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I searched for an error message yesterday and Search removed 18 of the 20 keywords (they are all scratched out as 'missing'). The only remaining keywords were f

I searched for an error message yesterday and Search removed 18 of the 20 keywords (they are all scratched out as 'missing'). The only remaining keywords were for the platform I had the error on. Thousands of results that were all completely irrelevant. I was completely stunned how something I rely on could suddenly do that. What is the point? Google's monopoly has gotten to the point where they do not care how their products perform, just so long as the money continues to rain in.

huffmsa 7y ago
Happens to me all the time now too. Even when I put the phrase in quotes it still omits words or says "search for X, do your really want to search for Y" But maybe our use cases are the outliers, and the new search is what works for most people.
- Majromax 7y ago
  > But maybe our use cases are the outliers, and the new search is what works for most people. I think it's a probability problem more often expressed in terms of medical tests / false positives. If a million people search for <word> but 1% of those make a typo and search for <wrod> instead, whereas a thousand people deliberately search for <wrod>, Google's observation of a search for <wrod> is 90% likely to be a typo. However well-intentioned, this can undermine one of the core, original features of a good search engine like Google: deriving value from the "long tail" of esoteric (and often very technical) quests for information.
  - eitland 7y ago
    The real problem here is that Google does this even when we use double quotes and the verbatim option :-/ I switched to DDG a while ago, -it is about as good as Google now, much thanks to Googles own effort ower the last decade to nerf its own search engine. Since they are now about equal I use the one that doesn't track me and doesn't support Google.
    - gargravarr 7y ago
      I've just changed my browser default to DDG. Think I'm gonna start detox'ing myself from Google.
    - klingonopera 7y ago
      I've been using DDG for about half a year now, most of the time it does its job, but just yesterday, there was a case where I had to run back to Google: Searching for the "Ship of Theseus" with the words "ship replaced part by part" on Google lead me straight to the Wiki article, whereas on DDG... Not sure if they're using a statistical (DDG could never compete, too few searches performed) or an algorithmic (DDG could, in time, get this far too) pattern to achieve correct results. EDIT: It's about the tenth result on DDG, the last one to show before having to click to load more results. Not bad, actually.
  - huffmsa 7y ago
    Which was their killer feature. Yahoo!™ Was great if you knew what curated content you already wanted. But if you wanted some esoteric, bizarrely specific thing indexed on a single page on a single site, you went with Google. They're turning into Yahoo.
  - mannykannot 7y ago
    I just tried "wrod". Google asks if I meant "word", but it does perform a search for "wrod".
    - huffmsa 7y ago
      Wrod is probably common enough and has enough real results that it works. "Sulliven", a mount in northwestern Scotland, gets "fixed" to Sullivan. It does work when quoted though
      - mannykannot 7y ago
        Google maps, Wikipedia and other sources apparently spell it Suliven [1], and a Google search for that, without quotes, returns it. Searching for "sulliven" (in quotes) finds a few (possibly mis-spelled?) references to the mountain (and some other things, mostly people named Sulliven.) [1] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Suilven/@58.120899,-5.4389847,9z/data=!4m8!1m2!2m1!1smount+sulliven!3m4!1s0x488e2e0fd3e53a9d:0x2ec1b8719695ab71!8m2!3d58.1011055!4d-5.1306152?hl=en&authuser=0 https://www.google.com/maps/place/Suilven/@58.120899,-5.4389...
  - naringas 7y ago
    this behavior is worse than that. it basically says, "I won't search for that keyword, here are some results without it"
  - gargravarr 7y ago
    Sure, correcting typos, I wouldn't hold that against them. However, when they intentionally scratch out search terms for no apparent reason and show extremely vague matches, it's completely useless. I was searching for a specific error message that was causing my MacBook to freeze on login. Instead, the only two terms Google preserved were 'mac os'. First result was Apple's own page on the OS. Every result was entirely useless. Fine, if there's no actual result for this error message, tell me, but don't make me scan through a page full of irrelevant links and make me figure out myself why they're irrelevant.
pdkl95 7y ago
> (they are all scratched out as 'missing') The 'missing' notes are incredibly condescending. Not only are the results irrelevant/incorrect, they also had to arrogantly point out exactly how they are choosing to ignore the user's request.
- gargravarr 7y ago
  Amen to that. I got to where I am as a sysadmin by knowing how to filter out keywords to make my search specific. Then Google throw all that away and decide for me what I want to search for. No Google, you don't tell me what to do.
  - pdkl95 7y ago
    Animaniacs Episode 7, "Piano Rag": [The Warners try to hide form Dr, Scratchandsniff in a piano recital, where Tymannini is about to perform] TYMP: Franz Schubert intended the scherzo to reflect the struggle between intellect and the creative process. TYMP: However, Schubert was simply incapable of expressing such delicate nuance. But, thanks to *my* genius, I will perform this great work, *not* as the composer wrote it, but as he *intended*. DWIM ("Do What I Mean")[1] has always been impossible; it's a fallacious belief that what a user intended is different from what they actually said, and that this intent can somehow be divined form a few words, typos, etc. > as a sysadmin It doesn't even require any advanced technical knowledge. Most people understand basic keyword searching. Over the last ~6-12 months, I've seen a wide variety of people complain about Google ignoring their search terms. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15628014 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15628014

huffmsa 7y ago

Happens to me all the time now too. Even when I put the phrase in quotes it still omits words or says "search for X, do your really want to search for Y" But maybe our use cases are the outliers, and the new search is what works for most people.

Majromax 7y ago
> But maybe our use cases are the outliers, and the new search is what works for most people. I think it's a probability problem more often expressed in terms of medical tests / false positives. If a million people search for <word> but 1% of those make a typo and search for <wrod> instead, whereas a thousand people deliberately search for <wrod>, Google's observation of a search for <wrod> is 90% likely to be a typo. However well-intentioned, this can undermine one of the core, original features of a good search engine like Google: deriving value from the "long tail" of esoteric (and often very technical) quests for information.
- eitland 7y ago
  The real problem here is that Google does this even when we use double quotes and the verbatim option :-/ I switched to DDG a while ago, -it is about as good as Google now, much thanks to Googles own effort ower the last decade to nerf its own search engine. Since they are now about equal I use the one that doesn't track me and doesn't support Google.
  - gargravarr 7y ago
    I've just changed my browser default to DDG. Think I'm gonna start detox'ing myself from Google.
  - klingonopera 7y ago
    I've been using DDG for about half a year now, most of the time it does its job, but just yesterday, there was a case where I had to run back to Google: Searching for the "Ship of Theseus" with the words "ship replaced part by part" on Google lead me straight to the Wiki article, whereas on DDG... Not sure if they're using a statistical (DDG could never compete, too few searches performed) or an algorithmic (DDG could, in time, get this far too) pattern to achieve correct results. EDIT: It's about the tenth result on DDG, the last one to show before having to click to load more results. Not bad, actually.
- huffmsa 7y ago
  Which was their killer feature. Yahoo!™ Was great if you knew what curated content you already wanted. But if you wanted some esoteric, bizarrely specific thing indexed on a single page on a single site, you went with Google. They're turning into Yahoo.
- mannykannot 7y ago
  I just tried "wrod". Google asks if I meant "word", but it does perform a search for "wrod".
  - huffmsa 7y ago
    Wrod is probably common enough and has enough real results that it works. "Sulliven", a mount in northwestern Scotland, gets "fixed" to Sullivan. It does work when quoted though
    - mannykannot 7y ago
      Google maps, Wikipedia and other sources apparently spell it Suliven [1], and a Google search for that, without quotes, returns it. Searching for "sulliven" (in quotes) finds a few (possibly mis-spelled?) references to the mountain (and some other things, mostly people named Sulliven.) [1] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Suilven/@58.120899,-5.4389847,9z/data=!4m8!1m2!2m1!1smount+sulliven!3m4!1s0x488e2e0fd3e53a9d:0x2ec1b8719695ab71!8m2!3d58.1011055!4d-5.1306152?hl=en&authuser=0 https://www.google.com/maps/place/Suilven/@58.120899,-5.4389...
- naringas 7y ago
  this behavior is worse than that. it basically says, "I won't search for that keyword, here are some results without it"
- gargravarr 7y ago
  Sure, correcting typos, I wouldn't hold that against them. However, when they intentionally scratch out search terms for no apparent reason and show extremely vague matches, it's completely useless. I was searching for a specific error message that was causing my MacBook to freeze on login. Instead, the only two terms Google preserved were 'mac os'. First result was Apple's own page on the OS. Every result was entirely useless. Fine, if there's no actual result for this error message, tell me, but don't make me scan through a page full of irrelevant links and make me figure out myself why they're irrelevant.

pdkl95 7y ago

> (they are all scratched out as 'missing') The 'missing' notes are incredibly condescending. Not only are the results irrelevant/incorrect, they also had to arrogantly point out exactly how they are choosing to ignore the user's request.

gargravarr 7y ago
Amen to that. I got to where I am as a sysadmin by knowing how to filter out keywords to make my search specific. Then Google throw all that away and decide for me what I want to search for. No Google, you don't tell me what to do.
- pdkl95 7y ago
  Animaniacs Episode 7, "Piano Rag": [The Warners try to hide form Dr, Scratchandsniff in a piano recital, where Tymannini is about to perform] TYMP: Franz Schubert intended the scherzo to reflect the struggle between intellect and the creative process. TYMP: However, Schubert was simply incapable of expressing such delicate nuance. But, thanks to *my* genius, I will perform this great work, *not* as the composer wrote it, but as he *intended*. DWIM ("Do What I Mean")[1] has always been impossible; it's a fallacious belief that what a user intended is different from what they actually said, and that this intent can somehow be divined form a few words, typos, etc. > as a sysadmin It doesn't even require any advanced technical knowledge. Most people understand basic keyword searching. Over the last ~6-12 months, I've seen a wide variety of people complain about Google ignoring their search terms. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15628014 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15628014