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Offline RoGeorgeTopic starter

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Google search turned stupid again
« on: June 11, 2022, 11:40:07 am »
It happens from time to time, and this weekend started to happen again.  I mean, Google search suddenly returning very poor results. 

The query almost doesn't matter any more, it returns the most popular "whatever" instead of what I'm searching for, with results that disregards the context or the other helping words in the query.

Anybody else noticed that starting this weekend?

Offline mc172

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Re: Google search turned stupid again
« Reply #1 on: June 11, 2022, 11:50:19 am »
Search engines return results in an order that makes them the most money.
 

Offline pcprogrammer

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Re: Google search turned stupid again
« Reply #2 on: June 11, 2022, 02:22:41 pm »
Not with google, but I have had problems with Aliexpress search on many occasions. I then flush the cookies for all sites with ali in the name and it starts to work normal again.

So you might try that.

Offline Stray Electron

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Re: Google search turned stupid again
« Reply #3 on: June 11, 2022, 02:30:01 pm »
It happens from time to time, and this weekend started to happen again.  I mean, Google search suddenly returning very poor results. 

The query almost doesn't matter any more, it returns the most popular "whatever" instead of what I'm searching for, with results that disregards the context or the other helping words in the query.

Anybody else noticed that starting this weekend?

   I haven't noticed Google being any worse this weekend but the results there have been ridiculous for a very long time.  I'm sure the MC172 is right and that Google ranks it's results by whomever pays them the most money.

   For people, Google consistently returns information such as criminal records even when I include terms such as -"arrest" -"booking"  -"criminal"
 

Offline RoGeorgeTopic starter

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Re: Google search turned stupid again
« Reply #4 on: June 11, 2022, 03:52:25 pm »
To me it's much worse, but only starting from the last to days.  Before, it was OK-ish.

Another strange fact is that it started to return some results in Romanian, while the search page is set for English, and I never search Romanian terms with Google.  Before it never use to return Ro results.  :-//

For example, today I was looking for a wikipedia page, and searched for von neumann debias wikipedia and they are all off, one is in Romanian (and also wrong), and there are only 3 pages of results, which is unexpectedly low number of pages.
Code: [Select]
Google
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About 30,000 results (0.43 seconds)

Hardware random number generator - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Hardware_random_nu...
The main application for electronic hardware random number generators is in cryptography, where they are used to generate random cryptographic keys to transmit ...

John von Neumann - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › John_von_Neumann
John von Neumann was a Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, engineer and polymath. Von Neumann was regarded as perhaps the ...
Born: Neumann János Lajos; December 28, 1...
Known for: Abelian von Neumann algebra; ‎Affi...‎
Children: Marina von Neumann Whitman
Other notable students: Paul Halmos; ‎Clifford ...‎
Missing: debias ‎| Must include: debias

John von Neumann - Wikipedia
https://ro.wikipedia.org › wiki › John...
· Translate this page
John von Neumann ; Donald B. Gillies (Canadian mathematician and computer scientist)|​]] · Maurice Pryce ; Maurice Pryce (fizician britanic)|​]] · Israel Halperin ...
Missing: debias ‎| Must include: debias

Arhitectură von Neumann - Wikipedia
https://ro.wikipedia.org › wiki › Arhi...
· Translate this page
Arhitectura von Neumann este una din arhitecturile posibile (cuprinzând ... Numele provine de la John von Neumann, un renumit matematician și pionier al ...
Missing: debias ‎| Must include: debias
People also ask
What is von Neumann theory?
What is von Neumann famous for?
Was John von Neumann the smartest person ever?
Is John von Neumann father of modern computer?
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Von Neumann architecture - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Von_Neumann_archit...
The von Neumann architecture — also known as the von Neumann model or Princeton architecture — is a computer architecture based on a 1945 description by ...
Missing: debias ‎| Must include: debias

Proof of Von Neumann's debiasing algorithm - MathOverflow
https://mathoverflow.net › questions › proof-of-von-ne...
Dec 17, 2013 — John von Neumann describes an algorithm to debias the random source and output a perfectly unbiased sequence of 1s and 0s as follows:.
2 answers
  ·  Top answer: The original article by von Neumann (https://dornsifecms.usc.edu/assets/sites/520/docs/VonNeumann-am ...

Archivo:Arquitectura von Neumann.png - Wikiversidad
https://es.wikiversity.org › wiki › Arc...
· Translate this page
Archivo:Arquitectura von Neumann.png ... atribución – Debes otorgar el crédito correspondiente, proporcionar un enlace a la ... Uso en es.wikipedia.org.

Stanford, Kyoto & Georgia Tech Model 'Neutralizes' Biased ...
https://medium.com › syncedreview
Dec 11, 2019 — As one of Wikipedia's fundamental principles, NPOV is battle-tested and used widely to debias text in the wild, which is why Pryzant and his ...

An Empirical Survey of the Effectiveness of Debiasing ...
https://aclanthology.org › 2022.acl-long.132.pdf
PDF
by N Meade · 2022 · Cited by 2 — Self-Debias to be the strongest bias mitigation tech- ... Wikipedia using increased dropout regularization. SELF-DEBIAS. Schick et al. (2021) propose.
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The expected result was about this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randomness_extractor#Von_Neumann_extractor but a standalone page.  This is not the only search weirdness today.  Usally it came back to normal after a week or two.  It happened before.

I was just curious if such things happens to everybody, at once, or if it's sparse.

Offline mclute0

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Re: Google search turned stupid again
« Reply #5 on: June 11, 2022, 04:31:59 pm »
Google has gotten pretty bad compared to decades ago, but I remember using sites like Excite, Lycos, and Infoseek when they first came out.

You might try using Googles advanced search page and use the options to reduce the results to match your desire, but they will still try to give you paid ads as results.

Remember that exclusions are singular without wild card so Truck≠Trucks but Tr*==Truck & Tr*==Trucks & Tr*==Tricks & Tr*==Traps.

Google also changes their search algorithms frequently and sometimes they make mistakes. You can always send them a feedback message on any really bad query results, and they will probably look at it at some future date.

https://www.google.com/advanced_search
« Last Edit: June 11, 2022, 07:20:10 pm by mclute0 »
 

Offline mcinque

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Re: Google search turned stupid again
« Reply #6 on: June 11, 2022, 05:53:33 pm »
Search engines return results in an order that makes them the most money.

maybe OT, but please argue on this, i would like to hear your point. clicks on organic results do not generate money, only ads do.
 

Offline mc172

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Re: Google search turned stupid again
« Reply #7 on: June 12, 2022, 01:38:11 am »
How do you know that the results are "organic" and how do you know that clicks on those "organic" results are not generating money?

I haven't got an argument other than: it's all about money.
 

Offline mcinque

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Re: Google search turned stupid again
« Reply #8 on: June 12, 2022, 09:32:21 pm »
How do you know that the results are "organic" and how do you know that clicks on those "organic" results are not generating money?

I haven't got an argument other than: it's all about money.

you know that they are organic results because they haven't "ad" beside.

organic results does not generate directly money by a click.
google makes money by knowing what people search/want and what kind of website is successful. knowledge is power, because you can use it to sell ads by knowing which ones to show and to whom, making them successful and thus creating a successful service (google ads).

if google manipulated the results by putting specific websites at the top not because of their relevance to the search, it would lose users, because users would not want a search engine that offers results that are not in line with their searches. if it lost users it would decrease knowledge about what people are searching for, so it is not in its interest to do such a thing.

what you see are experiments by google trying to come up with results for all sorts of reasons (new sites, user intent testing, and other things we can't know)

yes, it's all about money, and google knows how to make money, but it's not by proposing random/odd results that you succeed as a search engine
 

Online RJSV

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Re: Google search turned stupid again
« Reply #9 on: June 28, 2022, 05:57:49 am »
Online cash transactions, sure anyone wants security doing that.  But what's freaking irritating is the 'holes' that frequently appear, where goole-grow goes 'stupid' on me, often in political related searches.  While same time (folks know this) will 'complete' something as stunted, as 'The'.  (Well, almost that bad)!
  But, especially frust, when I can't get back to, for instance, some specific Jimi Hendrix video, etc.  Just cannot get it back up to go click on, in results list.
That's, like 17th century 'tech'.  Sounds vain, petty problem, but people buy and like their smartphones, for entertainment.  Can't buy a DVD player, so easy, or even an AM radio.  That stuff gets me to curse,...(not a good attitude to retain!).
 

Offline Siwastaja

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Re: Google search turned stupid again
« Reply #10 on: June 28, 2022, 07:55:37 am »
Anybody else noticed that starting this weekend?

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.
 

Offline SiliconWizard

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Re: Google search turned stupid again
« Reply #11 on: June 28, 2022, 04:54:23 pm »
Anybody else noticed that starting this weekend?

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.

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,
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Online thm_w

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Re: Google search turned stupid again
« Reply #12 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. 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.
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Offline Siwastaja

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Re: Google search turned stupid again
« Reply #13 on: June 29, 2022, 05:42:18 am »
I don't see how searching for "facebook" and getting the result "facebook.com" would somehow dumb down the algorithm.

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.
 

Offline mcinque

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Re: Google search turned stupid again
« Reply #14 on: June 29, 2022, 06:44:50 pm »
I don't see how searching for "facebook" and getting the result "facebook.com" would somehow dumb down the algorithm.

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.

That's exactly what happens here: 1st result. It's normal and it's what I expect.
1525597-0

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.

« Last Edit: June 29, 2022, 06:47:26 pm by mcinque »
 

Offline Siwastaja

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Re: Google search turned stupid again
« Reply #15 on: June 29, 2022, 07:10:47 pm »
You just don't get what I am saying  |O.

Many others use Google to find Facebook.

Google is optimized this use case in mind, as well as some other very simplistic pseudo-searches.

I don't enter "facebook" into Google and thus I am not interested about what results it gives with this search term.

Is this now clear?
« Last Edit: June 29, 2022, 07:13:06 pm by Siwastaja »
 

Offline mcinque

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Re: Google search turned stupid again
« Reply #16 on: June 30, 2022, 10:27:18 am »
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.

aside from the fact that misunderstandings can happen, I just responded to the example by showing that it was exactly as you asked

yes, so many use google to search for a site instead of typing it into the address bar (which they don't even know what it is; many think the Internet is google), but technology has to adapt to its users: google does the same.

if you search for a www.facebook.com google understands that you are looking for the site and returns the facebook site as the first result.

Quote
Google is optimized this use case in mind, as well as some other very simplistic pseudo-searches.

From what I can see, that's not exactly the case.

However, you can use advanced search operators to improve how google does your search, for example by entering

facebook -forum -review -discussions -news -trends
 

Online Zero999

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Re: Google search turned stupid again
« Reply #17 on: June 30, 2022, 11:35:38 am »
I don't see how searching for "facebook" and getting the result "facebook.com" would somehow dumb down the algorithm.

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.

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

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.
Google generates stupid search results! This is supposed to be news? You search for Facebook and it gives pro-abortion propaganda at the bottom of the first page, which just shows Google's political bias. It's important to take this into account when searching for anything remotely political, or where different sides of the US political spectrum disagree on a matter. Unfortunately this bullcrap is starting to infect some areas of science and engineering, especially the theoretical side.
 
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Offline Haenk

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Re: Google search turned stupid again
« Reply #18 on: June 30, 2022, 11:54:43 am »
Search engines return results in an order that makes them the most money.

maybe OT, but please argue on this, i would like to hear your point. clicks on organic results do not generate money, only ads do.

You are thinking way too small. Think outside the box.
The results shown are very often linked out via tracking URL, so Google (or Bing or whatever search engine) can improve their correlation "your search term" <-> "the content that matters to you and probably others". So in turn, they could better match search terms; that match could be sold for more money as a fine tuned search term to advertisers.
So even clicking on the search term will generate profit in the long run.

 

Offline mcinque

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Re: Google search turned stupid again
« Reply #19 on: June 30, 2022, 01:08:41 pm »
Search engines return results in an order that makes them the most money.

You are thinking way too small. Think outside the box.
we don't have multimillion-dollar search engine companies or run them, so we can't know more about them in terms of how to generate profit from searches. I don't think we can think better of them since their goal is just to make money, what they do is done to make money, even if it seems bad.

So even clicking on the search term will generate profit in the long run.

That's exactly what I told. "Search engines return results in an order that makes them the most money."
 

Online RJSV

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Re: Google search turned stupid again
« Reply #20 on: June 30, 2022, 02:01:40 pm »
Zero999: thanks
   I didn't want to say too much, but your point being, you can get Abortion (Pro) opinion shoved in your face, just by searching for Facebook.  Then, with (your) comment to that effect, a bunch of folks suddenly want to question YOU, almost a form of gaslighting!
   Who cares, about political loyalties...we all got affiliations, but I'm noting that you can't...well, NOTE things, like obvious bias, without getting stepped on by a bunch of, I guess, hypersensitive s calling you out.
   Beating up on poor, defenseless  Googl.
 

Online Zero999

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Re: Google search turned stupid again
« Reply #21 on: June 30, 2022, 06:24:46 pm »
Zero999: thanks
   I didn't want to say too much, but your point being, you can get Abortion (Pro) opinion shoved in your face, just by searching for Facebook.  Then, with (your) comment to that effect, a bunch of folks suddenly want to question YOU, almost a form of gaslighting!
   Who cares, about political loyalties...we all got affiliations, but I'm noting that you can't...well, NOTE things, like obvious bias, without getting stepped on by a bunch of, I guess, hypersensitive s calling you out.
   Beating up on poor, defenseless  Googl.
Lol.

The problem is in the US there are two extremes pushed by news outlets and politicians either: allow it in all cases, or none at all. Google has clearly picked its side and it's not helping anyone. I have my own views based on scientific evidence just as much as morality. Either way discussing politics here is against the rules. I don't intend to discuss it, just call out Google's bias.
 
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Offline Siwastaja

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Re: Google search turned stupid again
« Reply #22 on: June 30, 2022, 06:55:51 pm »
Yeah, but extremist / dualistic political discussion has always been part of the USA.

It's just that we have hard time understanding how it works, and take it too seriously / in the wrong way when we import it here. And when you import the political separation of USA into the Finnish (for example; I'd guess it's pretty much the same for British) culture, it actually tears us apart, in a bad way.

While in the USA, everybody can keep thinking whatever they want, and they will always find a lot of like-minded people, so no such total and utter cancel culture as driven in European medias, even in legislation to increasing degree. It's also kind of show business in the USA, but dead serious when imported here.
 

Offline SilverSolder

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Re: Google search turned stupid again
« Reply #23 on: July 01, 2022, 12:57:57 am »

Google is still vaguely useful if you choose "Verbatim" mode (in the Tools menu).  This forces the results to contain all the search terms you entered.  Imagine that, a search function that looks for the search terms you typed in.  It can only be a matter of time before some marketing genius at Google discovers this, and gets it removed...  so enjoy it while it's here!  :D
 
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Online Zero999

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Re: Google search turned stupid again
« Reply #24 on: July 02, 2022, 07:15:42 pm »

Google is still vaguely useful if you choose "Verbatim" mode (in the Tools menu).  This forces the results to contain all the search terms you entered.  Imagine that, a search function that looks for the search terms you typed in.  It can only be a matter of time before some marketing genius at Google discovers this, and gets it removed...  so enjoy it while it's here!  :D
I suspect sensible, middle ground positions are not often portrayed in US media, because it isn't profitable. Someone saying "I would like to see abortion well-regulated and to be permitted under certain circumstances. Here's the evidence to support my position." won't get the same emotional response and number of views as "Ban abortion, it's murdering babies." or "Women have the right to do what they want with their bodies." It does alarm me that more of this bollocks is infecting the UK.
 
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