4 ms·

One of the things that bothers me about modern Google search results is that I can't be sure the other person I'm telling to google something will even see the

One of the things that bothers me about modern Google search results is that I can't be sure the other person I'm telling to google something will even see the same results as me. Results change over time, sure, but google can't help but try and tailor results.

MereInterest 5y ago
I'm similarly bothered by rolling updates of any software. If something changes, there's no version number to see what documentation is applicable. There's no way to test on a different computer to see if it's my local environment. There's no way to roll back to a previous version to see if one of them broke. I understand the advantages of A/B testing from a development side, but it makes for a miserable user experience.
Abishek_Muthian 5y ago
Not even different person, Even if you search a query multiple times in a row it changes results drastically. I got a phished website of my Govt's tax website as a top result due to this[1]. W.r.t OP, I've been contemplating a search engine wall of shame[2] for a while now for recording poor search results and perhaps provide actionable feedback to the search engines. [1] https://twitter.com/Abishek_Muthian/status/1409761416865746956 https://twitter.com/Abishek_Muthian/status/14097614168657469... [2] https://needgap.com/problems/207-search-engine-wall-of-shame-search-submission https://needgap.com/problems/207-search-engine-wall-of-shame...
- dalmo3 5y ago
  Ha, my wall of shame would be thousands of entries all from the same formula: Google [github issue] [gitmemory page for same issue scraped from github] (add inurl:github) It's insane. I can only assume Google is actively downplaying GitHub/MS. Still yields better results than bing though, go figure.
  - Abishek_Muthian 5y ago
    Oh right, I always wondered how GitHub/SO scrappers make it to the top results, I thought plagiarism was SEO Don'ts 101? Maybe Google has some whitelist for programming websites due to parsing difficulties and meta nature of it. Anyways you are welcomed to submit your entries to the above search engine wall of shame thread(It's a validation platform I created), May be someone would see the value in it and create a subreddit or separate website for tracking search queries.

MereInterest 5y ago

I'm similarly bothered by rolling updates of any software. If something changes, there's no version number to see what documentation is applicable. There's no way to test on a different computer to see if it's my local environment. There's no way to roll back to a previous version to see if one of them broke. I understand the advantages of A/B testing from a development side, but it makes for a miserable user experience.

Abishek_Muthian 5y ago

Not even different person, Even if you search a query multiple times in a row it changes results drastically. I got a phished website of my Govt's tax website as a top result due to this[1]. W.r.t OP, I've been contemplating a search engine wall of shame[2] for a while now for recording poor search results and perhaps provide actionable feedback to the search engines. [1] https://twitter.com/Abishek_Muthian/status/1409761416865746956 https://twitter.com/Abishek_Muthian/status/14097614168657469... [2] https://needgap.com/problems/207-search-engine-wall-of-shame-search-submission https://needgap.com/problems/207-search-engine-wall-of-shame...

dalmo3 5y ago
Ha, my wall of shame would be thousands of entries all from the same formula: Google [github issue] [gitmemory page for same issue scraped from github] (add inurl:github) It's insane. I can only assume Google is actively downplaying GitHub/MS. Still yields better results than bing though, go figure.
- Abishek_Muthian 5y ago
  Oh right, I always wondered how GitHub/SO scrappers make it to the top results, I thought plagiarism was SEO Don'ts 101? Maybe Google has some whitelist for programming websites due to parsing difficulties and meta nature of it. Anyways you are welcomed to submit your entries to the above search engine wall of shame thread(It's a validation platform I created), May be someone would see the value in it and create a subreddit or separate website for tracking search queries.