6 ms·

> For the majority of users Can I have an independent "authoritative" search engine and "cool" social networking tool. You both have Ad platforms on your respe

by chintan 15y ago

> For the majority of users Can I have an independent "authoritative" search engine and "cool" social networking tool. You both have Ad platforms on your respective platforms to "promote" products. Thank you. Disclaimer: A singleton instance of an average user

petenixey 15y ago
You're THE Average User? We've been trying to sign you up for months!
freehunter 15y ago
>Can I have an independent "authoritative" search engine and "cool" social networking tool. Yes, you can. But Google wants to make search better. There's no denying it's gotten worse as time goes on (and SEO gets better). The only thing to do next is to understand what you're looking for by understanding you. "I don't want relevant search results, I just want relevant search results!" This is the problem Google faces. They've made their choice.
- DanBC 15y ago
  But I don't want relevant search results. I want accurate search results. I hate being limited by the bubble; I hate having to cut away rubbish related to what a search engine thinks I want.
  - zmj 15y ago
    There is no such thing as an objectively "accurate" search result. It's all relative to the question in your head.
    - DanBC 15y ago
      That's fine. I used poor wording. By gathering more information about me, and making more guesses about what I want, Google is making a stronger bubble. Sometimes they guess well. Sometimes they guess really badly. For many people this is great and exactly what they want. Sometimes it's what I want; sometimes Google's stemming or synonyms gets me a result that I would have struggled to find. But, sometimes, I want Google to search for the words I enter. I want Google to return the same results to me as it does to Bob and Ann (if they're both in my country). I don't care that [roses] gives me a different result to [roses roses roses]; I do care that Ann gets a different result for [roses] than Bob does. I can't explain why I care, and I'm happy to accept that I'm wrong. (For example, hopefully once people pick up that Google serves different results they'll stop saying Just Google It, which is good advice but sucks if you've Googled it and found only three forum posts with people being told to just Google it.) I guess a lot of this is age and weariness. I remember a time when a Google search result would be an opportunity for serendipity to point me towards great sources of information. Some person, an expert, had a little plain html page with a few diagrams and a lot of text and I'd have to work to understand it. Now? Not so much. I get a lot of content farms (But I'm really grateful to Google for tweaking those down, and allowing me to block content from certain domains) or flash heavy brand sites (See especially photographers and watch manufacturers.) or a narrow band of not fun sites.
      - freehunter 15y ago
        >Sometimes they guess well. Sometimes they guess really badly. How do you know this will happen? They haven't turned their new algorithm on yet. You're claiming an idea hasn't worked in the past, but the idea has never been tried before. The reason they're changing their search results is because their search results are starting to suck more. They're trying to fix your complaint. Want the same shitty search full of SEO spam? Sign out. Otherwise you're just bitching. >(But I'm really grateful to Google for tweaking those down, and allowing me to block content from certain domains) THIS IS WHAT THEY'RE TRYING TO DO. If you don't like content farms chances are no one else does either. And yet you complain.
      - fpgeek 15y ago
        > I want Google to return the same results to me as it does to Bob and Ann (if they're both in my country). I do plenty of international travel and, until I figured out how to control the country-level Google I got, I violently hated this. It sounds to me like you want Google to implement exactly the level of personalization you want, no more and no less. I don't think that's reasonable. What I do think is reasonable asking Google to give you the tools required to control the level of personalization you get. For the most part, I think they do that (though I'm sure there are more than a few rough edges at this point).
  - rodion_89 15y ago
    How are 'relevant' and 'accurate' different in this case? (serious question) For example if I search for "python books" I get results about books teaching the programming language. I'm a programmer and this makes sense in that it is both 'relevant' and 'accurate'. If my girlfriend does the same search she gets books about snakes. She is a biologist so it is again both 'accurate' and 'relevant'. The problem arrises if she gets results about programming because she does not know or care about it. It is technically 'accurate' but now the product is useless to her. Look at the Wikipedia article for "python". There are too many uses for the word. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python
    - DanBC 15y ago
      Google is great for the general population. You type a bunch of words, and Google will guess what you mean, and will usually return useful results. I don't want that. I don't mind having to work a bit harder to get results, so long as those results are excellent. So, for your example, I want to have to type an extra word (either programming or snakes or herpatology or whatever) to provide the context that Google would otherwise get from wherever. I understand that most people don't want what I want, which I why I try and avoid the many Google-bashing posts. (I'm not part of that crowd; I don't think Google is evil. Just less useful for me in lots of situations.) I prefer consistency and repeatability over slowly changing weirdness.
      - skybrian 15y ago
        Have you tried verbatim search? In the left column of the search results page, click "more search tools", then "verbatim".
      - batista 15y ago
        I don't want that. I don't mind having to work a bit harder to get results, so long as those results are excellent. So, for your example, I want to have to type an extra word (either programming or snakes or herpatology or whatever) to provide the context that Google would otherwise get from wherever. I'm all anti-Google, but this makes no sense to me. You want to type an extra word? "I don't want to be tracked and sold to advertisers", or "I don't want to be second-guessed" makes much more sense.
  - freehunter 15y ago
    Well if you get results that you don't like, that's another problem. That's the failure of the algorithm, and the algorithm has been failing for a long time. Without an algorithm, you'll get a list of every reference to the searched terms, unsorted in any useful way. The only way to provide accurate results is to know what you're looking for. So either users need to be very specific, or search engines need to get smarter.

by chintan 15y ago

petenixey 15y ago

You're THE Average User? We've been trying to sign you up for months!

freehunter 15y ago

>Can I have an independent "authoritative" search engine and "cool" social networking tool. Yes, you can. But Google wants to make search better. There's no denying it's gotten worse as time goes on (and SEO gets better). The only thing to do next is to understand what you're looking for by understanding you. "I don't want relevant search results, I just want relevant search results!" This is the problem Google faces. They've made their choice.

DanBC 15y ago
But I don't want relevant search results. I want accurate search results. I hate being limited by the bubble; I hate having to cut away rubbish related to what a search engine thinks I want.
- zmj 15y ago
  There is no such thing as an objectively "accurate" search result. It's all relative to the question in your head.
  - DanBC 15y ago
    That's fine. I used poor wording. By gathering more information about me, and making more guesses about what I want, Google is making a stronger bubble. Sometimes they guess well. Sometimes they guess really badly. For many people this is great and exactly what they want. Sometimes it's what I want; sometimes Google's stemming or synonyms gets me a result that I would have struggled to find. But, sometimes, I want Google to search for the words I enter. I want Google to return the same results to me as it does to Bob and Ann (if they're both in my country). I don't care that [roses] gives me a different result to [roses roses roses]; I do care that Ann gets a different result for [roses] than Bob does. I can't explain why I care, and I'm happy to accept that I'm wrong. (For example, hopefully once people pick up that Google serves different results they'll stop saying Just Google It, which is good advice but sucks if you've Googled it and found only three forum posts with people being told to just Google it.) I guess a lot of this is age and weariness. I remember a time when a Google search result would be an opportunity for serendipity to point me towards great sources of information. Some person, an expert, had a little plain html page with a few diagrams and a lot of text and I'd have to work to understand it. Now? Not so much. I get a lot of content farms (But I'm really grateful to Google for tweaking those down, and allowing me to block content from certain domains) or flash heavy brand sites (See especially photographers and watch manufacturers.) or a narrow band of not fun sites.
    - freehunter 15y ago
      >Sometimes they guess well. Sometimes they guess really badly. How do you know this will happen? They haven't turned their new algorithm on yet. You're claiming an idea hasn't worked in the past, but the idea has never been tried before. The reason they're changing their search results is because their search results are starting to suck more. They're trying to fix your complaint. Want the same shitty search full of SEO spam? Sign out. Otherwise you're just bitching. >(But I'm really grateful to Google for tweaking those down, and allowing me to block content from certain domains) THIS IS WHAT THEY'RE TRYING TO DO. If you don't like content farms chances are no one else does either. And yet you complain.
    - fpgeek 15y ago
      > I want Google to return the same results to me as it does to Bob and Ann (if they're both in my country). I do plenty of international travel and, until I figured out how to control the country-level Google I got, I violently hated this. It sounds to me like you want Google to implement exactly the level of personalization you want, no more and no less. I don't think that's reasonable. What I do think is reasonable asking Google to give you the tools required to control the level of personalization you get. For the most part, I think they do that (though I'm sure there are more than a few rough edges at this point).
- rodion_89 15y ago
  How are 'relevant' and 'accurate' different in this case? (serious question) For example if I search for "python books" I get results about books teaching the programming language. I'm a programmer and this makes sense in that it is both 'relevant' and 'accurate'. If my girlfriend does the same search she gets books about snakes. She is a biologist so it is again both 'accurate' and 'relevant'. The problem arrises if she gets results about programming because she does not know or care about it. It is technically 'accurate' but now the product is useless to her. Look at the Wikipedia article for "python". There are too many uses for the word. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python
  - DanBC 15y ago
    Google is great for the general population. You type a bunch of words, and Google will guess what you mean, and will usually return useful results. I don't want that. I don't mind having to work a bit harder to get results, so long as those results are excellent. So, for your example, I want to have to type an extra word (either programming or snakes or herpatology or whatever) to provide the context that Google would otherwise get from wherever. I understand that most people don't want what I want, which I why I try and avoid the many Google-bashing posts. (I'm not part of that crowd; I don't think Google is evil. Just less useful for me in lots of situations.) I prefer consistency and repeatability over slowly changing weirdness.
    - skybrian 15y ago
      Have you tried verbatim search? In the left column of the search results page, click "more search tools", then "verbatim".
    - batista 15y ago
      I don't want that. I don't mind having to work a bit harder to get results, so long as those results are excellent. So, for your example, I want to have to type an extra word (either programming or snakes or herpatology or whatever) to provide the context that Google would otherwise get from wherever. I'm all anti-Google, but this makes no sense to me. You want to type an extra word? "I don't want to be tracked and sold to advertisers", or "I don't want to be second-guessed" makes much more sense.
- freehunter 15y ago
  Well if you get results that you don't like, that's another problem. That's the failure of the algorithm, and the algorithm has been failing for a long time. Without an algorithm, you'll get a list of every reference to the searched terms, unsorted in any useful way. The only way to provide accurate results is to know what you're looking for. So either users need to be very specific, or search engines need to get smarter.