Has search gotten worse?

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Is the quality of web search results getting worse?

  • Yes

    Votes: 1,238 94.6%

  • No

    Votes: 19 1.5%

  • IDK

    Votes: 52 4.0%
  • Total voters
    1,309
google has been "curating" search regarding anything even remotely political for years now. Just so you can always get the "correct" opinions on every topic
also it seems that search engines stopped caring about exact quote matching search using "" and often give results with only similar phrases
 
Why does Quora with hot take bullshit keep popping up in pretty much every search result? It's like Pinterest with images.

Rusty Crab said:
DDG is almost there but has a lot of areas to catch up in.
Click to expand...

me to DDG: "history of baking with yeast"
DDG: "Top 10 Pie Recipes"

(the DDG search engine can really suck)

potato fan said:
also it seems that search engines stopped caring about exact quote matching search using "" and often give results with only similar phrases
Click to expand...

Gone are the days when "just google it" could be good advice.
 
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ToroidalBoat said:
me to DDG: "history of baking with yeast"
DDG: "Top 10 Pie Recipes"

(the DDG search engine can really suck)
Click to expand...
Recently I was shopping for heat lamps and tried searching on DDG and for some weird reason, all the results were in the UK (or Alibaba, but fuck China so I'm not buying from them either). I went through my cookies and deleted DDG's cookies and for good measure, every single UK-based site I've ever visited. Then I tried again. Exact same results. Weird.
 
If I need to just look something up I stick with Ecosia, (they're the browser that apparently plants trees based on how many searches you do and that way I can sit here feeling smug pretending that I'm doing something useful to society) but if I need reference images for art then I often have to switch to Google because they give me better image searches. I don't know how Ecosia is aggregating their content but I get a perplexing amount of results coming from celebrity foot fetish websites. :thinking:
 
potato fan said:
google has been "curating" search regarding anything even remotely political for years now. Just so you can always get the "correct" opinions on every topic
also it seems that search engines stopped caring about exact quote matching search using "" and often give results with only similar phrases
Click to expand...
Dude, what absolutely infuriates me is when I type in something specific in a Google search, and the results have similar things to my query with 1 or 2 words greyed out with a strikethrough, and then when I click the word that's been removed from the results, it fucking shows the results of full thing I typed in. WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T YOU JUST SHOW ME THOSE RESULTS THE FIRST TIME WHEN I ASKED FOR THEM?

Example...

I type in "Windows 10 February 2021 update error", and the results come back as "Windows 10 February 2021 update error", showing me only generic results for Windows 10 updates not necessarily related to February 2021. So then I click to have "February 2021" included the results, and sure enough the 1st result is a website talking about update errors for February 2021 in Windows 10. Seriously, in my best AVGN voice, WHAT WERE THEY THINKING!!??
 
Twice today I've tried looking up a specific thing on Google only to get something else entirely.

The first was when I was looking up Shemp Howard (more specifically, I punched in "Shemp Howard Young"), and for some goddamn reason, Google gave me results for Moe. They don't even look the same, so why am I getting only Moe? I get that Shemp wasn't as famous as the other Stooges, but for God's sake at least acknowledge the man's existence. Weirdly, it's the addition of the word "young" that screws it up because it's fine otherwise, but it begs the question why that's even the case. The second one arguably wasn't as offensive but it was still annoying. I tried to look up The Conjuring to get an idea for its reception, but punching in just "The Conjuring" gave me The Conjuring 2. This seems to be a recurring issue when trying to look up anything with similar titles, because Google will inevitably give me the wrong one unless I be overly specific. Even then though, if I'm just typing in the name of the first movie I should expect to see results pertaining to the first movie.
 
The Littlest Shitlord said:
Recently I was shopping for heat lamps and tried searching on DDG and for some weird reason, all the results were in the UK (or Alibaba, but fuck China so I'm not buying from them either).
Click to expand...
So, just trying to understand this.

You only buy from people who dropship stuff from China, or people who buy stuff from China in bulk and then resell it in the US?
 
Michael Jacks0n said:
Dude, what absolutely infuriates me is when I type in something specific in a Google search, and the results have similar things to my query with 1 or 2 words greyed out with a strikethrough, and then when I click the word that's been removed from the results, it fucking shows the results of full thing I typed in. WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T YOU JUST SHOW ME THOSE RESULTS THE FIRST TIME WHEN I ASKED FOR THEM?

Example...

I type in "Windows 10 February 2021 update error", and the results come back as "Windows 10 February 2021 update error", showing me only generic results for Windows 10 updates not necessarily related to February 2021. So then I click to have "February 2021" included the results, and sure enough the 1st result is a website talking about update errors for February 2021 in Windows 10. Seriously, in my best AVGN voice, WHAT WERE THEY THINKING!!??
Click to expand...
Holy shit do I ever hate that. If I put forth the effort to type in those words, that means I want you to search for them. All of them, not just whatever two words you feel like looking for.

If there's any evidence that we've achieved advanced AI, it's that internet searches are getting increasingly like dealing with a human between all the misinterpretation, stupid assumptions, and laziness, rather than dealing with a computer that just executes commands literally.
 
ToroidalBoat said:
Why does Quora with hot take bullshit keep popping up in pretty much every search result? It's like Pinterest with images.
Click to expand...

Pinterest, Quora, and fake 'reviews' that are actually little more than spam for Amazon links are probably the biggest cancers coming out of non political searches these days. As far as the fake review sites go, I was looking for recommendations for the best office chair and the sheer amount of amazon link/fake reviews was staggering. It took me a few days of searching on and off to find the legitimate review I was looking for.

The fake review sites all have the same basic layout - usually it's in a 'top 5' format, complete with those handy Amazon links - and little information about what differentiates them beyond the Amazon star ranking. I've run into this not just with office chairs but also with bicycles, bookshelves, etc.

I also believe Google has fucked around with Google Books search results as well; there are books that are clearly in the public domain (pre 1926) but were removed probably due to behind the scene pressure by publishers who sell the works. After some digging, I can find the same books on either archive.org or Hathitrust (neither of which have as good as search as Google Books) with a nice big 'scanned by google' stamp in the front, yet can no longer be found on their own site.

If google weren't a shit company, they'd start to put shit sites like Quora, Pinterest and the bogus reviewers way down in the rankings. I also want to see any website that has autoplaying video (the pop ups of our day) penalized.
 
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Recently someone who isn't that computer savvy or follow anything tech related asked me, using the "excuse me if this is a stupid question" tone, if it was just her or if I also felt like google search had gotten much worse. That made me happy, regular people are starting to notice.
 
Smaug's Smokey Hole said:
Recently someone who isn't that computer savvy or follow anything tech related asked me, using the "excuse me if this is a stupid question" tone, if it was just her or if I also felt like google search had gotten much worse. That made me happy, regular people are starting to notice.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I was saying a bit ago that even my Giga-Boomer mom noticed that something was amiss. Whenever I see her she always ends up using her phone to find something and half the time starts getting visibly frustrated that incredibly obvious stuff isn't popping up.
 
One other thing that I don't think has been mentioned here in relation to shit search results is how they now seem to be pushing 'news' (read: propaganda) into every search result. News, news, news everywhere, even in apps like Plex, the default homepage of YT, you name it - you can't escape it. Ad revenue in news business has been on the decline since the early 90s, and dries a little further every year, but yet there is more money losing propaganda beamed into results than ever before.
 
I needed to use good ol' Macromedia Flash today, it's staggering how bad the search results were. Trannies copy pasting PR fluff on unusable tech sites, manchildren tearfully reminiscing about shitty browser games, shameless corporate grifters and a deluge of reddit posts linking to these grifters, trannies and manchildren in a great big circlejerk. But then the first fucking link in Russian was "set installer to win7 compatibility mode" and it's done. I bet if I knew Hindu, I could just brainjack into my piece of shit laptop and be done in seconds.

Posted from Internet Explorer using Bonzibuddy
 
Google was really good a few years back for finding stuff. As much as I bitch about the beast that is Google, they had a solid search engine back then. You could really narrow down something very specific.

That all changed around 2015 or so. It just started to become one big online shopping mall with most top links being to items related to your search you can purchase. You also used to get only one "ad link" at the top of the results but if you're vague enough you can get up to 3 or 4 before normal search results begin.

I feel the exact opposite about DuckDuckGo. 2016 DuckDuckGo wasn't terrible, but it wasn't exactly great. I still wouldn't call it fabulous in 2021 but it has become a lot better in the last few years. I have used them more and more. While it's still a hassle to find something very specific, you're better off using DuckDuckGo for basic searches. At least they put the Wiki article as one of the first 2 results and I don't have to scroll down 5-6 results because Google is wanting me to buy DVD or something.

TL;DR Google is great now if you want to buy something, garbage for anything else. DuckDuckGo is pretty good in 2021.
 
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Million Short started out as an experimental web search engine that allows you to filter and refine your search results set. The thinking was that web searches yield the same popular sites. Million Short makes it easy to discover sites that just don't make it to the top of the search engine results for whatever reason – whether it be poor SEO, new site, small marketing budget, or competitive keywords. The Million Short technology gives users access to the wealth of untapped information on the web.
 
need_shoeonhead_nudes said:
millionshort.com

Million Short

What haven't you found?
millionshort.com millionshort.com

Million Short started out as an experimental web search engine that allows you to filter and refine your search results set. The thinking was that web searches yield the same popular sites. Million Short makes it easy to discover sites that just don't make it to the top of the search engine results for whatever reason – whether it be poor SEO, new site, small marketing budget, or competitive keywords. The Million Short technology gives users access to the wealth of untapped information on the web.
Click to expand...
>requires js and captcha
glowies go home
 
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