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Google search turned stupid again
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Siwastaja:

--- Quote from: RoGeorge on June 11, 2022, 11:40:07 am ---Anybody else noticed that starting this weekend?

--- End quote ---

I think I first really noticed it in 2004 and frankly, never seen any improvement after that. Total hit-or-miss every time. More usually miss. Since around 2004, people started to use Google as an address translator so they can type "facebook" instead of facebook.com, and Google encouraged this behavior by purposely dumbing down the algorithm.

Google was actually good in 1998-1999 when it really started replacing Altavista which became too full of popup adds and other bullcrap.
SiliconWizard:

--- Quote from: Siwastaja on June 28, 2022, 07:55:37 am ---
--- Quote from: RoGeorge on June 11, 2022, 11:40:07 am ---Anybody else noticed that starting this weekend?

--- End quote ---

I think I first really noticed it in 2004 and frankly, never seen any improvement after that. Total hit-or-miss every time. More usually miss. Since around 2004, people started to use Google as an address translator so they can type "facebook" instead of facebook.com, and Google encouraged this behavior by purposely dumbing down the algorithm.

Google was actually good in 1998-1999 when it really started replacing Altavista which became too full of popup adds and other bullcrap.

--- End quote ---

Agreed.
The sneaky way of pushing incomplete URLs to search engines is infuriating, and sure Google encouraged it, but web browsers *implemented* it so that it would be "transparent" to the user.

It has now become the norm, and the URL bar now doubles as a search bar on all browsers I know of. I personally HATE it. It's infuriating both ways: when you enter some URL and it goes through a search engine behind your back, and when you actually enter search keywords and it gets automatically completed with a past URL. Firefox has only made it worse as the search field they have put on the default home page redirects immediately to the URL bar.

As the meme went,
--- Quote ---all your base are belong to us
--- End quote ---
thm_w:
I don't see how searching for "facebook" and getting the result "facebook.com" would somehow dumb down the algorithm. What else would you be searching for?
The auto typo correct though, yeah, thats dumbing things down, so then you have to go in and add quotes.

Anyway, a lot of the reason is likely spammers/SEO'ers targeting google and not google getting worse at search.
Siwastaja:

--- Quote from: thm_w on June 28, 2022, 09:29:14 pm ---I don't see how searching for "facebook" and getting the result "facebook.com" would somehow dumb down the algorithm.

--- End quote ---

I mean, when this is the primary use case, then it's a good idea to tune the algorithm in such way it returns facebook.com as the first result, instead of pages that discuss facebook - for example, Wikipedia page about facebook.

Such tuning then affects all the results.

Another "optimization" they seemingly did is to try to return as many results as possible, like it looks fancy if you have 27 000 000 results. You obviously can only see the first few hundred.

This all just means it isn't optimized for the original primary purpose - finding information on the Internet.
mcinque:

--- Quote from: Siwastaja on June 29, 2022, 05:42:18 am ---
--- Quote from: thm_w on June 28, 2022, 09:29:14 pm ---I don't see how searching for "facebook" and getting the result "facebook.com" would somehow dumb down the algorithm.

--- End quote ---

I mean, when this is the primary use case, then it's a good idea to tune the algorithm in such way it returns facebook.com as the first result, instead of pages that discuss facebook - for example, Wikipedia page about facebook.

--- End quote ---

That's exactly what happens here: 1st result. It's normal and it's what I expect.


On the side there are infos about your search (the facebook company?), the most authoritative result: wikipedia.
You can give a feedback on the results and that suggestions may help to tune google on your preferences.

If you are seeing different results, I think what you are experiencing are results based on your web and google behavior: depending on what sites you give importance to, google adapts and suggests certain sites rather than another.

Try browsing incognito or with a different IP to see if the results change.

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