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Maybe because Google is actual trash and it went from being the best search engine to being an SEO-infested desert of a search, where your query is interpreted
by gambiting 4y ago
Maybe because Google is actual trash and it went from being the best search engine to being an SEO-infested desert of a search, where your query is interpreted however they want not how you want.
Latest example from today - search for "micropython html parser" - 100% of results are about normal python not micropython, with the first 4 results being for generic paid programming courses. It's completely useless as a search engine now.
- gtm1260 4y agoMy mental model has totally shifted to the point where even like dealing with stack overflow feels like a pain compared to just asking gpt-4.
- bornfreddy 4y agoInteresting - do you find the results trustworthy?
- milesvp 4y agoI'm curious too. When I go to stack overflow, I get lots of clues as to the trustworthiness of a given answer. I don't know how I'd get any clues from an LLM that its solution is outdated or suboptimal in some way
- penneyd 4y agoYet without stackoverflow chatgpt wouldn't be particularly helpful
- spaceman_2020 4y agoDoesn't help that many Stackoverflow results at the top of Google had their last answers in...2015.
- faeriechangling 4y agoI don't feel stack overflow has been rendered obsolete because the snobbishness and moderation people complain about so much has caused the recommendations on stack overflow to generally be of higher quality than those ChatGPT offers and you have more metadata (answer age, votes) about which answers are especially trustworthy.
- aarpmcgee 4y agoPerhaps it was a matter of me not paying enough attention, but it seemed like Google degraded slowly over time, and then suddenly all-at-once. Or in other words, it seems like its become unusable for me entirely within the past year.
- AviationAtom 4y agoFor those old enough to remember, it's exactly the reason why Google took Yahoo's place back when.
- jjoonathan 4y agoThe moment Google removed the yellow highlight on ads, their fate was sealed. They lived long enough to become the villain.
- echelon 4y agoI'm of the opinion that it should be illegal for companies to offer the ability to buy ads for registered product names or trademarks. Google, Amazon, and Apple all allow trademark and product name squatting. It's gross and abusive. Generic terms? Sure. But actual trade names for products? That's extortion. These services aren't helping in discovery if the customer already knows the name. They're merely forcing themselves into that relationship and taxing it. You then have to buy n-many ads across m-many services just to keep you in front of your competitors that would squat you.
- neodymiumphish 4y agoIMO, the services should just not buy the ads for their own name. It might hurt their bottom line a bit, but doing this makes the search engine shittier for the users who know what they want to see. User input/frustration will eventually lead them toward alternative search engines, or provide enough feedback to Google/Bing/etc to make them disable registered service name or company names from being used as ad terms. I've been using Neeva for a while now. It's ad-free and (for me, anyway) on par with Google. I have one premium account ($5/month) and one free account (used for work) and have had no issues with either. By default, searches aren't saved, although enabling it can lead to better personalized searches. Kagi's one I've heard great things about as well, although I'm not a fan of a business model that allows me to pay for X searches before hitting a barrier that prevents further use of the platform (theirs is 200 searches a month for $5, which seems way too low based on my use cases). In any case, users will force the change, not any government or corporate pressure. Businesses' best chance of fighting it is to refuse to play along.
- Rapzid 4y agoI love how Google mostly assumes now that I'm not looking for what I type into the search box. If I search for something like "micropython html parser" I expect the top results to say "Missing: micropython | Must include: micropython". Yes Google, it was the first term I entered for a reason don't cha think?
- csdvrx 4y agoSad but true. Google is the new altavista or yahoo.
- LeoPanthera 4y agoThat's unfair to altavista. Altavista never got evil, they just became irrelevant. (And even when they were irrelevant, they still had a search syntax that I miss. You could search for things like term_a NEAR term_b.)
- at_a_remove 4y agoAmen. Buried, unknown to most, Google used to have a similar AROUND(n) syntax. No idea if it still is respected. Google seems to have refocused around returning any result out of a set of popular links rather than deep dives. It feels like I must quote every term I enter now.
- eindiran 4y agoIt seems like none of the older powerful Google search syntax works for me anymore.
- thfuran 4y agoAnd quoting terms doesn't even force them to be present anymore.
- LeoPanthera 4y agoCitation needed? Because it does for me.
- jvolkman 4y agoI don't think this is true, although the quoted terms may not be readily visible. Google talked about it as late as last year: https://blog.google/products/search/how-were-improving-search-results-when-you-use-quotes/ https://blog.google/products/search/how-were-improving-searc...
- tines 4y agoI just performed that search in Google and the top two results are links to PyPI and Snyk packages for micropython-html.parser. The third result is a link to python.org documentation for html.parser (not micropython). Bing returns the result for PyPI and the one for the non-micropython python.org result. I don't see a big difference here (except maybe me learning about Snyk through google and not Bing?).
- eindiran 4y agoI mean, this is a big part of the issue. Of course the issue isn't reproducible; Google is trying to do the search based on their model of what you want back. Sometimes you benefit from that, other times it pushes the results you want way down. I just tested this and there were some micropython related results in the top ten, but the majority were for beautiful soup with no mention of micropython.
- tshaddox 4y ago> Of course the issue isn't reproducible; Google is trying to do the search based on their model of what you want back... There's a problem here though, which is that there is no way for me or any other reader to discern whether the reality of the situation is "it's not reproducible and the commenter is misremembering basic facts about their search results due perhaps to some unrelated frustrations" and "it's not reproducible but the commenter's account is accurate." I completely share the views about Google's search results being terrible, but it's still possible to overstate how bad they are. And I do find it fairly difficult to believe that Google would show some people paid programming courses as the top 4 results for that query when much more relevant results clearly exist and everyone attempting to reproduce this gets those more relevant results.
- copymoro 4y agonor are we anywhere near being able to inspect how google is doing all this. if only there were some way to somehow be able to share that information with everybody, some technology so that we can all access such potentially useful information about how google is functioning right now sorry about the snark, but it's a vent for accumulative frustration from seeing a worsening trend in this regard. Kafka would recognize this trend; computing is truly becoming a "bureaucrat's best friend".
- jvolkman 4y agoI just get results for https://pypi.org/project/micropython-html.parser/ https://pypi.org/project/micropython-html.parser/. Is this not what you want?
- taytus 4y agoI know this might be controversial but I believe SEO ruined search.
- dougmwne 4y agoDo yo think if you prompted that to GTP it would detect sarcasm?
- sebzim4500 4y ago> As an AI language model, I cannot infer emotions or intentions with certainty, but the statement does not appear to use typical markers of sarcasm. The commenter is expressing an opinion about SEO and its impact on search, and while it is framed as potentially controversial, it does not necessarily come across as sarcastic.
- chongli 4y agoIt totally did! It’s the Eternal September effect on the internet as a whole. Marketers climbing all over each other, desperate to steal the eyeballs of the naïve masses.
- thfuran 4y agoAds have been ruining the internet since back when it was a hellscape of popups.
- dvngnt_ 4y agousing whoggle i got https://pypi.org/project/micropython-html.parser/ https://pypi.org/project/micropython-html.parser/ as the first result
- ddalex 4y agoAre you for real ? I mean, pick better examples if you want to poke something, since: Search for "micropython html parser" gets you https://pypi.org/project/micropython-html.parser/ https://pypi.org/project/micropython-html.parser/ as the first result with the quote: "This is a module ported from CPython standard library to be compatible with MicroPython interpreter."
- gambiting 4y agoNot for me. That website isn't anywhere on the first page of results.
- sufficer 4y agoMaybe you got some Spyware or something interfering with Google queries
- throw10920 4y agoUm, no. Google "bubbles" their search results, meaning that they customize them based on their profile of you. This is not new - it's been implemented and known publicly for years.
- kgen 4y agoRight, and what the person above is saying is that spyware/bad extensions can be making random searches which muddy your profile's search data
- Dylan16807 4y agoIt is? That's not how I would normally interpret "interfering". And why should random searches make my results significantly worse than the default? That doesn't exactly absolve google of screwing up.
- spullara 4y ago
- underintent 4y agoI agree, but the part I’m failing to see in the conversation is what the future looks like. If the chat approach is gaining visits, then ad companies will follow, so what then? The chat offers up the same seo ad laden tripe but further obfuscates it, and alternatives, while caging it in a conversational tone? Is that better? Worse? If these chat offerings only cause search to step back and attempt to recreate the early days of usable search then they would appear a success in my eyes.
- stringfood 4y ago> where your query is interpreted however they want not how you want Exactly, I feel it is because with Google advertisers are the real customers and they could not care less about user experience unless it affects that bottom line. Case in point is the removal of the dislike button which users loved but advertisers hated. Google is a rich one trick pony right now anyway.
- wslh 4y agoPlease Sergey and Larry return and apply your original paper! Just update it a bit.
- lordnacho 4y agoSurely that's not going to work with all the data (aka website content) having changed markedly over the years, with SEO being a major factor?
- wslh 4y agoIMHO if you open the Google database to researchers the community will find a solution nowadays.
- jjoonathan 4y agoThey knew what they were doing. They always knew. > The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users. - Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page, The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine
- tshaddox 4y agoDoes PageRank even work fundamentally when the search engine using PageRank is so big that it influences essentially every webmaster in the world?
- partiallypro 4y agoIt is wild how most of modern SEO and "SEO+" involves just outright creating spam. Spamming url strings (keyword stuffing essentially) for location specific ranking is a new one I've noticed being touted.
- patwolf 4y agoI have this problem a lot when searching for TypeScript. Most of the results end up being plain javascript with absolutely no mention of TypeScript. Now I use ChatGPT for almost all my programming questions. Good riddance Google.
- dimgl 4y agoI looked up "Xfinity chat with agent" on Google and was shown three different scam numbers of companies posing as Comcast...
- whateveracct 4y agoI can't tell you how many times I search a somewhat niche compound term and the first thing in the results page is a list of shops in my area keyed on some word in the search.
- stevepike 4y agoI don't know why people are picking on your specific search. Try turning off your ad blocker and searching for "zoom download".
- ativzzz 4y agoSure, I get the zoom download center, a help article for zoom to download, and some mobile app download links. It's all personal
- Sai_ 4y agoI trieD this in both DDG and Google (using the !g macro with DDG). DDG first page of results all pointed to zoom.us links. Google (mediated through DDG !g) contained all sorts of spam links to sites like subdomains of uptown.com. Crazy.
- O1111OOO 4y ago> Maybe because Google is actual trash and it went from being the best search engine to being an SEO-infested desert of a search, where your query is interpreted however they want not how you want. Agreed but tbf... every major search engine seems to suffer from the same. I cannot recommend enough the 'ContextSearch web-ext' extension. It lets you easily search using any search provider. I constantly (1) highlight text (2) right-click (3) select search provider (from youtube to reddit to bing) (Note: my default is DDG): Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/contextsearch-web-ext/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/contextsearch... Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/contextsearch-web-ext/ddippghibegbgpjcaaijbacfhjjeafjh https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/contextsearch-web-...
- monksy 4y agoLet's not forget about the links to scam sites. This is one of the sites it shows you for "log in to g mail" https://clinmedjournals.org/articles/blogs/gmail-login.html https://clinmedjournals.org/articles/blogs/gmail-login.html
- ChildOfChaos 4y agoBut you literally typed it in the same way that a scammer would word it and then not expect it to find a scam site?? Nice bait, ever considered being a journalist?
- monksy 4y agoYou don't seem to be very familiar with users that happen to be older. However, that search is uncomfortably common. Impersonation and scamming of their service is a problem, but when they help the user to the impersonation site.. that's on them.
- tekbog 4y agoThey stopped caring about what information you want to get and instead give you the information they think you should get. Sometimes it works, sometimes it's just awful. Not to mention the constant pain that's localization/internationalization as well as some of the queries becoming worse and worse. The service is supposed to become better with time, not the contrary. Plus, of course, all the SEO garbage.
- spaceman_2020 4y agoIt's absurd how Google will simply ignore the keywords in my search to feed me whatever it's trash algorithm decided fits my search. And the decline in Google Maps has been shocking. Maps has gone from always reliable to being "trust it if you like wasting time and burning fuel" bad. I don't know what the hell happened at Google, but it ain't pretty.
- exitb 4y agoIt’s even worse. I’ve been using ChatGPT a lot in situations that’d be Google searches before and I love how you can fill in so much detail and it will actually provide you with better results. With Google, additional detail is actually used against you. With enough keywords, it will match just about any site to your query.
- tayo42 4y agoHah it wish I kept this search I did once. I was searching something about lsd. It somehow decided to replace it with "acid" but then showed results about related to pH lol
- faeriechangling 4y agoI don't find Bing's search any better than Google, but importantly, I don't find it any worse. GPT4 is going to do what Hawaii five-o, Bing Rewards, integrating windows search with Bing, and setting Bing as the default search engine for Edge on Windows never could. Make people use Bing over Google. I've already set it as my default search engine across my devices as I move to cut Google out of my life entirely. I simply don't feel the need to use any of their services anymore. Their moat is gone. The only downside I have noticed is that Bing Maps is a pretty bad service relative to Google Maps or Apple Maps and I will go out of my way to avoid using Bing Maps. Good mapping being integrated into a search engine is actually a pretty big deal since it's nice to use a search engine as a front-end for a mapping service, so this is a significant weakness.
- ipaddr 4y agoGoogle results are trash compared to years ago but better than bing trash now
- koito17 4y agoTo be fair, you could always surround micropython in quotes so that Google knows to only show results containing the keyword "micropython". Only caveat is that Google will still show you whatever it wants in case no results contain the keyword. I swear a decade ago it would simply tell you no results were found, but now you need to (1) use quotes in keywords, and (2) click on "show only results containing [keyword]" when it can't find any results yet decides to show you unrelated pages anyway.
- sidibe 4y agoI can't believe how disconnected I always feel on the Google search conversations here. It still does what I need it for fine, I don't remember it being significantly better than it is now. I guess I'm not a power user? But I also think this is how the most people feel. On this site Google has been a shockingly useless zombie for years.
- JohnFen 4y agoSince google search results are tailored to your particular history and profile, it may be as simple as you fitting into Google's way of doing that better than others.
- giancarlostoro 4y agoThe decline started way back when they stopped letting you find mp3's and mp4's of movies and albums. I get that copyright infringement is bad and all, but their engine was fully capable of you typing a obscure phrase, and being able to get web results. Somewhere behind all the filters a lot of powerful searching capabilities just died. If I had unlimited money, I'd make a fresh search engine, zero filtering to start outside of blatant spam sites, and go from there. Focus on making results be powerful.
- ChildOfChaos 4y agoIt's a bit strange, to me Google seems to be what it has always been, but if you read hacker news it's 'actual trash'. It's the same with amazon, I purchase from there on a weekly basis and it goes well, but you read the comments on hacker news and it's apparently unusable now. What gives?
- logifail 4y ago> Latest example from today - search for "micropython html parser" [..] Are you entering the micropython search term in quotes in the Google search box, because I've found that's a moderately good way to get rid of the normal Python results. My search terms for that search would probably be: "micropython" html parser