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If Google's AI is so great, why is it that Google search results seem to get worse and worse every year? So many searches I do are so "SEO'ed", I feel like it'

If Google's AI is so great, why is it that Google search results seem to get worse and worse every year? So many searches I do are so "SEO'ed", I feel like it's 1999 again.

petra 9y ago
Let's see: is it to Google's benefit that you'll find what you want in no time ? Or that you'll spend more time in their engine and see ads ?
- rckclmbr 9y ago
  If it's ads for things you dont want, the ads are worthless.
- overcast 9y ago
  It's 100% of their interest to find exactly what you're looking for as quickly as possible. Oldie but goodie article, about when Mayer was experimenting with search results, and the conclusion was that minimal, accurate choices wins. People actually spent LESS time when there was too many results. http://www.zdnet.com/article/googles-marissa-mayer-speed-wins/ http://www.zdnet.com/article/googles-marissa-mayer-speed-win...
  - petra 9y ago
    from the link you sent all i get is that Google optimized for "time on site". Nowhere it mentions optimizing for rapidly finding what you want.
tdb7893 9y ago
In my experience search is better. I pretty much always have what I want as the top I guess your mileage may vary
josephpmay 9y ago
From my experience, it depends on the type of things you're searching for. If you're doing a search for a local restaurant or something in the news, you don't even realize how good Google's become because it basically gets you exactly what you want in your first result. However, if you're trying to find something more obscure, older, less contextually relevant, or using keywords, Google can get very frustrating because it's trying to contextualize something that shouldn't be contextualized.
babuskov 9y ago
In my experience, Google is getting better at finding more general information and worse in finding specific information. It also tries to "help" too much with fuzzy matching which starts to make it useless if you are looking for less common thing. For example, if you search for "nmake tabs vs spaces" it returns a bunch of results for GNU make and flame wars about tabs vs spaces instead of nmake specific info regarding usage of tabs or spaces in nmake makefiles.
- sf_rob 9y ago
  Yes, they seem to be dropping keywords that overly restrict results which is ironic since those keywords are oftentimes the most important due to their specificity. I find myself preemptively using quotes more and more with Google. I kind of which their logic was segmented by user-type.
- koja86 9y ago
  Isn't that something we should expect as a result of using statistical methods (ML or otherwise) and focusing on masses?

If Google's AI is so great, why is it that Google search results seem to get worse and worse every year? So many searches I do are so "SEO'ed", I feel like it's 1999 again.

petra 9y ago

Let's see: is it to Google's benefit that you'll find what you want in no time ? Or that you'll spend more time in their engine and see ads ?

rckclmbr 9y ago
If it's ads for things you dont want, the ads are worthless.
overcast 9y ago
It's 100% of their interest to find exactly what you're looking for as quickly as possible. Oldie but goodie article, about when Mayer was experimenting with search results, and the conclusion was that minimal, accurate choices wins. People actually spent LESS time when there was too many results. http://www.zdnet.com/article/googles-marissa-mayer-speed-wins/ http://www.zdnet.com/article/googles-marissa-mayer-speed-win...
- petra 9y ago
  from the link you sent all i get is that Google optimized for "time on site". Nowhere it mentions optimizing for rapidly finding what you want.

tdb7893 9y ago

In my experience search is better. I pretty much always have what I want as the top I guess your mileage may vary

josephpmay 9y ago

From my experience, it depends on the type of things you're searching for. If you're doing a search for a local restaurant or something in the news, you don't even realize how good Google's become because it basically gets you exactly what you want in your first result. However, if you're trying to find something more obscure, older, less contextually relevant, or using keywords, Google can get very frustrating because it's trying to contextualize something that shouldn't be contextualized.

babuskov 9y ago

In my experience, Google is getting better at finding more general information and worse in finding specific information. It also tries to "help" too much with fuzzy matching which starts to make it useless if you are looking for less common thing. For example, if you search for "nmake tabs vs spaces" it returns a bunch of results for GNU make and flame wars about tabs vs spaces instead of nmake specific info regarding usage of tabs or spaces in nmake makefiles.

sf_rob 9y ago
Yes, they seem to be dropping keywords that overly restrict results which is ironic since those keywords are oftentimes the most important due to their specificity. I find myself preemptively using quotes more and more with Google. I kind of which their logic was segmented by user-type.
koja86 9y ago
Isn't that something we should expect as a result of using statistical methods (ML or otherwise) and focusing on masses?