6 ms·

Ask HN: Google employees do you have a better version of Google internally?

33 points by unsignednoop 5y ago

That actually shows meaningful results, git repos and other information; or do you have to use the same trash we do?

dalmo3 5y ago
I read this question differently than other commenters. I think OP is asking if employees can use Google Search to search the internet like the rest of us, but they'd get decent results without the bloat. It would make sense as it would be in the company's best interest that the employees be shown meaningful results when they're trying to solve problems. A completely different index/ranking algorithm that punishes, instead of rewarding, all the fake SEO crap. Having said that, I have no idea.
- UncleMeat 5y ago
  We get the same Search/YouTube/Whatever when on the Google network or on Google-managed devices. The only difference is that the ads don't generate revenue.
endisneigh 5y ago
No.
- terrycody 5y ago
  Hey man. If you are from Google, I want to submit you a list of pure black hat spam sites which very deeply disrupted the search engine results page. If you wanna take a look and direct these sites to web spam team, just tell me. (and yes, those Googlers on Twitter ignored me, include John muller)
rurban 5y ago
From the former leaker times, one could see that their censoring mechanism is purely political (CIA, NSA, State Dpt), and less Spam/Quality related. Their censored blacklist is manually maintained, the quality algorithmicly, that's why it can be gamed easily.
Stevvo 5y ago
Last I heard everyone at Google uses Bing these days.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  Along with iPhones and uBlock Origin.
  - Stevvo 5y ago
    Pick one... that iPhone is not going to run uBlock Origin.
  - clingeric 5y ago
    Guilty as charged.
s2mcallis 5y ago
We have a parallel copy that indexes our intranet but other than that we use the same one everyone else does.
- terrycody 5y ago
  hey man! I am desperately want to report a series of sites that pure black hat spam the search engine rankings, but its weird that seems nobody (means those famous Googlers on Twitter lol) never responded me regard this, so if possible, if you'd love to see these evil ones and direct these to web spam teams, would be really grateful.
ceph_ 5y ago
Former employee. The internal search, Moma, is actually much worse. Although it was made much better when it was reworked a few years ago. Internal sites can't be ranked in the same way as external ones. But the truly loved search service within Google is codesearch. And that's great
- noloblo 5y ago
  how to use codesearch outside $googl?
  - williadc 5y ago
    https://cs.opensource.google/ https://cs.opensource.google/
    - rob74 5y ago
      Ah, ok, it only searches Google code, figures... I still have fond memories of the long-defunct Google Code Search and was wondering if they revived it without me noticing, but alas, they didn't...
- mFixman 5y ago
  Why is internal search in giant companies so hard? Meta's internal search, bunnylol, is also nearly useless and a big productivity hog.
  - goldname 5y ago
    Because a big part of the search engine algorithm is recommending things based on how long others spent time there, what other sites they clicked on, etc. There's obv way less data on that for internal search engines.
ecshafer 5y ago
Internal company documentation and search is an interesting problem that I have been thinking a lot about. One big issue is that everyone knows its an issue, so people add more places to store information, which inevitably becomes another place to search which makes it hidden, and then as things move there are inevitable dead links all over the place. We need an intranet to be an actual intranet with all information there, and properly indexed. The biggest "solutions" here are also some of the worst offenders: 1. Google Drive / Microsoft Network Share / Drop Box Etc. These are filled with documents, some companies have more than one of these. These are places where information goes to die, and lives entirely in people's heads, so you have to talk to someone, have them find it, send you a link etc. If there is a search, its for the names and not the content. They are rarely in a good format or place to easily do a find | grep search. 2. Confluence is awful. Confluence is directly backwards, its information at the team level, instead of at the topic level. 3. Sharepoint purely awful. Its searched poorly, barely works. 4. Wikis, very few places uses these for some reason in favor of worse. A single source of truth wiki I think is the optimal place. Or if they do its like a MS Team Wiki or a Gitlab wiki that is broken off of all other places and not indexed so its disconnected.
- marcyb5st 5y ago
  To be honest, Drive does a good job at indexing also the content of the documents. My gripe with it is that when I search something I get all the results of things that people shared with me directly or indirectly though groups. If I could have the option of searching only things that I actually accessed, or even edited/commented I would be really happy about it.
  - bruhbruhbruh 5y ago
    I actually seem to have the opposite result. I seem to only be able to find documents that were shared with me, or that I accessed myself. I want to be able to find documents that I have not actually seen, yet have access to view. Confluence is a bit like this - i can search all of the spaces and get results from other parts of the org. but drive seems to push results to the top which are more localized to my immediate previous use

33 points by unsignednoop 5y ago

That actually shows meaningful results, git repos and other information; or do you have to use the same trash we do?

I read this question differently than other commenters. I think OP is asking if employees can use Google Search to search the internet like the rest of us, but they'd get decent results without the bloat. It would make sense as it would be in the company's best interest that the employees be shown meaningful results when they're trying to solve problems. A completely different index/ranking algorithm that punishes, instead of rewarding, all the fake SEO crap. Having said that, I have no idea.

UncleMeat 5y ago
We get the same Search/YouTube/Whatever when on the Google network or on Google-managed devices. The only difference is that the ads don't generate revenue.

endisneigh 5y ago

No.

terrycody 5y ago
Hey man. If you are from Google, I want to submit you a list of pure black hat spam sites which very deeply disrupted the search engine results page. If you wanna take a look and direct these sites to web spam team, just tell me. (and yes, those Googlers on Twitter ignored me, include John muller)

rurban 5y ago

From the former leaker times, one could see that their censoring mechanism is purely political (CIA, NSA, State Dpt), and less Spam/Quality related. Their censored blacklist is manually maintained, the quality algorithmicly, that's why it can be gamed easily.

Stevvo 5y ago

Last I heard everyone at Google uses Bing these days.

tonyedgecombe 5y ago
Along with iPhones and uBlock Origin.
- Stevvo 5y ago
  Pick one... that iPhone is not going to run uBlock Origin.
- clingeric 5y ago
  Guilty as charged.

s2mcallis 5y ago

We have a parallel copy that indexes our intranet but other than that we use the same one everyone else does.

terrycody 5y ago
hey man! I am desperately want to report a series of sites that pure black hat spam the search engine rankings, but its weird that seems nobody (means those famous Googlers on Twitter lol) never responded me regard this, so if possible, if you'd love to see these evil ones and direct these to web spam teams, would be really grateful.

ceph_ 5y ago

Former employee. The internal search, Moma, is actually much worse. Although it was made much better when it was reworked a few years ago. Internal sites can't be ranked in the same way as external ones. But the truly loved search service within Google is codesearch. And that's great

noloblo 5y ago
how to use codesearch outside $googl?
- williadc 5y ago
  https://cs.opensource.google/ https://cs.opensource.google/
  - rob74 5y ago
    Ah, ok, it only searches Google code, figures... I still have fond memories of the long-defunct Google Code Search and was wondering if they revived it without me noticing, but alas, they didn't...
mFixman 5y ago
Why is internal search in giant companies so hard? Meta's internal search, bunnylol, is also nearly useless and a big productivity hog.
- goldname 5y ago
  Because a big part of the search engine algorithm is recommending things based on how long others spent time there, what other sites they clicked on, etc. There's obv way less data on that for internal search engines.

ecshafer 5y ago

Internal company documentation and search is an interesting problem that I have been thinking a lot about. One big issue is that everyone knows its an issue, so people add more places to store information, which inevitably becomes another place to search which makes it hidden, and then as things move there are inevitable dead links all over the place. We need an intranet to be an actual intranet with all information there, and properly indexed. The biggest "solutions" here are also some of the worst offenders: 1. Google Drive / Microsoft Network Share / Drop Box Etc. These are filled with documents, some companies have more than one of these. These are places where information goes to die, and lives entirely in people's heads, so you have to talk to someone, have them find it, send you a link etc. If there is a search, its for the names and not the content. They are rarely in a good format or place to easily do a find | grep search. 2. Confluence is awful. Confluence is directly backwards, its information at the team level, instead of at the topic level. 3. Sharepoint purely awful. Its searched poorly, barely works. 4. Wikis, very few places uses these for some reason in favor of worse. A single source of truth wiki I think is the optimal place. Or if they do its like a MS Team Wiki or a Gitlab wiki that is broken off of all other places and not indexed so its disconnected.

marcyb5st 5y ago
To be honest, Drive does a good job at indexing also the content of the documents. My gripe with it is that when I search something I get all the results of things that people shared with me directly or indirectly though groups. If I could have the option of searching only things that I actually accessed, or even edited/commented I would be really happy about it.
- bruhbruhbruh 5y ago
  I actually seem to have the opposite result. I seem to only be able to find documents that were shared with me, or that I accessed myself. I want to be able to find documents that I have not actually seen, yet have access to view. Confluence is a bit like this - i can search all of the spaces and get results from other parts of the org. but drive seems to push results to the top which are more localized to my immediate previous use