5 ms·

The two biggest problems I’ve seen develop with Google are that: 1. The quality of the search algorithm’s ability to sift through nonsense to find “the good st

by JCM9 4y ago

The two biggest problems I’ve seen develop with Google are that: 1. The quality of the search algorithm’s ability to sift through nonsense to find “the good stuff” seems to have gotten progressively worse, and that’s largely fueled by: 2. Google is only really searching the “public” Internet but that’s increasingly a wasteland full of garbage where all the “good stuff” is now behind walled off gardens that Goggle doesn’t report on. For example, rather than finding an amazing article written by experts in a long-standing publication you’ll get some rantings from a random blog from someone broadly unqualified to opine on the subject and whose writings are full of inaccurate nonsense. Sure there are exceptions to that, but it’s clear what direction the tide is going. The “good old days of the internet” where the best stuff was just a Google search away seem long gone.

tyingq 4y ago
I would add a "3." that Google has less incentive than they used to to fix it. If they can supply enough relevant ads,"rich snippets", shopping widgets, or links to content they pulled from wikipedia (that keeps you surfing google-owned properties)...the organic search results don't matter. Actually, if the organic results are low quality, then maybe you're more likely to use the content above. So the organic content optimal quality is just "better than Bing", but worse than the ads.
senttoschool 4y ago
Part of this is because of tools like Discord which is not indexable by Google. We need something better than Discord for community discussions and support. Reddit is indexable.
- girvo 4y ago
  Discord as the go-to community hub for things like programming languages makes a little bit sad, knowing it’s all ephemeral and locked up. At least the Nim team has a Matrix bridge I guess, so it’s a solvable problem somewhat. But I find joining yet another Discord group just obnoxious. I long for the async-only text forums of yore. I’m getting old, aren’t I.
  - luckylion 4y ago
    It's very different content though, isn't it? I've never used Discord, but it's mostly chat as far as I understand, and I always found chat somewhat difficult to use for referencing later. You'll have topics shifting, multiple topics going on at once, everything being more informal (and people spending less time on finding the solution instead of jumping on Discord). I imagine it's harder to get useful content out of that vs forums where topics are pretty contained in threads and it's more formal so there's less noise and pretty much all posts are relevant to the topic. Maybe if forums had fancy apps for local display and reply etc, and you could sync them between servers, and it could be kind of decentralized. Someone should build something like that and come up with a good name. It would be a useful net of news. Just a thought!
  - Double_a_92 4y ago
    How would you even index something like Discord? It's mostly a chat app, where discussions are casual and often mixed togheter with others... It's not like a forum where each post is at least a somewhat coherent thought written out properly.
    - polski-g 4y ago
      Discord should be publishing chat logs in HTML format, like how FreeNode did for their IRC logs.
      - Double_a_92 4y ago
        I would dislike that. Imagine if every single thing you say to your friends while being in a public space was recorded for everyone to see in the future... The point of a chat is to be ephemeral. Otherwise it would just be a forum with really bad and chaotic content.
        postalrat 4y ago
        Archiving and indexing public IRC or Discord isn't the same as putting up microphones everywhere to listen to conversations between friends.
jhoechtl 4y ago
> For example, rather than finding an amazing article written by experts in a long-standing publication you’ll get some rantings from a random blog from someone broadly unqualified to opine on the subject and whose writings are full of inaccurate nonsense. That's not my experience. I appreciate the rant as much as the amazing article by "experts". What bothers me is in case of anything which make money for someone and who pays Google addwords fees is presented prominently while the rant is buried.
- rTX5CMRXIfFG 4y ago
  Can you tell us what value you get out of rants from unqualified people? What actionable thing comes out of consuming such information? Because I can’t imagine why anyone would do that, since “experts” are hardly ever a homogenuous crowd and disagree even among themselves. Why not just look at another side but one that is still made by a qualified expert?
  - account42 4y ago
    Someone "unqualified" may have a viewpoint that the "experts" have not considered or are unwilling to state publicly for various reasons. Of course what value you can derive from such an article depends on the value of "unqualified" here for which we only have gp's labels in this example. The only other mentioned difference is the format - a blog "rant" vs. something published in an established publication and I don't think that is enough to go on to discard the former. > “experts” are hardly ever a homogenuous crowd Except when they are. The community of so-called experts discarding what eventually turned out to be the truth because it goes against their thinking is hardly unheard of.
  - carlosjobim 4y ago
    What value do you get? You're here reading and commenting on things from anonymous people on a web site that hasn't existed for a hundred years. > still made by a qualified expert? It is pretty common that an expert who disagrees with the consensus will not be qualified, because the principal requirement for getting qualified is that you agree with the consensus.
whywhywhywhy 4y ago
> Google is only really searching the “public” Internet but that’s increasingly a wasteland full of garbage Have you tried other search engines because you might be surprised that the problem is more to do with Google than the internet.
- ilyt 4y ago
  Might actually be SEO optimizing for google mostly so less popular engines get saved by having differing algorithms

by JCM9 4y ago

tyingq 4y ago

I would add a "3." that Google has less incentive than they used to to fix it. If they can supply enough relevant ads,"rich snippets", shopping widgets, or links to content they pulled from wikipedia (that keeps you surfing google-owned properties)...the organic search results don't matter. Actually, if the organic results are low quality, then maybe you're more likely to use the content above. So the organic content optimal quality is just "better than Bing", but worse than the ads.

senttoschool 4y ago

Part of this is because of tools like Discord which is not indexable by Google. We need something better than Discord for community discussions and support. Reddit is indexable.

girvo 4y ago
Discord as the go-to community hub for things like programming languages makes a little bit sad, knowing it’s all ephemeral and locked up. At least the Nim team has a Matrix bridge I guess, so it’s a solvable problem somewhat. But I find joining yet another Discord group just obnoxious. I long for the async-only text forums of yore. I’m getting old, aren’t I.
- luckylion 4y ago
  It's very different content though, isn't it? I've never used Discord, but it's mostly chat as far as I understand, and I always found chat somewhat difficult to use for referencing later. You'll have topics shifting, multiple topics going on at once, everything being more informal (and people spending less time on finding the solution instead of jumping on Discord). I imagine it's harder to get useful content out of that vs forums where topics are pretty contained in threads and it's more formal so there's less noise and pretty much all posts are relevant to the topic. Maybe if forums had fancy apps for local display and reply etc, and you could sync them between servers, and it could be kind of decentralized. Someone should build something like that and come up with a good name. It would be a useful net of news. Just a thought!
- Double_a_92 4y ago
  How would you even index something like Discord? It's mostly a chat app, where discussions are casual and often mixed togheter with others... It's not like a forum where each post is at least a somewhat coherent thought written out properly.
  - polski-g 4y ago
    Discord should be publishing chat logs in HTML format, like how FreeNode did for their IRC logs.
    - Double_a_92 4y ago
      I would dislike that. Imagine if every single thing you say to your friends while being in a public space was recorded for everyone to see in the future... The point of a chat is to be ephemeral. Otherwise it would just be a forum with really bad and chaotic content.
      - postalrat 4y ago
        Archiving and indexing public IRC or Discord isn't the same as putting up microphones everywhere to listen to conversations between friends.

jhoechtl 4y ago

> For example, rather than finding an amazing article written by experts in a long-standing publication you’ll get some rantings from a random blog from someone broadly unqualified to opine on the subject and whose writings are full of inaccurate nonsense. That's not my experience. I appreciate the rant as much as the amazing article by "experts". What bothers me is in case of anything which make money for someone and who pays Google addwords fees is presented prominently while the rant is buried.

rTX5CMRXIfFG 4y ago
Can you tell us what value you get out of rants from unqualified people? What actionable thing comes out of consuming such information? Because I can’t imagine why anyone would do that, since “experts” are hardly ever a homogenuous crowd and disagree even among themselves. Why not just look at another side but one that is still made by a qualified expert?
- account42 4y ago
  Someone "unqualified" may have a viewpoint that the "experts" have not considered or are unwilling to state publicly for various reasons. Of course what value you can derive from such an article depends on the value of "unqualified" here for which we only have gp's labels in this example. The only other mentioned difference is the format - a blog "rant" vs. something published in an established publication and I don't think that is enough to go on to discard the former. > “experts” are hardly ever a homogenuous crowd Except when they are. The community of so-called experts discarding what eventually turned out to be the truth because it goes against their thinking is hardly unheard of.
- carlosjobim 4y ago
  What value do you get? You're here reading and commenting on things from anonymous people on a web site that hasn't existed for a hundred years. > still made by a qualified expert? It is pretty common that an expert who disagrees with the consensus will not be qualified, because the principal requirement for getting qualified is that you agree with the consensus.

whywhywhywhy 4y ago

> Google is only really searching the “public” Internet but that’s increasingly a wasteland full of garbage Have you tried other search engines because you might be surprised that the problem is more to do with Google than the internet.

ilyt 4y ago
Might actually be SEO optimizing for google mostly so less popular engines get saved by having differing algorithms