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I think that Google is optimizing for the "average user" to the detriment of power users such as the HN crowd. Most people treat Google as an internet oracle an

I think that Google is optimizing for the "average user" to the detriment of power users such as the HN crowd. Most people treat Google as an internet oracle and send queries like "how do I do X" while power users will search for keywords. One example of this optimization is the automatic answer boxes that show up for certain questions, which are wrong disturbingly often or don't include important details.

User23 5y ago
I miss Altavista. I could generally either find exactly what I was looking for inside of three iterations of refining the search, or find that it wasn't to be found. I still just want a blazing fast full text search of the reachable WWW that understands regexes and a basic predicate calculus. Unfortunately the overhead and small potential user base means that under the current regime such a thing will never be made. Speaking of, if any government actually wants competition, they don't need to break up Google, they just need to force them to offer full access to their cache and compute at some reasonable rate, much like how the ILECs were made to carry the CLECs' traffic.
- otherotherchris 5y ago
  Common crawl already exists and is nearly as good as Google's index.
  - marginalia_nu 5y ago
    Common crawl is just a dataset, not an index. The difficulty is not finding a sufficiently large haystack, it's getting at the needles.
- bunabhucan 5y ago
  Do you miss Altavista or do you miss the size of the web in the late 1990s?
- carabiner 5y ago
  All right, I think this comment is peak HN.
Gigachad 5y ago
I think this is overall a good thing. Power users have trained their behaviour to work in the way that simple systems can deal with. While average users ask the question exactly how they would ask another human. Google has now reached a level where it works best when you deal with it in a natural and human level. There is nothing actually better about the way we originally used search engines, it was just required at the time.
- evouga 5y ago
  No, I disagree. With keyword search, I am confident that eventually, with enough included and excluded terms, I will find what I’m looking for. With natural language search, sometimes it works great, but it’s a crapshoot and when you don’t get the results you need you’re stuck. Several times in recent memory Google has returned results so bad, I completely gave up searching. Most recently was when i was trying to look up a Windows 11 BSOD error code (where even pasting the error code verbatim only brought up pages of garbage sites with no useful technical information).
  - SturgeonsLaw 5y ago
    Google results for Windows error codes have been gamed to hell and back by the likes of Easus and Drivereasy, where their tools are somehow the answer to every single fault Windows could possibly manifest.
- ghusto 5y ago
  I was ridiculed by my Natural Language Processing professor twenty years ago for exactly this. P: "Pfft. So, what? You think the current state of search is good?! Having to type in keywords instead of just asking a question in normal language?" Me: "... is this a trick question?"
- Mezzie 5y ago
  I think it's somewhere in the middle. For some queries, being able to ask off the top of your head without thinking is good. Think 'what day of the week was June 14th, 2002?' or 'Who is the mayor of Los Angeles?' For quick questions with clear answers, the current system is a huge advantage over what we had before. For other, more complicated queries, the act of composing your search and considering your keywords, etc. is a step in the process that helps a searcher mentally understand the results they're going to receive along with what they mean. Having to stop and consider makes you aware that you're working within a system and its constraints, which makes it more suitable for questions that are complex or not socially settled. Not all information is the same.
pictur 5y ago
I think it's the opposite of what you said. non-expert users search more precisely with longer sentences.
ghosty141 5y ago
The average use absolutely does this. I see this with family members and friends. Most just type in full questions. From my experience the best way to get good results is to start typing keywords for yourr question and then creating the query based on the autocomplete results. If I notice I don't get autocompletion for a certain query I'll restructure it until I do. This has proven very useful in providing good results. For technical stuff, using the quotation marks is almost essential.
- Cd00d 5y ago
  I haven't experienced quotation marks making any difference in recent times. I think that tip is out of date.
achairapart 5y ago
This. And let's not forget that is the "average user" that mostly naively clicks on ads, not the power user. And selling ads is still Google core business. Looks like Google is slowly turning into a big nigerian scam.

User23 5y ago

I miss Altavista. I could generally either find exactly what I was looking for inside of three iterations of refining the search, or find that it wasn't to be found. I still just want a blazing fast full text search of the reachable WWW that understands regexes and a basic predicate calculus. Unfortunately the overhead and small potential user base means that under the current regime such a thing will never be made. Speaking of, if any government actually wants competition, they don't need to break up Google, they just need to force them to offer full access to their cache and compute at some reasonable rate, much like how the ILECs were made to carry the CLECs' traffic.

otherotherchris 5y ago
Common crawl already exists and is nearly as good as Google's index.
- marginalia_nu 5y ago
  Common crawl is just a dataset, not an index. The difficulty is not finding a sufficiently large haystack, it's getting at the needles.
bunabhucan 5y ago
Do you miss Altavista or do you miss the size of the web in the late 1990s?
carabiner 5y ago
All right, I think this comment is peak HN.

Gigachad 5y ago

I think this is overall a good thing. Power users have trained their behaviour to work in the way that simple systems can deal with. While average users ask the question exactly how they would ask another human. Google has now reached a level where it works best when you deal with it in a natural and human level. There is nothing actually better about the way we originally used search engines, it was just required at the time.

evouga 5y ago
No, I disagree. With keyword search, I am confident that eventually, with enough included and excluded terms, I will find what I’m looking for. With natural language search, sometimes it works great, but it’s a crapshoot and when you don’t get the results you need you’re stuck. Several times in recent memory Google has returned results so bad, I completely gave up searching. Most recently was when i was trying to look up a Windows 11 BSOD error code (where even pasting the error code verbatim only brought up pages of garbage sites with no useful technical information).
- SturgeonsLaw 5y ago
  Google results for Windows error codes have been gamed to hell and back by the likes of Easus and Drivereasy, where their tools are somehow the answer to every single fault Windows could possibly manifest.
ghusto 5y ago
I was ridiculed by my Natural Language Processing professor twenty years ago for exactly this. P: "Pfft. So, what? You think the current state of search is good?! Having to type in keywords instead of just asking a question in normal language?" Me: "... is this a trick question?"
Mezzie 5y ago
I think it's somewhere in the middle. For some queries, being able to ask off the top of your head without thinking is good. Think 'what day of the week was June 14th, 2002?' or 'Who is the mayor of Los Angeles?' For quick questions with clear answers, the current system is a huge advantage over what we had before. For other, more complicated queries, the act of composing your search and considering your keywords, etc. is a step in the process that helps a searcher mentally understand the results they're going to receive along with what they mean. Having to stop and consider makes you aware that you're working within a system and its constraints, which makes it more suitable for questions that are complex or not socially settled. Not all information is the same.

pictur 5y ago

I think it's the opposite of what you said. non-expert users search more precisely with longer sentences.

ghosty141 5y ago

The average use absolutely does this. I see this with family members and friends. Most just type in full questions. From my experience the best way to get good results is to start typing keywords for yourr question and then creating the query based on the autocomplete results. If I notice I don't get autocompletion for a certain query I'll restructure it until I do. This has proven very useful in providing good results. For technical stuff, using the quotation marks is almost essential.

Cd00d 5y ago
I haven't experienced quotation marks making any difference in recent times. I think that tip is out of date.

achairapart 5y ago

This. And let's not forget that is the "average user" that mostly naively clicks on ads, not the power user. And selling ads is still Google core business. Looks like Google is slowly turning into a big nigerian scam.