5 ms·

Out of curiosity, I checked the student's newspaper website. It turns out that they've made redesign after my time and they've removed the robots.txt file. Howe

Out of curiosity, I checked the student's newspaper website. It turns out that they've made redesign after my time and they've removed the robots.txt file. However, googling the name of the professor in question returns much more recent results and the article is hard to find. It turns out that Google's algorithm buries some stories over time. One more decade and noone will be able to find this part of her history unless they know what they are looking for.

Scoundreller 6y ago
I find that Google discriminates against old content just because. Old, to the point, websites hand-written in notepad.exe are rarely in the top 5-10, even when they have precisely the answer you’re looking for.
- nikanj 6y ago
  It's incredibly hard to find any information that wasn't created this year. Not sure if it's Google discriminating against old sites, or if the new sites just have such incredible levels of SEO-fu that a static, just-contains-what-you-want site has no hope of getting selected for results
  - twofort 6y ago
    Or it could also be that people are more often clicking on recent links or searching for "something something 2021". I know I usually give higher preference to links with more recent date attached as that just-contains-what-you-want site from 2010 will potentially be outdated by now. Of course it depends on subject of your search, but id imagine it's true more often than not in big scale.
    - mvolfik 6y ago
      This is the thing - for some things (e.g. searching for tech to use), you care about recency. But for something you absolutely don't. But the search engines magic seems to throw this all into one bucket and notice that people are more clicking the '2021' links. And the consequence of this is SEO optimization done by automatically updating all links to current year - I searched for something on 1st Jan and already got a bunch of '2021 comparisons'
      - rchaud 6y ago
        It's a common content marketing tactic to update post titles to include "for 2021" a few weeks ahead of the new year. It's a tweak to get it ranking, as every other content marketer is doing the same.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    Except when it isn't. I don't know if I'm uniquely bad at web search these days, but Google seems to do the exact opposite of what I want. I.e. when I need some solid information about a piece of technology or knowledge, it'll spam me with content marketing bullshit published last week. But when I need something recent - like a current opinion on some software alternatives, or installation instructions, all I get are results from 5+ years ago.
    - anoncake 6y ago
      <outlandish conspiracy theory> Google does this to make every tech worker not working for Google, and thus Google's competition, less productive. </outlandish conspiracy theory>
      - felipemnoa 6y ago
        Or maybe the google AI has a funny side. Right now it's probably laughing its ass off reading teMPOral's comment.
    - masklinn 6y ago
      I don’t know if we’re both in that case and Google has simply moved away from how we learned to coerce it (and other search engines) over the years, our habits now yielding negative returns unbeknownst to us, but I find myself in a similar situation. Month after month, year after year, search results get worse, and harder to sift through. At this point, google is mostly a way to find wiki articles despite typos (because Wikipedia’s search is bad and can’t handle typos).
    - int_19h 6y ago
      Google has definitely changed in the past few years. I've noticed that it ignores quotes when it feels like it, and is very aggressive at "synonymous" substitutions (which in many cases aren't - e.g. I've seen it replace "FreeBSD" with "Linux"). It's making it harder and harder to make queries for something specific.
      - Isthatablackgsd 6y ago
  - worldofmatthew 6y ago
    Google often delists articles over around 15 to 20 years after they are put on the internet.
  - megous 6y ago
    I use duckduckgo and it always finds me PostgreSQL documentation for version 9.3 or 8.x or something obsolete like that during general search.
    - disgruntledphd2 6y ago
      Google gave me Python 2 results for every doc query for a looooooonnnnnngggg time, I just clicked to the newest version when I got there.
      - FateOfNations 6y ago
        That was mostly PSF's fault since they had the default documentation URLs setup to point at the Python 2 documentation for way longer than they should have...
        disgruntledphd2 6y ago
        Oh really? Interesting. I always thought it was because Google never switched to Python 3.
    - OJFord 6y ago
      Ha, me too, but then I've also been caught out on 'latest' (which I typically reflexively click on after opening) having some crucial difference from what we're using (12 vs. 13) too, so hard to win there. I don't know off-hand if it's possible with the search (e.g. it might use a last-selected version cookie) but we should probably be using version-specific 'bangs'. `!pg12` or whatever, in my case.
    - Kwpolska 6y ago
      So does Google, and it’s even worse there. In Google, the first page for "postgres window functions" is version 9.1, version 9.3, and 8 random tutorials. DDG has 9.1, 9.3, tutorial (the same as Google…), but then you at least get 12, 11, and then some more tutorials.
- acoard 6y ago
  >I find that Google discriminates against old content just because. Information rots over time, decaying from true to false. Some facts are eternal, many aren't.
- bbarnett 6y ago
  Google works for the masses. It assumes synonyms and aliases are great. For example, searching for phrases like debian <something>, often bring ubuntu help pages to the top results. Worse if you are looking for Dave Smith. You'll get David Smith, because Dave=David, even though you know Dave never identifies as that. Then add it fixing spelling errors. Which often are not. Rare term? Must be a spelling error! Part of this, is because most people are non-precise, and also because Google wants voice input to work well. So there, their, they're are the same thing, but can also synonym to things like them, and they. Point is, Google is trashy for any search not involving cats, or explosions. Quotes barely work, so the only way to mitigate this a bit, as google removed the + search modifier a decade ago, is always, use verbatim, under search tools. And hope Google hasn't broken it that day. Which they do often.

Scoundreller 6y ago

I find that Google discriminates against old content just because. Old, to the point, websites hand-written in notepad.exe are rarely in the top 5-10, even when they have precisely the answer you’re looking for.

nikanj 6y ago
It's incredibly hard to find any information that wasn't created this year. Not sure if it's Google discriminating against old sites, or if the new sites just have such incredible levels of SEO-fu that a static, just-contains-what-you-want site has no hope of getting selected for results
- twofort 6y ago
  Or it could also be that people are more often clicking on recent links or searching for "something something 2021". I know I usually give higher preference to links with more recent date attached as that just-contains-what-you-want site from 2010 will potentially be outdated by now. Of course it depends on subject of your search, but id imagine it's true more often than not in big scale.
  - mvolfik 6y ago
    This is the thing - for some things (e.g. searching for tech to use), you care about recency. But for something you absolutely don't. But the search engines magic seems to throw this all into one bucket and notice that people are more clicking the '2021' links. And the consequence of this is SEO optimization done by automatically updating all links to current year - I searched for something on 1st Jan and already got a bunch of '2021 comparisons'
    - rchaud 6y ago
      It's a common content marketing tactic to update post titles to include "for 2021" a few weeks ahead of the new year. It's a tweak to get it ranking, as every other content marketer is doing the same.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  Except when it isn't. I don't know if I'm uniquely bad at web search these days, but Google seems to do the exact opposite of what I want. I.e. when I need some solid information about a piece of technology or knowledge, it'll spam me with content marketing bullshit published last week. But when I need something recent - like a current opinion on some software alternatives, or installation instructions, all I get are results from 5+ years ago.
  - anoncake 6y ago
    <outlandish conspiracy theory> Google does this to make every tech worker not working for Google, and thus Google's competition, less productive. </outlandish conspiracy theory>
    - felipemnoa 6y ago
      Or maybe the google AI has a funny side. Right now it's probably laughing its ass off reading teMPOral's comment.
  - masklinn 6y ago
    I don’t know if we’re both in that case and Google has simply moved away from how we learned to coerce it (and other search engines) over the years, our habits now yielding negative returns unbeknownst to us, but I find myself in a similar situation. Month after month, year after year, search results get worse, and harder to sift through. At this point, google is mostly a way to find wiki articles despite typos (because Wikipedia’s search is bad and can’t handle typos).
  - int_19h 6y ago
    Google has definitely changed in the past few years. I've noticed that it ignores quotes when it feels like it, and is very aggressive at "synonymous" substitutions (which in many cases aren't - e.g. I've seen it replace "FreeBSD" with "Linux"). It's making it harder and harder to make queries for something specific.
    - Isthatablackgsd 6y ago
- worldofmatthew 6y ago
  Google often delists articles over around 15 to 20 years after they are put on the internet.
- megous 6y ago
  I use duckduckgo and it always finds me PostgreSQL documentation for version 9.3 or 8.x or something obsolete like that during general search.
  - disgruntledphd2 6y ago
    Google gave me Python 2 results for every doc query for a looooooonnnnnngggg time, I just clicked to the newest version when I got there.
    - FateOfNations 6y ago
      That was mostly PSF's fault since they had the default documentation URLs setup to point at the Python 2 documentation for way longer than they should have...
      - disgruntledphd2 6y ago
        Oh really? Interesting. I always thought it was because Google never switched to Python 3.
  - OJFord 6y ago
    Ha, me too, but then I've also been caught out on 'latest' (which I typically reflexively click on after opening) having some crucial difference from what we're using (12 vs. 13) too, so hard to win there. I don't know off-hand if it's possible with the search (e.g. it might use a last-selected version cookie) but we should probably be using version-specific 'bangs'. `!pg12` or whatever, in my case.
  - Kwpolska 6y ago
    So does Google, and it’s even worse there. In Google, the first page for "postgres window functions" is version 9.1, version 9.3, and 8 random tutorials. DDG has 9.1, 9.3, tutorial (the same as Google…), but then you at least get 12, 11, and then some more tutorials.
acoard 6y ago
>I find that Google discriminates against old content just because. Information rots over time, decaying from true to false. Some facts are eternal, many aren't.
bbarnett 6y ago
Google works for the masses. It assumes synonyms and aliases are great. For example, searching for phrases like debian <something>, often bring ubuntu help pages to the top results. Worse if you are looking for Dave Smith. You'll get David Smith, because Dave=David, even though you know Dave never identifies as that. Then add it fixing spelling errors. Which often are not. Rare term? Must be a spelling error! Part of this, is because most people are non-precise, and also because Google wants voice input to work well. So there, their, they're are the same thing, but can also synonym to things like them, and they. Point is, Google is trashy for any search not involving cats, or explosions. Quotes barely work, so the only way to mitigate this a bit, as google removed the + search modifier a decade ago, is always, use verbatim, under search tools. And hope Google hasn't broken it that day. Which they do often.