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Just started testing Brave Search, and it scored a rare 100 on the first test: If you type in the name of a favorite boutique hotel, will you get that hotel's t
by GCA10 3y ago
Just started testing Brave Search, and it scored a rare 100 on the first test: If you type in the name of a favorite boutique hotel, will you get that hotel's true website -- or the usual hairball of third-party intermediaries?
(For anyone who's ever tried to modify a reservation, the difference is astonishing. If you're booked with the hotel, all kinds of adjustments are at least possible. If you're booked with Booking, Travelocity, Expedia, etc., it's somewhere between hard and hopeless.)
Brave gets it right. Bing, Google and even DuckDuckGo do not.
- account42 3y ago> even DuckDuckGo Why "even" when it's basically BingBingGo.
- kokanee 3y agoI totally agree that this is a great sign. I'm a bit more pessimistic though - a search engine's willingness to actually let you click through to an organic search result is a function of A) how dominant in the search market they are, and therefore how much they can afford to jerk users around, and B) how mature they are economically, since growth is more difficult later in the life of the company. This is to say that I don't trust Brave to keep doing things right as their incentives evolve. Trust is a finicky thing, but from the outset they strike me as an organization with lofty commercial intentions. And, I admit, I don't think I can trust anything Brendan Eich does.
- cyanydeez 3y agoIn reality, search should be a government service as a utility.
- matt-attack 3y agoI’m pretty sure that’s how, say, Expedia makes their money. Traditional hotel reservation permit very late cancellation (24hrs typically). Hotels are willing to offer a reduced rate if you promise to not cancel. So Expedia is just a front for that other class of bookings that are non-cancellable and they skim a profit from that. Hotels save face as they can just fingerpoint if someone complains yet they gain by getting the non-cancelable bookings.
- jug 3y ago> even DuckDuckGo It's because DDG pays Microsoft to use the Bing index for most search stuff. I always find it funny when people swear by DDG and hate on Bing... :P
- thrdbndndn 3y agoHuh, interesting idea. I personally deliberately book though Booking and alike because it's so nice to have everything hotel related in one place especially when having long trips.
- lotsofpulp 3y agoI always buy directly from the hotel assuming that I will be treated better due to the hotel earning more money from me due to not having to pay commission to a travel agent. Also, I assume there is less probability of errors since when you reserve on a travel agent website, your reservation goes through an additional system before it gets to the hotel.
- HeavenFox 3y agoIt actually could be the opposite: since the OTA guest can leave a bad review, hotels may treat them better.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- lotsofpulp 3y agoAnyone can leave a review on Google Maps and TripAdvisor and the hotel brands’ website, I assume a review on an OTA would not be any more valuable. As a side note, I wonder if many people pay attention to reviews outside of extremely low rated places.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- achates 3y agoI do. One bad review doesn't make much difference to me but if I see a few mentioning the same issue I usually trust them.
- 3y ago
- londons_explore 3y agoGoogle usually does through the maps place card. To update that card, the hotel manager has to receive a postcard posted by google. Obviously expedia etc can't easily do that.
- jahsome 3y agoOP is talking about modifying their hotel reservation directly, not updating a google maps listing.
- mynameisvlad 3y agoAnd the comment you replied to is saying that the official website will usually be shown on the map card to the side of your usual results, which is only editable by verified businesses.
- mintplant 3y agoFails my personal benchmark, unfortunately: haskell megaparsec operators -> should return [0] somewhere high in the result set. Found it on the third page of Brave Search. For comparison, it's the very first result on Google, second page for Bing, and the third page for DuckDuckGo. Sure, it's a bit obscure, and I don't even write that much Haskell these days. But it's calibrated to determine whether I can rely on the search engine to quickly surface what I need to be productive, and whether I can trust its 'negative results' (I don't see what I want on the results page -> I need to refine my query or take a different approach). The version number returned in the URL also shows how well the engine handles keeping up with versioned documentation pages and aggregating 'link juice' between them. I try this on every search engine alternative that pops up on HN. Very, very few pass. I find it often works like an adversarial example, yielding completely nonsensical results. [0] https://hackage.haskell.org/package/megaparsec-5.2.0/docs/Text-Megaparsec-Expr.html https://hackage.haskell.org/package/megaparsec-5.2.0/docs/Te... (or any other megaparsec-#.#.# version)
- burkaman 3y agoThat's the first result on Kagi, but I think that's because they just call Google behind the scenes for you. Edit: I didn't mean this to be an insult, I pay for Kagi and use it exclusively. But actually, the Kagi and Google first page of results look fairly different for this query, so Kagi is doing more curation and ordering than I realized.
- Spivak 3y agoThat's pretty much how all small search engines work, but with varying backing indexes. Kagi's value-add is Google quality index (since they literally pay for it), no ads, their ranking algorithm, and tools to control the results that Google doesn't give you like blacklists and your own weights. $25/mo is unfortunately a little steep because their lower priced option with 700 searches/month is comically small. On just my work browser I have 4000 Google searches last month. Doesn't count my personal laptop or phone. It's really hard to compete with $0/mo. for Google + AdBlock. I really do like Kagi better but $25/mo. is Tailscale + Notion + Spotify.
- jacooper 3y agoAnd you can customize it using goggles.
- benatkin 3y agoIt gets it wrong. Sometimes I want the Booking.com. Otherwise you'd fan the flames of the predatory brochure websites industry.
- sethherr 3y agoWhy not just use booking.com search then?
- benatkin 3y agoThe convenience of hitting the back button and looking at other pages about them. Booking is the first page I want to check but not the only one. Sometimes I won't hit back, but my browsing habits are informed by being able to hit back.
- orzig 3y agoYou're allowed to have your workflow, but I'll add my n=1 that I want the exact opposite behavior, and I suspect I'm in the majority there
- benatkin 3y agoYou might be arguing for what people think they want if they're polled. If Google always prioritized official websites, dollars to donuts, people wouldn't like it.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- oidar 3y ago0% on my test: ;-; meaning Google gets it right at the first page. Bing doesn't get it. DDG doesn't.
- dsissitka 3y agoThere are two matching results for it on the first page.
- b33j0r 3y agoThat was a surprisingly peculiar example, but a quite practical test! I appreciate that you shared it. (Ad) and (sponsored) were ok at first, but then they became the first screenful of results on most devices. That’s when my childhood BFF google went off the rails.
- bazmattaz 3y agoInteresting, my test of a search engine’s ability to return relevant results is usually some sort of obscure search for tech help like; “Best way to modify the xyz on a raspberry pi 4” I stopped using DuckDuckGo because it always failed at searches like this compared to Google. Brave was ok
- toomanyusers 3y agoI stopped using DuckDuckGo when it introduced its email relay service. This service had (and I think still does have) the peculiar requirement that the user must install a browser extension in order to use it. I can think of no valid reason why a (supposedly privacy-respecting) email relay service should require a browser extension to be installed. This made me realize DuckDuckGo may not actually value privacy. I stopped trusting all of its services.
- eks391 3y agoI have two email relays from DDG and have never installed their extension nor even knew they had an extension when I got their relays. (I know now but at the time I didn't) If you download the app on your phone, you can get a relay and then immidiately uninstall the app.
- toomanyusers 3y agoYes, but you had to install an app. Why? They already have your email. They're forwarding email to you as part of the service. And you probably had to verify your email with them when you started using it. So why should you be required to also install either an app or a browser extension? Doesn't the very act of installing something on your devices increase their technical ability to collect information about you and your devices? That doesn't sound very privacy-oriented.
- caslon 3y agoMost likely a feeble attempt to avoid the domain from getting blacklisted from most services by restricting the amount of relays a user can have by device.
- crazygringo 3y agoAre you counting ads as results? I just put "the 252 boutique hotel" into Google (without quotes) and the first non-ad result is the hotel's own website. It's also first in Brave. And first in Bing. So no difference here. Generally in my experience, I've never had a problem finding a hotel's website via Google.
- antihipocrat 3y agoThe ads can take up more than an entire display, requiring scrolling down a full screen of content before finding the official site. It's even more difficult when trying to find the official site for a business I'm unfamiliar with.
- kyawzazaw 3y agoI have rarely faced this problem, just an anecdote .
- lmm 3y ago> (For anyone who's ever tried to modify a reservation, the difference is astonishing. If you're booked with the hotel, all kinds of adjustments are at least possible. If you're booked with Booking, Travelocity, Expedia, etc., it's somewhere between hard and hopeless.) That's utterly backwards IME. On Booking.com, most modifications are the push of a button (that, crucially, is right there in the UI that I already know) and if I need to do something complex I can send a message and they'll sort it and get back to me. On a boutique hotel website, maybe I'll get a phone number that I have to look up the international dialing code for and then call in that country's business hours, if their website isn't just completely broken.
- kolinko 3y agoI never use Booking. Once got a terrible (and overpriced) location that was highly rated according to them, but above all - I more than once arrived only to realise my booking wasn't there. On top of that, I hate their UX. My first go-to is Hotel Tonight mobile, which shows how interfaces should be handled. It doesn't handle rebookings and room selections though, so I often book through a given hotel directly - usually better interfaces than booking - even if not standarised, and I had a better treatment at least once, because I booked directly. Also, if I type in a hotel name, I want to go to the hotel website, not a middleman. Hotel's website is a proxy of hotel quality to some extent.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago"On a boutique hotel website, maybe I'll get a phone number that I have to look up the international dialing code for and then call in that country's business hours, if their website isn't just completely broken." If call them on the phone that implies one can speak the language. If hotel has a website that suggests it has an email address. Not sure I would want to stay at a hotel with a broken website and no email address. I've never had problems booking through an intermediary but the parent is correct to the extent there are some benefits to dealing directly with the hotel. It's really sad that so-called "tech" companies and internet marketing companies have bought out the independent travel guides, took the data and made it unreasonably difficult to find the contact info for hotels online. But we can always find the contact info in Google Maps. Frommers and Zagat both acquired and pilfered by Google. Very sad. Here is a website that will provide the website address and the email address for each hotel. https://www.travelweekly.com/Hotels/ https://www.travelweekly.com/Hotels/
- ulfw 3y agoDo you have any specific one in mind? Because while it's nice to blame Google, my experience has been quite different. I just tried the last two boutique hotels I stayed at. For one in Tel Aviv the Google and Brave results were exactly the same. First was the hotels' own website, second was tripadvisor, third was booking.com. The other in Buenos Aires, Google had the same order (hotel, then trip, then booking), Brave did not. Brave showed booking.com, then hotel website, then tripadvisor.
- throwaway2037 3y ago"modify a reservation": The posts below are trying to guess the exactly meaning of this phrase. Can you provide some specific examples?
- rjh29 3y agoI respect your experience, but third-party sites are cheaper than the true website and hotels refuse to match it even if you ask them. Even if adjustments are easier (and in my experience Booking.com has been fine), it doesn't offset the price difference. I stay in hotels a lot though, if you travel occasionally and on special occasions I can absolutely understand.
- throwaway2990 3y agoThis is not true. I use agoda, there is nothing that cannot be resolved on agoda. I once accidentally booked a hotel 1 year in advance instead of 1 month, when I arrived the hotel pointed out the error. I rang agoda, they rang the hotel and I watched as the woman in front of me answered the phone, they adjusted the booking to today and I got checked in. The whole thing was resolved in less than 10 minutes. No extra cost or fees.
- wingworks 3y agoWow it is. The maps are fast to load too. (as is anything you do in brave search, where as google maps is so slow, and a pain to view search results on too) I hope Brave releases a dedicated maps tab soon. (I realise it's just openstreetmaps, but it's a clean and easy to use version)
- ww520 3y agoI'm moving my comment here because I'm not sure why people are repeating the false information about 3rd parties providing lower prices than direct booking because of some contracts. That's simply not true. I just did a search now to see if anything has changed. I randomly searched for hotels in the Seattle area for a 5/18 reservation. The 3rd item in a hotel's result [1] is the hotel's direct booking price. It matches the same reservation on the hotel's website [2]. Another hotel's result [3] has the lowest price as direct booking. Again for another hotel in NYC [4], the 3rd item is the hotel's direct price. [1] https://i.imgur.com/XtDkLZj.png https://i.imgur.com/XtDkLZj.png [2] https://i.imgur.com/gHJgB3I.png https://i.imgur.com/gHJgB3I.png [3] https://i.imgur.com/MVVqmFG.png https://i.imgur.com/MVVqmFG.png [4] https://i.imgur.com/WAIuM16.png https://i.imgur.com/WAIuM16.png
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]