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This is exactly what blogger Paul Kedrosky found when trying to buy a dishwasher. He wrote about how he began Googleing for information…and Googleing…and Google

This is exactly what blogger Paul Kedrosky found when trying to buy a dishwasher. He wrote about how he began Googleing for information…and Googleing…and Googleing. He couldn’t make head or tail of the results. Paul concluded that the “the entire web is spam when it comes to major appliance reviews”. So I happen to know somebody who is taking a small section of the home appliance market and creating content around it -- reviews, news, advice, a place for other consumers to talk to each other. Of course to do this you need to have income, so they are going to use some sort of ad-supported model. My question is very simple: is their project a spam site or not? To some, I guess it would qualify. To others, not. You see, there are two questions when it comes to search results: 1) Am I being presented results that match the query I entered? and 2) Am I being presented results that match what I want to know? These are two entirely different things. A third-grader looking for information on a movie star might find a games page with all sorts of information on that star -- all sponsored by some kind of adsensey stuff. And he's very happy. A researcher typing in the same question gets the same page? He's pissed. There is no universal answer for any one question. It's all dependent on the culture, education, and intent of the user -- all of which are not easily communicated to a search engine. Look -- this is a real problem. I hate it. Sucks to go to pages you don't like. All I'm saying is that it's more complicated than "we need a new Google" Finding what you want exactly when you want it is a difficult and non-trivial problem. We just got lucky in that Google found a simple algorithm that can be helpful in some situations. It may be that we're seeing the natural end of the usefulness of that algorithm. </soapbox>

ktsmith 16y ago
> is their project a spam site or not? To me that depends a LOT on how they present the advertisements and what they do on pages where they don't have information for a product. My biggest complaint with so called review sites is that they are presented more advertisements than content. They also tend to have automatically generated pages for every model number you can imagine, including incorrect ones that they receive searches for. On those pages there tends to be links to shopping sites and prices for unrelated appliances and products. I absolutely consider that to be spam because they are content free. The problem with google searches lately, and especially for things like appliances, is that the spammers and content mills are clearly winning. In my current search for a washer and dryer the manufacturers page was on page four or five or the results. The first few pages were flooded with bogus content pages, sale pages and unrelated pages. Trying to filter out shopping sites and explicitly target specific keywords and filter others doesn't help. There are a growing number of search topics for which google is simply broken.
- DanielBMarkham 16y ago
  In regards to the style of the pages, I completely agree with you -- probably because we have similar tastes in content. Others, however, might not. I'm not saying that flashing text and floating images are okay, just that the threshold between "mildly annoying" and "total shit" is a personal thing. The problem is, as you point out, that most people, most of the time, are beginning to see results they don't need or like when they type a search. This is a big problem for both searchers and the companies that provide search. If you create an algorithm for directing people's behavior (a search engine) folks are going to game it. You and I might not like it, but "gaming the way people do things" is called marketing in any other context and has been around for hundreds of years. This leads me to suspect that no simple (or even complex) system of finding things for people is ever going to work for an extended period of time. It's a radar vs. radar detector problem. It's a natural competitive situation. But it doesn't have to be all bad. From competition and fitness criteria comes evolution. Spammers and search engines will probably be a key part of how AI evolves. It'll be neat to see if we move beyond Bayes -- and if so, how would that work? The one thing you bring up that's interesting is what to do with bad searches. How do you deal with a mis-typed part number? Should a system know which part number you have? If so, how would that be done? I think the spammers covering all the misspellings are doing a service -- as long as the site isn't obnoxious and provides the user with the information they are looking for. We think of it as a failure of Google, but in fact it looks like a win: thousands of little spammers trying to find all the mistakes I make and providing content for them -- as long as they have my best interests in mind (and are not trying to trick me). I'll happily look at an advertisement for a Ford Explorer in return for valuable information on my 1978 dishwasher that I couldn't read the entire part number for. And I hate ads. I like that scenario a lot more than looking for a favorite mp3 for a cell phone ringer and spending the next 3 hours in spammer hell.
  - ktsmith 16y ago
    > The one thing you bring up that's interesting is what to do with bad searches. How do you deal with a mis-typed part number? Should a system know which part number you have? If so, how would that be done? There's lots of ways to handle this but doing a fuzzy search for similar or possibly related part numbers should be easy enough. The user can then be presented with those search results. If the model/part number isn't found you could even provide them the option of adding content for that part if the site takes user generated content. I don't think I've seen any site take this approach but instead go with the spammy show a ton of ads approach instead. Appliance models and part numbers is actually pretty interesting. A couple of people I know built and maintain a simple desktop application for smaller appliance retailers and parts/service companies. The application contains a database of all valid part numbers issued by every major appliance vendor for the last twenty years or so. This information is updated about once per week by the manufacturers and they supply this information freely to anyone that wants it or to members of specific programs. Some of this information is provided via faxes or emails which sucks but data entry can be farmed out to temps. This company aggregates the data and provides it as a service to their customers. The application can do full or partial matches for part numbers and can filter based on appliance type. If a small two man team that doesn't even work on the project full time can successfully manage that I don't see why the big web based sites are so full of bogus content and spam.
jshen 16y ago
you failed to address the main point. Google is filled with duplicate content, aggregation sites, and content farms with shit content that has the right statistical profile. this is not the same problem as different people perceiving results differently.
- rhizome 16y ago
  Sure, but it can also have to do with different people perceiving inputs differently. While I lament the content duplicators with a passion, I deal with it myself with longer search queries. Grouping and requiring, excluding particular domains (like efreedom), and so on. I know we all probably do this to some extent, but I've found that, sure, you have to exclude 10 different domains, but it does winnow down the results in a useful search. I'd rather be able to search with three words, but for now those days are over.
- spenrose 16y ago
  "Unfortunately, it isn’t just appliance reviews that are the problem. Almost any popular search term will take you into seedy neighborhoods." Quantification? Detailed examples? Link to his research? All missing in the original article.
mattmcknight 16y ago
My thought when I read the Kedrosky thing months ago was very similar. Many times the reason you aren't getting good Google results is that there isn't good indexable content. Consumer Reports is a leader in this space and they are behind a paywall. I started exploring the possibility of creating a site for appliance reviews as well.

ktsmith 16y ago

> is their project a spam site or not? To me that depends a LOT on how they present the advertisements and what they do on pages where they don't have information for a product. My biggest complaint with so called review sites is that they are presented more advertisements than content. They also tend to have automatically generated pages for every model number you can imagine, including incorrect ones that they receive searches for. On those pages there tends to be links to shopping sites and prices for unrelated appliances and products. I absolutely consider that to be spam because they are content free. The problem with google searches lately, and especially for things like appliances, is that the spammers and content mills are clearly winning. In my current search for a washer and dryer the manufacturers page was on page four or five or the results. The first few pages were flooded with bogus content pages, sale pages and unrelated pages. Trying to filter out shopping sites and explicitly target specific keywords and filter others doesn't help. There are a growing number of search topics for which google is simply broken.

DanielBMarkham 16y ago
In regards to the style of the pages, I completely agree with you -- probably because we have similar tastes in content. Others, however, might not. I'm not saying that flashing text and floating images are okay, just that the threshold between "mildly annoying" and "total shit" is a personal thing. The problem is, as you point out, that most people, most of the time, are beginning to see results they don't need or like when they type a search. This is a big problem for both searchers and the companies that provide search. If you create an algorithm for directing people's behavior (a search engine) folks are going to game it. You and I might not like it, but "gaming the way people do things" is called marketing in any other context and has been around for hundreds of years. This leads me to suspect that no simple (or even complex) system of finding things for people is ever going to work for an extended period of time. It's a radar vs. radar detector problem. It's a natural competitive situation. But it doesn't have to be all bad. From competition and fitness criteria comes evolution. Spammers and search engines will probably be a key part of how AI evolves. It'll be neat to see if we move beyond Bayes -- and if so, how would that work? The one thing you bring up that's interesting is what to do with bad searches. How do you deal with a mis-typed part number? Should a system know which part number you have? If so, how would that be done? I think the spammers covering all the misspellings are doing a service -- as long as the site isn't obnoxious and provides the user with the information they are looking for. We think of it as a failure of Google, but in fact it looks like a win: thousands of little spammers trying to find all the mistakes I make and providing content for them -- as long as they have my best interests in mind (and are not trying to trick me). I'll happily look at an advertisement for a Ford Explorer in return for valuable information on my 1978 dishwasher that I couldn't read the entire part number for. And I hate ads. I like that scenario a lot more than looking for a favorite mp3 for a cell phone ringer and spending the next 3 hours in spammer hell.
- ktsmith 16y ago
  > The one thing you bring up that's interesting is what to do with bad searches. How do you deal with a mis-typed part number? Should a system know which part number you have? If so, how would that be done? There's lots of ways to handle this but doing a fuzzy search for similar or possibly related part numbers should be easy enough. The user can then be presented with those search results. If the model/part number isn't found you could even provide them the option of adding content for that part if the site takes user generated content. I don't think I've seen any site take this approach but instead go with the spammy show a ton of ads approach instead. Appliance models and part numbers is actually pretty interesting. A couple of people I know built and maintain a simple desktop application for smaller appliance retailers and parts/service companies. The application contains a database of all valid part numbers issued by every major appliance vendor for the last twenty years or so. This information is updated about once per week by the manufacturers and they supply this information freely to anyone that wants it or to members of specific programs. Some of this information is provided via faxes or emails which sucks but data entry can be farmed out to temps. This company aggregates the data and provides it as a service to their customers. The application can do full or partial matches for part numbers and can filter based on appliance type. If a small two man team that doesn't even work on the project full time can successfully manage that I don't see why the big web based sites are so full of bogus content and spam.

jshen 16y ago

you failed to address the main point. Google is filled with duplicate content, aggregation sites, and content farms with shit content that has the right statistical profile. this is not the same problem as different people perceiving results differently.

rhizome 16y ago
Sure, but it can also have to do with different people perceiving inputs differently. While I lament the content duplicators with a passion, I deal with it myself with longer search queries. Grouping and requiring, excluding particular domains (like efreedom), and so on. I know we all probably do this to some extent, but I've found that, sure, you have to exclude 10 different domains, but it does winnow down the results in a useful search. I'd rather be able to search with three words, but for now those days are over.
spenrose 16y ago
"Unfortunately, it isn’t just appliance reviews that are the problem. Almost any popular search term will take you into seedy neighborhoods." Quantification? Detailed examples? Link to his research? All missing in the original article.

mattmcknight 16y ago

My thought when I read the Kedrosky thing months ago was very similar. Many times the reason you aren't getting good Google results is that there isn't good indexable content. Consumer Reports is a leader in this space and they are behind a paywall. I started exploring the possibility of creating a site for appliance reviews as well.