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It all started going downhill since Google's "Hummingbird" switch to be honest. Interviewing for Google, I actually brought this up with an engineer in the sear

It all started going downhill since Google's "Hummingbird" switch to be honest. Interviewing for Google, I actually brought this up with an engineer in the search team during the lunch. He said they haven't noticed any regressions. I said I figured that would be the case but I can definitely feel the difference as a daily user.

JohnFen 8y ago
> Google's "Hummingbird" I had assumed that Google search had gone downhill because it started trying to "personalize" my search results. That wasn't a great explanation though, as I don't use a Google account. Hummingbird seems a much more likely explanation.
- taneq 8y ago
  Oh, they still "personalize" your search results. I do a full clear on my web browser (cookies / offline storage / history, everything) and then open YouTube in a private browsing window and it asks me which of my two Gmail accounts I want to log in with. I'd guess it's just a combo of external IP and browser fingerprint, but it's creepy.
  - JohnFen 8y ago
    I know they do, and I consider this a real problem. I was just saying that personalization isn't a completely satisfactory explanation for the decline in Google search result quality. It is likely to be a factor in that, though.
Mirioron 8y ago
I noticed the same. I've wondered for years why it happened and sometimes when I'm frustrated I try to think about it. But I am not entirely sure that the degradation in search results for me happened only in the past 5 years. Maybe, but I'm not sure. I had no idea about Hummingbird though.
- antt 8y ago
  In 2009 Google was amazing for diagnosing Linux issues. I would just copy the error from the console and I'd have links to the issue tracker, a work around and the version in which the bug was fixed. Today I get a link to some github project that has nothing to do with what I'm working on and was closed as being an upstream issue.
  - voltagex_ 8y ago
    I don't have the time, money or energy to build a specific crawler, but a Linux search engine that indexed all the major distros, packages, mailing lists, forums and issue trackers would be amazing.
friendzis 8y ago
This is indicative of a larger issue - testing is probably as difficult as solving the halting problem i.e. code could be generated from proper tests, yet teams tend to trust their tests completely. I see high profile websites having severe usability issues or being outright broken in ways that would be immediately caught by "interns randomly click here and there" usability tests. But these version got deployed probably because testing did not show any regressions. I tend to believe that if user complaints about new problems or regressions increase over statistical noise - there is a problem.
- JohnFen 8y ago
  > yet teams tend to trust their tests completely. Well said. This is a big problem. We see a similar problem with the use of telemetry data as well.

JohnFen 8y ago

> Google's "Hummingbird" I had assumed that Google search had gone downhill because it started trying to "personalize" my search results. That wasn't a great explanation though, as I don't use a Google account. Hummingbird seems a much more likely explanation.

taneq 8y ago
Oh, they still "personalize" your search results. I do a full clear on my web browser (cookies / offline storage / history, everything) and then open YouTube in a private browsing window and it asks me which of my two Gmail accounts I want to log in with. I'd guess it's just a combo of external IP and browser fingerprint, but it's creepy.
- JohnFen 8y ago
  I know they do, and I consider this a real problem. I was just saying that personalization isn't a completely satisfactory explanation for the decline in Google search result quality. It is likely to be a factor in that, though.

Mirioron 8y ago

I noticed the same. I've wondered for years why it happened and sometimes when I'm frustrated I try to think about it. But I am not entirely sure that the degradation in search results for me happened only in the past 5 years. Maybe, but I'm not sure. I had no idea about Hummingbird though.

antt 8y ago
In 2009 Google was amazing for diagnosing Linux issues. I would just copy the error from the console and I'd have links to the issue tracker, a work around and the version in which the bug was fixed. Today I get a link to some github project that has nothing to do with what I'm working on and was closed as being an upstream issue.
- voltagex_ 8y ago
  I don't have the time, money or energy to build a specific crawler, but a Linux search engine that indexed all the major distros, packages, mailing lists, forums and issue trackers would be amazing.

friendzis 8y ago

This is indicative of a larger issue - testing is probably as difficult as solving the halting problem i.e. code could be generated from proper tests, yet teams tend to trust their tests completely. I see high profile websites having severe usability issues or being outright broken in ways that would be immediately caught by "interns randomly click here and there" usability tests. But these version got deployed probably because testing did not show any regressions. I tend to believe that if user complaints about new problems or regressions increase over statistical noise - there is a problem.

JohnFen 8y ago
> yet teams tend to trust their tests completely. Well said. This is a big problem. We see a similar problem with the use of telemetry data as well.