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I experience the "overgeneralized results" issue multiple times every week for maybe the past year. It frustrates me every time. If I have to click Tools > All

by beejiu 9y ago

I experience the "overgeneralized results" issue multiple times every week for maybe the past year. It frustrates me every time. If I have to click Tools > All Results > Verbatim every time, frankly I am ready to switch search engines. I am afraid to say that Google has really let itself go.

gkya 9y ago
Is search still the core of their business? Or does most of their income come from things like advertising, AppEngine, google apps for business and android-related stuff? I too feel that google search has been decaying, and saw many people here complainin about the same thing. Maybe they don't want to bother that much with it anymore if their focus has moved to stuff that they actually sell.
- Trundle 9y ago
  Search isn't an alternative to advertising. It's what generates the advertising.
  - gkya 9y ago
    Is it though? They have sooo many sources of input, embedded ads everywhere, social buttons, gmail, calendar, documents, photos, android, blogger, youtube, google+, and probably others that IDK, that search is just one---and probably a less important one---of those. As a means to show ads, again, they have uncountable spots all around the internet that they can place ads, and many google apps that one might be using, that the search results page is again just a slice of a big pie. Or maybe they figured that most people do very simple searches nearly all the time.
    - Trundle 9y ago
      I know they earn a lot more from ads on google properties than on third party sites, you can see it in their financial docs. It's something like 80% of their revenue. So we know embedded ads all around the internet aren't challenging it in any way. That said I don't know what percentage of their "google property" ad revenue is youtube, gmail, etc. Maybe they're cash cows? I'm inclined to think it's still mostly search though simply because it's the most valuable source of lead. One where the consumer has buying intent. Searching for a new car Vs trying to watch a show and having a car shown to you before it.
      - sidlls 9y ago
        I can't remember the last time I used a general purpose search engine with an intent to buy. The closest would be an intent to comparison shop, but then I'm explicitly searching for feature comparisons, not stores to buy from.
- hedora 9y ago
  Research shows that you can show people intentionally screwed up results, brand them as “google results”, and they’ll prefer them to real google results with swapped branding. The amount you have to screw up the results to get people to prefer the real results is greater than the difference in performance of the major engines. Conclusion? Search quality is a cost center at google at this point in the game — they have no economic incentive to improve it further.

by beejiu 9y ago

gkya 9y ago

Is search still the core of their business? Or does most of their income come from things like advertising, AppEngine, google apps for business and android-related stuff? I too feel that google search has been decaying, and saw many people here complainin about the same thing. Maybe they don't want to bother that much with it anymore if their focus has moved to stuff that they actually sell.

Trundle 9y ago
Search isn't an alternative to advertising. It's what generates the advertising.
- gkya 9y ago
  Is it though? They have sooo many sources of input, embedded ads everywhere, social buttons, gmail, calendar, documents, photos, android, blogger, youtube, google+, and probably others that IDK, that search is just one---and probably a less important one---of those. As a means to show ads, again, they have uncountable spots all around the internet that they can place ads, and many google apps that one might be using, that the search results page is again just a slice of a big pie. Or maybe they figured that most people do very simple searches nearly all the time.
  - Trundle 9y ago
    I know they earn a lot more from ads on google properties than on third party sites, you can see it in their financial docs. It's something like 80% of their revenue. So we know embedded ads all around the internet aren't challenging it in any way. That said I don't know what percentage of their "google property" ad revenue is youtube, gmail, etc. Maybe they're cash cows? I'm inclined to think it's still mostly search though simply because it's the most valuable source of lead. One where the consumer has buying intent. Searching for a new car Vs trying to watch a show and having a car shown to you before it.
    - sidlls 9y ago
      I can't remember the last time I used a general purpose search engine with an intent to buy. The closest would be an intent to comparison shop, but then I'm explicitly searching for feature comparisons, not stores to buy from.
hedora 9y ago
Research shows that you can show people intentionally screwed up results, brand them as “google results”, and they’ll prefer them to real google results with swapped branding. The amount you have to screw up the results to get people to prefer the real results is greater than the difference in performance of the major engines. Conclusion? Search quality is a cost center at google at this point in the game — they have no economic incentive to improve it further.