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Note that if you search [purpose of life], it does not say it has 2 billion results anywhere on the first page. My team removed the blue bar containing that te

Note that if you search [purpose of life], it does not say it has 2 billion results anywhere on the first page. My team removed the blue bar containing that text way back in 2010. You have to hit "Next" or otherwise visit page 2 to get it. And I'd bet the reason why it's still there (I left Search in 2014) is because < 0.1% of users ever hit the next page. Everybody else just refines their query to a different search. It's a holdover from when search engines were bad (i.e. around 1998) and you had to go through 10 pages of results to get the one you were looking for. As a result, Google expends approximately zero engineering effort on pages 2-20 of the results - I know that in the 4 visual redesigns I worked on, we didn't touch them once. It wouldn't surprise me if the response to flack on this is to just get rid of all pages other than the first one - it avoids the issue entirely and wouldn't affect 99.9% of users. The technical reason for this behavior, as others have remarked below, is pagination. Ranking across the full result set is a very complex calculation, and it can depend on some factors that are basically random (eg. timeouts and failures in backend servers). It'd make pagination basically useless if the same results you already went through show up on a later page because the ranking is different. This requires that the full result set be cached. You can cache 400-1000 results for each of the queries that the 0.1% of users who actually hit "Next" care about, but you'd have a big issue caching 2 billion results for each of those queries.

nomel 4y ago
> Note that if you search [purpose of life], it does not say it has 2 billion results anywhere on the first page. This is false for other search terms. Search for "meaning of life". At the top left of the first result page it says "About 10,620,000,000 results (0.56 seconds)". Screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/SQq7Snl https://imgur.com/a/SQq7Snl Logged into Google, Safari 15.6.1. edit: Here's a good one: "starfish buttercup pickle mouse" Page 1 of 2 says > About 589,000 results (0.62 seconds) Page 2 of 2 says > Page 2 of about 22 results (0.36 seconds) Oops! Must have been one of those common "multiply by 26,772" errors. At the bottom of the page, it says "In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 22 already displayed." with an option to show all results. With all results shown, the total result count goes to 59, so only off by 9,983x! But who's counting? Definitely not Google.
- nostrademons 4y ago
  Must've been brought back after I left, I have no idea what the rationale was.
  - citizenpaul 4y ago
    Does that mean you don't use google search? Its been back a long time. What do you prefer for search if not?
    - frozencell 4y ago
      Google employees don't know what's going about top-level policies unlike a few government affiliated managers like Dean or Page (source: google images). It's possible that Google employees don't see the same content as outsiders. Literally CCP vibes, or Plato's Cavern.
      - throwawaylinux 4y ago
        What do you mean by "source: google images"?
      - utopcell 4y ago
        Every Google engineer can see the code that performs this calculation. Google engineers have demonstrated that we are very vocal when we smell foul play.
        frozencell 4y ago
        The government doesn't have backdoors in Google source codes? or Google engineers are patriotic?
    - throwaway894345 4y ago
      I’ve used Google for decades and I’ve never paid any attention to this. I wouldn’t be able to tell you if it was there or not without looking.
saiya-jin 4y ago
Oh boy do I feel special right now, since I hit 2nd page (or even 3rd etc) quite often since main search became quite a spam-infested over-seod crapfest few years ago for some types of search. Some first results are outright dodgy, often outranking ie official sites and I strongly suspect only malware awaits there. Such a shame for basically one-trick pony who doesnt understand that staying relevant long term means that trick must be and remain a damn good proposition. Its true I eventually give up and do ie duckduckgo and if that fails I try to refine searches even more (but this rarely works since I already start with it as default)
- seesaw 4y ago
  I switched to duckduckgo few years back, and most of my searches work. I still have to use g! once in a while. Web search is such an important function, I wish there was a community funded, Wikipedia like entity for search.
  - kyleee 4y ago
    we're seeing a small rennaisance of search engines which is promising to me; brave with it's discussions and goggles, kagi, marginalia, million short, and i am sure others it makes me happy to see
- userbinator 4y ago
  I still remember, around a decade or two ago, going through page after page of results to look for the exact page I wanted, and somewhat often getting that result. Now, if I'm very lucky, I'll find that result; otherwise, I'll probably get a CAPTCHA-hellban instead. It's very ironic that a search engine, which is supposed to be helpful precisely for the things that are hard to find, seems to actively sabotage your efforts at such deep searching.
echelon 4y ago
What does the search org look like internally? Is it connected with the ads or Chrome orgs at any interface? Do the rank and file ICs, EMs, and PMs have issues with how these products interact? I have so many complaints about your product, it drives me wild. How many people even look at organic results versus the paid-for ads that display at top? It should be illegal for anyone to be able to purchase ads for another company's trademark. Apple, Google, and Amazon are all extorting companies by forcing them to buy ads to protect their own brand. (My own brand is being attacked by a competitor in this way, and it's ridiculous!) The only reason anyone uses these systems at scale is that third parties were available in aggregate early on to provide content. You built your product off of our backs. And now that the power dynamic has shifted, we're cattle to soak for as much revenue as possible. It also seems like the only reason Google is dominant is bad behavior. Paying for default search engine status. Being the default in all of their other unrelated platforms. Achieving browser monopoly. I've recently started seeing Chrome ads and billboards everywhere. Google purchased a huge percentage of my city's billboard ad inventory for their "better on Chrome" campaign. It's as if Google knows this is the reason for everything. Where except for Apple devices is Chrome not dominant? This whole cartel needs a muzzle. Device companies should not be ad companies. Ad companies should not be service companies. Service companies should not be content and production companies, since they can favor their own and price pressure the rest. We have a world where the top tech conglomerates are all of these and then some. They've cast a wide net and turned the whole world of consumer interaction into a supermarket, where we now have to pay for "shelf space" to interact with customers, pay to protect our brands from unfair sniping, pay to grow, obey asinine rules to build a product that fits their desired shape, integrate with their payments and login stack (so we're even less in a relationship with our customers). It's a far cry from the open web of the 90's. Really bad for small companies, new startups, and even consumers. We can barely afford to build our products with all the margin that goes to Google, Apple, and the rest. I wish the rank and file could feel this. :(
- nostrademons 4y ago
  I have no idea, I left Search 8 years ago. I would bet on people responding to incentives, though, because that seems like a universal constant of human behavior.
dmitriid 4y ago
> It's a holdover from when search engines were bad (i.e. around 1998) and you had to go through 10 pages of results to get the one you were looking for. Unlike today, right? Where actual search results... represent less than 10% of the page and the rest is irrelevant information and ads in Google search https://grumpy.website/post/0XCmMC-2O https://grumpy.website/post/0XCmMC-2O
- debesyla 4y ago
  In your example (link) one of the engines returned way better results: guessed and returned stuff that the query author probably meant. In my opinion a search engine that can guess and understand my question from a single word is superior to encyclopaedic-bureaucratic return. (After all, in whole lot of times I am searching for something that I don't even understand what am I really looking for.)
  - dmitriid 4y ago
    You can also scroll down to comparison between 2000, 2013 and 2020 here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/19/google-search-results-monopoly/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/19/google-...
wolpoli 4y ago
> The technical reason for this behavior, as others have remarked below, is pagination. > It'd make pagination basically useless if the same results you already went through show up on a later page because the ranking is different. A bit off topic: I have always wondered why search result is the only feed on the web (apart from HN) that has not adopted infinite scrolling. This is a good explanation.
- jtc331 4y ago
  Infinite scroll is a terrible UI experience despite being popular; that’s why not everyone has adopted it.
  - wolpoli 4y ago
    For sure, infinite scroll isn't designed for the benefit of the user.
zarzavat 4y ago
> It wouldn't surprise me if the response to flack on this is to just get rid of all pages other than the first one - it avoids the issue entirely and wouldn't affect 99.9% of users. You are confusing users with queries. A lot more than 0.1% of users use the other result pages - double digit percent certainly. But if Google is doing a good job they don’t do it very often.
ulfw 4y ago
I am sorry but it doesn't change the fact that it is super disenginous to say (I just tried it myself): and then you only display a maximum of 149 results. "Page 14 of about 184,000,000 results (0.83 seconds)" "Page 15 of about 149 results (0.76 seconds)" "In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 149 already displayed." Maybe it's time Google spent a bit more time on their search engine, including pages 2-20.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
belter 4y ago
Searching "purpose of life" while logged in shows about 245 results, searching "purpose of life" while logged out shows "Page 10 of about 10.740.000.000 results"... Extreme profiling Google? :-)
JohnFen 4y ago
> It's a holdover from when search engines were bad (i.e. around 1998) and you had to go through 10 pages of results to get the one you were looking for. Search engines are still bad. Having to go through 10 pages of results to find something that matches what I was looking for is one of the reasons I stopped using Google. What I want is almost never on the first few pages of search results.

nomel 4y ago

> Note that if you search [purpose of life], it does not say it has 2 billion results anywhere on the first page. This is false for other search terms. Search for "meaning of life". At the top left of the first result page it says "About 10,620,000,000 results (0.56 seconds)". Screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/SQq7Snl https://imgur.com/a/SQq7Snl Logged into Google, Safari 15.6.1. edit: Here's a good one: "starfish buttercup pickle mouse" Page 1 of 2 says > About 589,000 results (0.62 seconds) Page 2 of 2 says > Page 2 of about 22 results (0.36 seconds) Oops! Must have been one of those common "multiply by 26,772" errors. At the bottom of the page, it says "In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 22 already displayed." with an option to show all results. With all results shown, the total result count goes to 59, so only off by 9,983x! But who's counting? Definitely not Google.

nostrademons 4y ago
Must've been brought back after I left, I have no idea what the rationale was.
- citizenpaul 4y ago
  Does that mean you don't use google search? Its been back a long time. What do you prefer for search if not?
  - frozencell 4y ago
    Google employees don't know what's going about top-level policies unlike a few government affiliated managers like Dean or Page (source: google images). It's possible that Google employees don't see the same content as outsiders. Literally CCP vibes, or Plato's Cavern.
    - throwawaylinux 4y ago
      What do you mean by "source: google images"?
    - utopcell 4y ago
      Every Google engineer can see the code that performs this calculation. Google engineers have demonstrated that we are very vocal when we smell foul play.
      - frozencell 4y ago
        The government doesn't have backdoors in Google source codes? or Google engineers are patriotic?
  - throwaway894345 4y ago
    I’ve used Google for decades and I’ve never paid any attention to this. I wouldn’t be able to tell you if it was there or not without looking.

saiya-jin 4y ago

Oh boy do I feel special right now, since I hit 2nd page (or even 3rd etc) quite often since main search became quite a spam-infested over-seod crapfest few years ago for some types of search. Some first results are outright dodgy, often outranking ie official sites and I strongly suspect only malware awaits there. Such a shame for basically one-trick pony who doesnt understand that staying relevant long term means that trick must be and remain a damn good proposition. Its true I eventually give up and do ie duckduckgo and if that fails I try to refine searches even more (but this rarely works since I already start with it as default)

seesaw 4y ago
I switched to duckduckgo few years back, and most of my searches work. I still have to use g! once in a while. Web search is such an important function, I wish there was a community funded, Wikipedia like entity for search.
- kyleee 4y ago
  we're seeing a small rennaisance of search engines which is promising to me; brave with it's discussions and goggles, kagi, marginalia, million short, and i am sure others it makes me happy to see
userbinator 4y ago
I still remember, around a decade or two ago, going through page after page of results to look for the exact page I wanted, and somewhat often getting that result. Now, if I'm very lucky, I'll find that result; otherwise, I'll probably get a CAPTCHA-hellban instead. It's very ironic that a search engine, which is supposed to be helpful precisely for the things that are hard to find, seems to actively sabotage your efforts at such deep searching.

echelon 4y ago

What does the search org look like internally? Is it connected with the ads or Chrome orgs at any interface? Do the rank and file ICs, EMs, and PMs have issues with how these products interact? I have so many complaints about your product, it drives me wild. How many people even look at organic results versus the paid-for ads that display at top? It should be illegal for anyone to be able to purchase ads for another company's trademark. Apple, Google, and Amazon are all extorting companies by forcing them to buy ads to protect their own brand. (My own brand is being attacked by a competitor in this way, and it's ridiculous!) The only reason anyone uses these systems at scale is that third parties were available in aggregate early on to provide content. You built your product off of our backs. And now that the power dynamic has shifted, we're cattle to soak for as much revenue as possible. It also seems like the only reason Google is dominant is bad behavior. Paying for default search engine status. Being the default in all of their other unrelated platforms. Achieving browser monopoly. I've recently started seeing Chrome ads and billboards everywhere. Google purchased a huge percentage of my city's billboard ad inventory for their "better on Chrome" campaign. It's as if Google knows this is the reason for everything. Where except for Apple devices is Chrome not dominant? This whole cartel needs a muzzle. Device companies should not be ad companies. Ad companies should not be service companies. Service companies should not be content and production companies, since they can favor their own and price pressure the rest. We have a world where the top tech conglomerates are all of these and then some. They've cast a wide net and turned the whole world of consumer interaction into a supermarket, where we now have to pay for "shelf space" to interact with customers, pay to protect our brands from unfair sniping, pay to grow, obey asinine rules to build a product that fits their desired shape, integrate with their payments and login stack (so we're even less in a relationship with our customers). It's a far cry from the open web of the 90's. Really bad for small companies, new startups, and even consumers. We can barely afford to build our products with all the margin that goes to Google, Apple, and the rest. I wish the rank and file could feel this. :(

nostrademons 4y ago
I have no idea, I left Search 8 years ago. I would bet on people responding to incentives, though, because that seems like a universal constant of human behavior.

dmitriid 4y ago

> It's a holdover from when search engines were bad (i.e. around 1998) and you had to go through 10 pages of results to get the one you were looking for. Unlike today, right? Where actual search results... represent less than 10% of the page and the rest is irrelevant information and ads in Google search https://grumpy.website/post/0XCmMC-2O https://grumpy.website/post/0XCmMC-2O

debesyla 4y ago
In your example (link) one of the engines returned way better results: guessed and returned stuff that the query author probably meant. In my opinion a search engine that can guess and understand my question from a single word is superior to encyclopaedic-bureaucratic return. (After all, in whole lot of times I am searching for something that I don't even understand what am I really looking for.)
- dmitriid 4y ago
  You can also scroll down to comparison between 2000, 2013 and 2020 here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/19/google-search-results-monopoly/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/19/google-...

wolpoli 4y ago

> The technical reason for this behavior, as others have remarked below, is pagination. > It'd make pagination basically useless if the same results you already went through show up on a later page because the ranking is different. A bit off topic: I have always wondered why search result is the only feed on the web (apart from HN) that has not adopted infinite scrolling. This is a good explanation.

jtc331 4y ago
Infinite scroll is a terrible UI experience despite being popular; that’s why not everyone has adopted it.
- wolpoli 4y ago
  For sure, infinite scroll isn't designed for the benefit of the user.

zarzavat 4y ago

> It wouldn't surprise me if the response to flack on this is to just get rid of all pages other than the first one - it avoids the issue entirely and wouldn't affect 99.9% of users. You are confusing users with queries. A lot more than 0.1% of users use the other result pages - double digit percent certainly. But if Google is doing a good job they don’t do it very often.

ulfw 4y ago

I am sorry but it doesn't change the fact that it is super disenginous to say (I just tried it myself): and then you only display a maximum of 149 results. "Page 14 of about 184,000,000 results (0.83 seconds)" "Page 15 of about 149 results (0.76 seconds)" "In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 149 already displayed." Maybe it's time Google spent a bit more time on their search engine, including pages 2-20.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

belter 4y ago

Searching "purpose of life" while logged in shows about 245 results, searching "purpose of life" while logged out shows "Page 10 of about 10.740.000.000 results"... Extreme profiling Google? :-)

JohnFen 4y ago

> It's a holdover from when search engines were bad (i.e. around 1998) and you had to go through 10 pages of results to get the one you were looking for. Search engines are still bad. Having to go through 10 pages of results to find something that matches what I was looking for is one of the reasons I stopped using Google. What I want is almost never on the first few pages of search results.