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I find google's search filters are 100% broken. Just tested this myself again. Try searching for site:reddit.com best headphones And click "Tools" and set th

I find google's search filters are 100% broken. Just tested this myself again. Try searching for site:reddit.com best headphones And click "Tools" and set the date filter to be "Past week" for example. Click the first result. You will notice it's from a year ago. Click the second result, it's from 2 years ago and so on. Not a single result matches the date filter. Similar issues with the other filters. It's 100% broken and been this way for at least a year now as far as I remember.

joking 6y ago
The google filter means modified on the last 2 weeeks, and dynamic pages have related posts and other part of the pages that change, so those filters are not going to work well on something like Reddit.
- epanchin 6y ago
  Google should rely on a last modified date supplied by an author, and penalise sites that change it without actual changes to the content. Or alternatively, improve their algorithm for detecting page changes. Somehow it should be improved, as it’s a useful feature.
- blisseyGo 6y ago
  I am fairly certain this feature used to work well earlier last year. It broke sometime in summer last year as I even made a post on Reddit asking if this was a new bug. Unless the redesign of Reddit broke this somehow? But as far as I know, this has broken for other sites too. And Reddit redesign is over 2 years old now.
- fauigerzigerk 6y ago
  I find this sort of issue very encouraging. You sometimes think, how am I ever going to compete with someone like Google? They can hire more PhDs per day than I can write lines of code. And then this. An unsolved problem that they could have solved 20 years ago - recognising that pages are not necessarily one atomic unit and that different parts can be updated at different times. Or more generally that different types of websites require slightly different approaches to search. It's not a trivial problem if you think about it. But for a search company to get this completely wrong even for a global top 100 discussion forum requires a severe lack of incentives. And that's where I get the sinking feeling that I shouldn't be encouraged by Google's failure at all, because those incentives are difficult to fix for anyone. I'm pessimistic about Ramaswamy's approach. Putting a paid ad blocker on Bing isn't going to fix this.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- IAmGraydon 6y ago
  This. It used to go by the date the Reddit thread was created, but now they’re going by modifications, which makes the timeframe useless. Unfortunately, Reddit’s built-in search is also lacking.
- adfgininio 6y ago
  Reddit is rank 20 on Alexa. They could make it a special case.
- bananaface 6y ago
  I mean, that's why it's broken - but it's still broken. It doesn't filter pages based on when the relevant content was added.
dpacmittal 6y ago
I tried it just yesterday when I wanted some real reviews for a product and it worked well.
- eitland 6y ago
  Your Google is not everyone elses Google. While smaller companies seems to have a hard time implementing A/B-testing Google seems to be running tens or hundreds of tests continously. Here's a nice trick: If you report any issue on a search results page it seems to opt you out of the experimental group and you get normal results for some hours/days/weeks. Still not great like in 2009 but not as crazy as whatever bugs you now. At least it has worked for me on a couple of occasions. Googlers: If you are relying on people giving feedback to know if a change is annoying users, be aware that your feedback process actively discourages people from submitting feedback. Even I have to be reaaalllly motivated to send feedback.
  - eythian 6y ago
    I bet they're doing a lot more A/B tests than that. I work with a system that has thousands going on at any one time, I wouldn't be surprised that that is typical for bigger companies that get into the testing culture like that.
    - eitland 6y ago
      Very likely.
  - sukilot 6y ago
    > running tens or hundreds of tests continously. How quaint. A common human fallacy is to pick a medium size number and think it is big. People have trouble grasping large scale (perhaps due to how our senses instinctively use a logarithmic scale)
    - LetThereBeNick 6y ago
      A common human fallacy is to pick a single misstep and over-generalize it into a larger pattern of... oh God, I’m doing it now, aren’t I?
XCSme 6y ago
I also noticed the same when it comes to Reddit. I usually search for a specific problem, for example "sony TV sound issue" and want only recent results (TVs that use the latest firmware). The Reddit results appear as "1 day ago" even if they are 4 years old.

joking 6y ago

The google filter means modified on the last 2 weeeks, and dynamic pages have related posts and other part of the pages that change, so those filters are not going to work well on something like Reddit.

epanchin 6y ago
Google should rely on a last modified date supplied by an author, and penalise sites that change it without actual changes to the content. Or alternatively, improve their algorithm for detecting page changes. Somehow it should be improved, as it’s a useful feature.
blisseyGo 6y ago
I am fairly certain this feature used to work well earlier last year. It broke sometime in summer last year as I even made a post on Reddit asking if this was a new bug. Unless the redesign of Reddit broke this somehow? But as far as I know, this has broken for other sites too. And Reddit redesign is over 2 years old now.
fauigerzigerk 6y ago
I find this sort of issue very encouraging. You sometimes think, how am I ever going to compete with someone like Google? They can hire more PhDs per day than I can write lines of code. And then this. An unsolved problem that they could have solved 20 years ago - recognising that pages are not necessarily one atomic unit and that different parts can be updated at different times. Or more generally that different types of websites require slightly different approaches to search. It's not a trivial problem if you think about it. But for a search company to get this completely wrong even for a global top 100 discussion forum requires a severe lack of incentives. And that's where I get the sinking feeling that I shouldn't be encouraged by Google's failure at all, because those incentives are difficult to fix for anyone. I'm pessimistic about Ramaswamy's approach. Putting a paid ad blocker on Bing isn't going to fix this.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
IAmGraydon 6y ago
This. It used to go by the date the Reddit thread was created, but now they’re going by modifications, which makes the timeframe useless. Unfortunately, Reddit’s built-in search is also lacking.
adfgininio 6y ago
Reddit is rank 20 on Alexa. They could make it a special case.
bananaface 6y ago
I mean, that's why it's broken - but it's still broken. It doesn't filter pages based on when the relevant content was added.

dpacmittal 6y ago

I tried it just yesterday when I wanted some real reviews for a product and it worked well.

eitland 6y ago
Your Google is not everyone elses Google. While smaller companies seems to have a hard time implementing A/B-testing Google seems to be running tens or hundreds of tests continously. Here's a nice trick: If you report any issue on a search results page it seems to opt you out of the experimental group and you get normal results for some hours/days/weeks. Still not great like in 2009 but not as crazy as whatever bugs you now. At least it has worked for me on a couple of occasions. Googlers: If you are relying on people giving feedback to know if a change is annoying users, be aware that your feedback process actively discourages people from submitting feedback. Even I have to be reaaalllly motivated to send feedback.
- eythian 6y ago
  I bet they're doing a lot more A/B tests than that. I work with a system that has thousands going on at any one time, I wouldn't be surprised that that is typical for bigger companies that get into the testing culture like that.
  - eitland 6y ago
    Very likely.
- sukilot 6y ago
  > running tens or hundreds of tests continously. How quaint. A common human fallacy is to pick a medium size number and think it is big. People have trouble grasping large scale (perhaps due to how our senses instinctively use a logarithmic scale)
  - LetThereBeNick 6y ago
    A common human fallacy is to pick a single misstep and over-generalize it into a larger pattern of... oh God, I’m doing it now, aren’t I?

XCSme 6y ago

I also noticed the same when it comes to Reddit. I usually search for a specific problem, for example "sony TV sound issue" and want only recent results (TVs that use the latest firmware). The Reddit results appear as "1 day ago" even if they are 4 years old.