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Google isn't "becoming" useless. Google, and every other search engine, has always been relatively useless at generic queries. The fact that they're building

Google isn't "becoming" useless. Google, and every other search engine, has always been relatively useless at generic queries. The fact that they're building out structured experiences for some of these queries is helpful, but the ones they haven't built out structured experiences for aren't any worse than they used to be. If you can form a sufficiently specific query, Google is still exceptionally good at returning useful information, with few ads or infoboxes or anything else other than organic search results. If your search terms are too generic, Google essentially gives up and just serves you ads instead.

the_duke 7y ago
> has always been relatively useless at generic queries I beg to differ here. Years ago I felt like I could discover useful information about a topic through Google with relative ease. Results would contain informational links that let me explore the subject. This basically impossible now; with Google Search at least.
- ambicapter 7y ago
  How can you tell whether or not this is a google search issue or an internet landscape issue?
  - Gracana 7y ago
    By comparison to other search engines. Duckduckgo seems to give me better search results and is less influenced by advertisements and trends. What finally pushed me away from Google was its incorrect assumption of equivalence between different terms. I'd search something like "printer scaling draftsight" and it would return results with "printer" "scaling" and "autocad" all in bold. Because autocad and draftsight are 2D CAD programs, and autocad is more popular, so suuurely that's what I wanted.
    - spurgu 7y ago
      > Because autocad and draftsight are 2D CAD programs, and autocad is more popular, so suuurely that's what I wanted. Yeah I've noticed this a lot in recent months/years. Have been finding myself putting most of the keywords of the query in quotation marks to get any kind of results relevant to my actual query. Like 'printer "scaling" "draftsight"' just so that G wouldn't make some stupid assumptions.
      - beerandt 7y ago
        Which has started working as good as Amazon internal search... One page of results with 8 of 10 completely unrelated.
    - lostconfused 7y ago
      There is a useful edge case to this. In my case I was searching for a specific bit of content that had too few results in English so Google started returning results based on similar search terms in another language. It took a bunch of quotes and some specific strings to get into that state in the first place though.
      - beerandt 7y ago
        This is the larger problem... Google thinks it's making our search easier by force feeding us what we obviously don't want. It interprets what it thinks I meant instead of listening to the actual words that came out of my mouth. I have the same problem with my wife... :-)
        socceroos 7y ago
        You're right; right on multiple levels...heh Language is used to convey meaning. The difference between my wife and Google is that Google tries to interpret language in the lowest common denominator which leaves all people who try to use language properly feeling like they need to learn a new one just to be understood by their search engine. ...maybe that's not so different.
    - icebraining 7y ago
      https://www.google.com/webhp?tbs=li:1 https://www.google.com/webhp?tbs=li:1
    - netwanderer3 7y ago
      I was not able to replicate your issues and did not notice any similar said results from my end. Have you tried searching under another account or with a different machine perhaps? Just for testing purposes.
    - 0ld 7y ago
      Unfortunately, DDG has a close relationships with the kgb's outlet yandex (and trying not to mention that anywhere unless asked directly), which is absolute showstopper for me
      - lethologica 7y ago
        This is the first time I'm hearing this. Can you provide more information please?
  - ForHackernews 7y ago
    For most intents and purposes, Google is the internet landscape. They are the dominant browser, search engine, email system, and mobile operating system.
  - hiram112 7y ago
    Isn't that irrelevant as far as Google's usefulness is concerned? The internet is always going to be in constant flux: SEO trickery, the rise and fall of sites which contain the most relevant data, context of the search (browser -> phone), etc. Google's main job is to make it as easy as possible for a user to find what they want. For example, as a techie, 15 years ago that might have meant making sure to constantly index usenet and various mailing lists. Today most of that content is at StackExchange, Github, Reddit, etc. And it's not just tech searches - everyone will have their own niche which Google once got right and often returned as the very first result (when was the last time you were confident in using the 'lucky' result?), and now, not only do they not return relevant results, whatever they do return is mixed with tons of ads and (probably) paid results that aren't marked as ads. The fact that Google doesn't yet pay dividends while the MBAs there are apparently intent on destroying the company's main product as fast as they can, doesn't bode well for their share price going forward.
  - beerandt 7y ago
    For some searches, it's as easy as tacking on an extra word, and seeing how different the results are. Especially true for blacklisted and censored Google searches, which for whatever reason don't seem to be wildcarded terms. Try searching for just the name of a supposed whistleblower, then add another term, and get all the censored results. Even more true in the news tab, which initially returned -0- results.
    - NoodleIncident 7y ago
      If you're not going to link or at least screenshot some examples to support a claim like this, it would be better to not post at all.
      - beerandt 7y ago
        From news search on Android: https://ibb.co/fGW6Cm8 https://ibb.co/fGW6Cm8 https://ibb.co/ZmSJRwc https://ibb.co/ZmSJRwc
- mrmonkeyman 7y ago
  I agree. The SEO wars have utterly destroyed all usefulness.
- sgarman 7y ago
  I guess the question is: Is it harder now because of changes google made or harder now because of changes to the internet (There is so much more content now to search and filter).
  - npo9 7y ago
    Both? Google helped shape the internet by connecting customers to businesses. The internet helped shape Google because it’s Google’s primary data source.
  - throwaway2048 7y ago
    Part of the problem is a huge part of that "content" is ultra SEO'd low quality copy pasted crap crammed with ads, specifically designed to harvest clicks from Google, and little else. The best open source mailing list archive is unquestionably https://marc.info https://marc.info . yet when you search things that are open source relevant, you get https://nabble.com https://nabble.com which goes as far as to fake being a forum and fills content from mailing lists, is nearly useless feature wise, and is crammed with all sorts of nasty obnoxious advertising. marc.info doesn't even crack page 10 with typical queries, because they don't play the SEO optimization game, and doesn't run ads. This is a great example of Google becoming totally useless. The last time I remember this being mentioned on HN, a few days later marc.info was at the top of search results for mailing list type posts, but it seems whatever manual tweak they applied has since been invalidated by the Googletron...
  - fanf2 7y ago
    Yes it is harder because of the death of the + operator and the insistence on aggressive stemming and autocorrecting that applies even when you “really” “mean” “what” “you” “say”.
    - maemilius 7y ago
      Interesting that the + operator doesn't work but the - operator still works just fine. I don't know how many times I've had to add -nodejs to things I'm trying to search to eliminate irrelevant garbage from some of my searches.
- sailfast 7y ago
  Curious - do you allow them to track your browsing history and/or are you logged in or do you block and stay anonymous-ish? I’m in the latter camp and wondering if their inferences are just getting better if they have more of your data. Still not willing to give it to them willingly to get better results, but it would at least explain a few things.
  - dual_basis 7y ago
    Not the person you originally asked, but I can share a relevant experience. I definitely have concerns with the amount of data Google has about me and, in particular, the idea of Chrome monopolizing the browser landscape. As a result, a few months ago I tried switching to Firefox, complete with container tabs and scripts which removed Google analytics from everywhere. The difference in search results was very noticeable. Most notable was that my Google news feed (on my Android phone) and YouTube recommendations quickly became filled with generic junk, whereas before it was so relevant I would often find the answer to something I had been researching earlier mixed in with my news feed. I ended up going back to Chrome, mostly due to battery issues with Firefox, however even if I hadn't switched back I think I would have voluntarily turned off all the anti-tracking stuff. It is a data privacy concern, and moreover I hate the idea of giving Google all this data, but the benefits for me were very palpable.
- fwip 7y ago
  Do you feel that your queries now are approximately similar to those you used to get good results on? I can see a world in which the parent comment is correct, and we've "dumbed down" our queries because it gets us good enough answers most of the time. For example, perhaps I used to google "halo game walkthrough OR tutorial" and now I would type "halo tips."
  - xmprt 7y ago
    It's true that I can get decent results with bad queries but the problem is that when you try being more specific, the results don't get much better.
  - ergothus 7y ago
    The results are more oriented to the bulk appeal, with the result that the long tail gets little attention. If I want what is high in the rankings, it is easy to get with minimal effort. If I want something niche, any specific queries are directed back to the general answer.
virgilp 7y ago
Not true. Recently I found myself using duckduckgo more. Partially because they added ddg.gg and it's not such a pain to type.... but mostly when I just can't find stuff on Google. That was never the case a few years ago, if I didn't find it on Google, I couldn't find it on any other search engine.
prepend 7y ago
Froogle was once great because it used Google’s search algorithm and index to return the best results across the web. Putting a sku was like magic and extremely useful. I bought so much equipment, at a better price because of it. Shopping.google.com was much less useful because it only returned advertisers. I was able to find better matches at lower prices by entering really precise searches and using organic results. It’s harder to find things for sale through Google now than 10 years ago.
blondin 7y ago
tbh, i think you are right in a certain sense. i think the search reflects what is going on online or perhaps what people are looking for online. i mean, i remember the days when searching for python would give you the snake on the front page! i was surprised the other day that it didn't anymore even though i never told google i meant the programming language... is it me or something?
pasttense01 7y ago
If you do a search with several more general terms and one specialized term: for several of the search results they will drop the specialized term.

the_duke 7y ago

> has always been relatively useless at generic queries I beg to differ here. Years ago I felt like I could discover useful information about a topic through Google with relative ease. Results would contain informational links that let me explore the subject. This basically impossible now; with Google Search at least.

ambicapter 7y ago
How can you tell whether or not this is a google search issue or an internet landscape issue?
- Gracana 7y ago
  By comparison to other search engines. Duckduckgo seems to give me better search results and is less influenced by advertisements and trends. What finally pushed me away from Google was its incorrect assumption of equivalence between different terms. I'd search something like "printer scaling draftsight" and it would return results with "printer" "scaling" and "autocad" all in bold. Because autocad and draftsight are 2D CAD programs, and autocad is more popular, so suuurely that's what I wanted.
  - spurgu 7y ago
    > Because autocad and draftsight are 2D CAD programs, and autocad is more popular, so suuurely that's what I wanted. Yeah I've noticed this a lot in recent months/years. Have been finding myself putting most of the keywords of the query in quotation marks to get any kind of results relevant to my actual query. Like 'printer "scaling" "draftsight"' just so that G wouldn't make some stupid assumptions.
    - beerandt 7y ago
      Which has started working as good as Amazon internal search... One page of results with 8 of 10 completely unrelated.
  - lostconfused 7y ago
    There is a useful edge case to this. In my case I was searching for a specific bit of content that had too few results in English so Google started returning results based on similar search terms in another language. It took a bunch of quotes and some specific strings to get into that state in the first place though.
    - beerandt 7y ago
      This is the larger problem... Google thinks it's making our search easier by force feeding us what we obviously don't want. It interprets what it thinks I meant instead of listening to the actual words that came out of my mouth. I have the same problem with my wife... :-)
      - socceroos 7y ago
        You're right; right on multiple levels...heh Language is used to convey meaning. The difference between my wife and Google is that Google tries to interpret language in the lowest common denominator which leaves all people who try to use language properly feeling like they need to learn a new one just to be understood by their search engine. ...maybe that's not so different.
  - icebraining 7y ago
    https://www.google.com/webhp?tbs=li:1 https://www.google.com/webhp?tbs=li:1
  - netwanderer3 7y ago
    I was not able to replicate your issues and did not notice any similar said results from my end. Have you tried searching under another account or with a different machine perhaps? Just for testing purposes.
  - 0ld 7y ago
    Unfortunately, DDG has a close relationships with the kgb's outlet yandex (and trying not to mention that anywhere unless asked directly), which is absolute showstopper for me
    - lethologica 7y ago
      This is the first time I'm hearing this. Can you provide more information please?
- ForHackernews 7y ago
  For most intents and purposes, Google is the internet landscape. They are the dominant browser, search engine, email system, and mobile operating system.
- hiram112 7y ago
  Isn't that irrelevant as far as Google's usefulness is concerned? The internet is always going to be in constant flux: SEO trickery, the rise and fall of sites which contain the most relevant data, context of the search (browser -> phone), etc. Google's main job is to make it as easy as possible for a user to find what they want. For example, as a techie, 15 years ago that might have meant making sure to constantly index usenet and various mailing lists. Today most of that content is at StackExchange, Github, Reddit, etc. And it's not just tech searches - everyone will have their own niche which Google once got right and often returned as the very first result (when was the last time you were confident in using the 'lucky' result?), and now, not only do they not return relevant results, whatever they do return is mixed with tons of ads and (probably) paid results that aren't marked as ads. The fact that Google doesn't yet pay dividends while the MBAs there are apparently intent on destroying the company's main product as fast as they can, doesn't bode well for their share price going forward.
- beerandt 7y ago
  For some searches, it's as easy as tacking on an extra word, and seeing how different the results are. Especially true for blacklisted and censored Google searches, which for whatever reason don't seem to be wildcarded terms. Try searching for just the name of a supposed whistleblower, then add another term, and get all the censored results. Even more true in the news tab, which initially returned -0- results.
  - NoodleIncident 7y ago
    If you're not going to link or at least screenshot some examples to support a claim like this, it would be better to not post at all.
    - beerandt 7y ago
      From news search on Android: https://ibb.co/fGW6Cm8 https://ibb.co/fGW6Cm8 https://ibb.co/ZmSJRwc https://ibb.co/ZmSJRwc
mrmonkeyman 7y ago
I agree. The SEO wars have utterly destroyed all usefulness.
sgarman 7y ago
I guess the question is: Is it harder now because of changes google made or harder now because of changes to the internet (There is so much more content now to search and filter).
- npo9 7y ago
  Both? Google helped shape the internet by connecting customers to businesses. The internet helped shape Google because it’s Google’s primary data source.
- throwaway2048 7y ago
  Part of the problem is a huge part of that "content" is ultra SEO'd low quality copy pasted crap crammed with ads, specifically designed to harvest clicks from Google, and little else. The best open source mailing list archive is unquestionably https://marc.info https://marc.info . yet when you search things that are open source relevant, you get https://nabble.com https://nabble.com which goes as far as to fake being a forum and fills content from mailing lists, is nearly useless feature wise, and is crammed with all sorts of nasty obnoxious advertising. marc.info doesn't even crack page 10 with typical queries, because they don't play the SEO optimization game, and doesn't run ads. This is a great example of Google becoming totally useless. The last time I remember this being mentioned on HN, a few days later marc.info was at the top of search results for mailing list type posts, but it seems whatever manual tweak they applied has since been invalidated by the Googletron...
- fanf2 7y ago
  Yes it is harder because of the death of the + operator and the insistence on aggressive stemming and autocorrecting that applies even when you “really” “mean” “what” “you” “say”.
  - maemilius 7y ago
    Interesting that the + operator doesn't work but the - operator still works just fine. I don't know how many times I've had to add -nodejs to things I'm trying to search to eliminate irrelevant garbage from some of my searches.
sailfast 7y ago
Curious - do you allow them to track your browsing history and/or are you logged in or do you block and stay anonymous-ish? I’m in the latter camp and wondering if their inferences are just getting better if they have more of your data. Still not willing to give it to them willingly to get better results, but it would at least explain a few things.
- dual_basis 7y ago
  Not the person you originally asked, but I can share a relevant experience. I definitely have concerns with the amount of data Google has about me and, in particular, the idea of Chrome monopolizing the browser landscape. As a result, a few months ago I tried switching to Firefox, complete with container tabs and scripts which removed Google analytics from everywhere. The difference in search results was very noticeable. Most notable was that my Google news feed (on my Android phone) and YouTube recommendations quickly became filled with generic junk, whereas before it was so relevant I would often find the answer to something I had been researching earlier mixed in with my news feed. I ended up going back to Chrome, mostly due to battery issues with Firefox, however even if I hadn't switched back I think I would have voluntarily turned off all the anti-tracking stuff. It is a data privacy concern, and moreover I hate the idea of giving Google all this data, but the benefits for me were very palpable.
fwip 7y ago
Do you feel that your queries now are approximately similar to those you used to get good results on? I can see a world in which the parent comment is correct, and we've "dumbed down" our queries because it gets us good enough answers most of the time. For example, perhaps I used to google "halo game walkthrough OR tutorial" and now I would type "halo tips."
- xmprt 7y ago
  It's true that I can get decent results with bad queries but the problem is that when you try being more specific, the results don't get much better.
- ergothus 7y ago
  The results are more oriented to the bulk appeal, with the result that the long tail gets little attention. If I want what is high in the rankings, it is easy to get with minimal effort. If I want something niche, any specific queries are directed back to the general answer.

virgilp 7y ago

Not true. Recently I found myself using duckduckgo more. Partially because they added ddg.gg and it's not such a pain to type.... but mostly when I just can't find stuff on Google. That was never the case a few years ago, if I didn't find it on Google, I couldn't find it on any other search engine.

prepend 7y ago

Froogle was once great because it used Google’s search algorithm and index to return the best results across the web. Putting a sku was like magic and extremely useful. I bought so much equipment, at a better price because of it. Shopping.google.com was much less useful because it only returned advertisers. I was able to find better matches at lower prices by entering really precise searches and using organic results. It’s harder to find things for sale through Google now than 10 years ago.

blondin 7y ago

tbh, i think you are right in a certain sense. i think the search reflects what is going on online or perhaps what people are looking for online. i mean, i remember the days when searching for python would give you the snake on the front page! i was surprised the other day that it didn't anymore even though i never told google i meant the programming language... is it me or something?

pasttense01 7y ago

If you do a search with several more general terms and one specialized term: for several of the search results they will drop the specialized term.