives like kagi but I know too few about them to say anything at this point. For now, I am quite content with appending "reddit" at the end of every non-technical query nowadays... at least until they start gaming this as well.

Re: Ask HN: Has the quality of Google search declined for anyone else, or just me?

#6

Post by Kukumber »

I don't think it has declined

It serve its users, you are probably in the niche category that's declining, or rather the casual group is growing in number and as a result your category is being diluted even more, tech stuff usually are old stuff, users prefer new and up to date topics

If you are looking for something specific, i suggest trying few tricks to get better specific results: https://betterprogramming.pub/11-tricks-to-master-the-art-of...

Re: Ask HN: Has the quality of Google search declined for anyone else, or just me?

#8

Post by majormajor »

It's great at showing explicit ads or "content marketing" ads-that-land-in-it-without-paying-Google-directly.

On one hand you have Google, trying to keep patching an algorithm while also maintaining an ad revenue stream.

On the other hand you have the whole of humanity's ingenuity trying to make money for themselves.

Why do we think one system is going to be able to defeat the whole universe of creative hacks to try to beat that system at any reasonable rate?

(It's a wonder that it's even still adequate... but as long as the main competitors are using the same machine-and-math-driven approach, just with fewer resources to throw at it, it's unlikely that there will be a ubiquitous replacement making a major improvement any time soon.)

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