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If people use your product all day, everyday, and you release the biggest overhaul of your product in 4 years, and nobody notices, is that a good thing, or a ba

If people use your product all day, everyday, and you release the biggest overhaul of your product in 4 years, and nobody notices, is that a good thing, or a bad thing? It makes me wonder if Google has become so "good enough" that more and more engineering effort will be spent for smaller and smaller returns.

bsullivan01 13y ago
If people use your product all day, everyday, and you release the biggest overhaul of your product in 4 years, and nobody notices, is that a good thing, or a bad thing? How do you know it was the "biggest overhaul"? Google is known to use every moment to hype itself. Also Google has been doing these changes since 2011 almost monthly. Now sites that sell things or make money have almost given up on "free" traffic from Google, they know it's pay to play (outside Product Search it's not openly pay-to-play but you get the message after a few 70% traffic reducing updates).
- drewjoh 13y ago
  They were just quoting the article: "While they did say that this was the biggest overhaul to their engine since the 2009 “Caffeine” overhaul (which focused on speed and integrating social network results into search) and that it affects “around 90% of searches”, there wasn’t much offered in terms of technical details."
  - ivanbrussik 13y ago
    Penguin .001% of search results - EVERYONE PANIC Hummingbird 90% of search results - No one cares
agumonkey 13y ago
Sometimes the good things are the one you don't notice. Maybe they noticed an increase or different usage patterns on their side.
- niuzeta 13y ago
  This. One prime example I can think of is Gmail. I've used it pleasantly, while all the under-the-surface updates happened. I was pleasantly surprised when one day, Gmali client to remind me that I'd forgotten to attach the file I've said I've attached. It's one of the subtle updates which simply enhances the experiences, like performance changes. Unfortunately the opposite example can be found in the same product, Gmail; when they visibly and ostensibly changed the UI, it was immediately noticed, and widely hated.
  - agumonkey 13y ago
    It's as if life forms have evolved communication means for the only purpose of complaining about regressions :)
chaz 13y ago
I think people are just bad at quantifying their own habits.
bane 13y ago
Playing devil's advocate, they say in movies that the best special effects are the ones you don't notice at all.
- baddox 13y ago
  I think that's more applicable to less obvious things like the audio production in a film.
  - chc 13y ago
    It applies to a lot of special effects too. Many — probably most — special effects are striving to look organic. For example, did you notice that half of Titanic was shot in front of a green screen? Were the special effects in the Adventures of Superman TV series better because their chromakey work was more noticeable? It isn't that the special effect doesn't have an impact, but that you don't specifically notice the effect because it blends seamlessly into the rest of the film.
    - JonnieCache 13y ago
      Oh, it goes a lot deeper than that my friend. It's now normal for standard-issue comedies and dramas to be chroma keyed, comped, etc: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clnozSXyF4k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clnozSXyF4k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhN1STep_zk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhN1STep_zk
    - baddox 13y ago
      > For example, did you notice that half of Titanic was shot in front of a green screen? Okay, I guess it depends what you mean by "notice." I certainly was aware that much of Titanic was shot in front of a green screen. No matter how photorealistic special effects become, it's often fairly obvious what's real and what's not.
notatoad 13y ago
i think it's unequivocally a good thing. Google has a product that works, they aren't trying to change the functionality. People's habits online and the type and volume of data that google indexes has changed, and google needs to update their algorithms so that the product functions the same despite the new inputs the algorithm is receiving.
moultano 13y ago
Looking at it from the inside working on search, I see the returns as actually getting bigger and bigger. As Google gets better, people get more confident in issuing more complicated queries, which ups the bar again for the types of things search has to be able to do.
tsycho 13y ago
Assuming "no one notices" as a good proxy for search quality remaining the same, I would argue that Google's getting better since the playing field is getting harder... * There are a ton more people actively researching ways to reverse-engineer and game the system. * There are a ton more sites and more content getting generated, including bot-generated ones which are of dubious quality.
sjwright 13y ago
It's likely that the new "signal" was progressively added to the existing mix, to avoid sudden jarring changes. Boiling a frog, etc.

bsullivan01 13y ago

If people use your product all day, everyday, and you release the biggest overhaul of your product in 4 years, and nobody notices, is that a good thing, or a bad thing? How do you know it was the "biggest overhaul"? Google is known to use every moment to hype itself. Also Google has been doing these changes since 2011 almost monthly. Now sites that sell things or make money have almost given up on "free" traffic from Google, they know it's pay to play (outside Product Search it's not openly pay-to-play but you get the message after a few 70% traffic reducing updates).

drewjoh 13y ago
They were just quoting the article: "While they did say that this was the biggest overhaul to their engine since the 2009 “Caffeine” overhaul (which focused on speed and integrating social network results into search) and that it affects “around 90% of searches”, there wasn’t much offered in terms of technical details."
- ivanbrussik 13y ago
  Penguin .001% of search results - EVERYONE PANIC Hummingbird 90% of search results - No one cares

agumonkey 13y ago

Sometimes the good things are the one you don't notice. Maybe they noticed an increase or different usage patterns on their side.

niuzeta 13y ago
This. One prime example I can think of is Gmail. I've used it pleasantly, while all the under-the-surface updates happened. I was pleasantly surprised when one day, Gmali client to remind me that I'd forgotten to attach the file I've said I've attached. It's one of the subtle updates which simply enhances the experiences, like performance changes. Unfortunately the opposite example can be found in the same product, Gmail; when they visibly and ostensibly changed the UI, it was immediately noticed, and widely hated.
- agumonkey 13y ago
  It's as if life forms have evolved communication means for the only purpose of complaining about regressions :)

chaz 13y ago

I think people are just bad at quantifying their own habits.

bane 13y ago

Playing devil's advocate, they say in movies that the best special effects are the ones you don't notice at all.

baddox 13y ago
I think that's more applicable to less obvious things like the audio production in a film.
- chc 13y ago
  It applies to a lot of special effects too. Many — probably most — special effects are striving to look organic. For example, did you notice that half of Titanic was shot in front of a green screen? Were the special effects in the Adventures of Superman TV series better because their chromakey work was more noticeable? It isn't that the special effect doesn't have an impact, but that you don't specifically notice the effect because it blends seamlessly into the rest of the film.
  - JonnieCache 13y ago
    Oh, it goes a lot deeper than that my friend. It's now normal for standard-issue comedies and dramas to be chroma keyed, comped, etc: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clnozSXyF4k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clnozSXyF4k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhN1STep_zk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhN1STep_zk
  - baddox 13y ago
    > For example, did you notice that half of Titanic was shot in front of a green screen? Okay, I guess it depends what you mean by "notice." I certainly was aware that much of Titanic was shot in front of a green screen. No matter how photorealistic special effects become, it's often fairly obvious what's real and what's not.

notatoad 13y ago

i think it's unequivocally a good thing. Google has a product that works, they aren't trying to change the functionality. People's habits online and the type and volume of data that google indexes has changed, and google needs to update their algorithms so that the product functions the same despite the new inputs the algorithm is receiving.

moultano 13y ago

Looking at it from the inside working on search, I see the returns as actually getting bigger and bigger. As Google gets better, people get more confident in issuing more complicated queries, which ups the bar again for the types of things search has to be able to do.

tsycho 13y ago

Assuming "no one notices" as a good proxy for search quality remaining the same, I would argue that Google's getting better since the playing field is getting harder... * There are a ton more people actively researching ways to reverse-engineer and game the system. * There are a ton more sites and more content getting generated, including bot-generated ones which are of dubious quality.

sjwright 13y ago

It's likely that the new "signal" was progressively added to the existing mix, to avoid sudden jarring changes. Boiling a frog, etc.