General > General Technical Chat
Have we reached peak internet information overload when doing internet searches.
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EPAIII:
The first thing you must realize is

GOOGLE is an ADVERTISING company.

Everything that Google does is in support of that fundamental purpose: selling goods and services. Their free services do not pay even the electric bill at their headquarters.

The primary purpose of their search service is to help you find things. It is to GATHER information on your spending habits and then SELL that information to other advertising companies or use it directly to target you with ADs.

The same is true about a free e-mail address, YouTube, and any and all other services that Google provides for no charge. It has been said that Google still has the information from their very first free services which were run on a single computer in a college dorm. I totally believe that.

And the same is true about ALL the others who provide free internet services. The PRIMARY purpose of all of these free services is to collect information and to steer the users to the products sold by the companies which PAY to have those products featured at the top of every internet search.

If you want to avoid being targeted with PAID search results at the TOP of the results page, then the best advice I can offer is to use the NEWEST search facility. The new ones are still trying to sell their service to the companies which want to sell something. I recall that Bing was great for about a year or so, but then they got successful and were just like Google. Ditto for all the rest. They are there to sell things. NO OTHER REASON!




--- Quote from: JPortici on January 24, 2024, 06:14:04 am ---some ideas here
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/program-that-filters-rubbish-sites-and-youtube-videos-of-low-value/

if only i could block shit from within the google search app as well..

--- End quote ---
tooki:
I wonder whether Google search returns useful, ad- and shopping-unburdened, search results when performed from within Google’s corporate network.
coppercone2:
I don't think its too terrible you just need to work a little harder and be more methodical

its somewhat worse but there is way more sites and stuff now. even simple stuff with electronics IMO in the last 10 years you get wayyyyyyyyyy more content, its about being able to use slightly relevant information now to help implement a more ambitious and complex idea

harder to get a direct hit but its much easier to see a reflection/signature of what you want with useful information in there on topics that were completely devoid of any information. Having more information when doing esoteric things is superior to getting the complete picture of more generic things, often. I can sometimes see a partial solution from so many angles that it can be better then the perfect answer to what I wanted to know specifically, but it does take more time and effort to put together. Why? because you get much more insight and wisdom if you have many sources of information.

But yeah the wall of corporate bull shit that comes up sometimes is a exercise to scale.... but again they have more content so if you work hard you can often get to some where you could not get 10 years ago.

having 10 expert sources in 200 noise sources is more resources then 2 experts with 10 noise source, if you have the skill/time to filter. But if you use the internet for time critical work then its much less favorable now. But I don't think i can say that the internet got unilaterally worse. I can find everything from video explanations, to scans from ancient books, to papers on some really esoteric shit right now. Like I am generally surprised by how specific of an answer I can get to some really odd ball questions today, if I really want the answers.

and also having the ability to find extra information because of volume sometimes allows you to debunk some really authoritative sounding bullshit that used to basically be considered 'law' in specific circles, when it was the only game in a quiet town.

and also for ideas you can better find out if like a invention or thought you have is unique or if people are even interested in the topic. You used to have some real questions that you could not even evaluate properly with less people online. But of course you need to take that with a grain of salt because the internet tends to lump together things that are considered very unique/introspective/specific in real life into some kind of generic low value gruel category based on some generic/abstract observation of a pattern by a unfamiliar analyst, which leads to unwarranted devaluation, while in real life it might be really handy to someone that has a few extra details from experience. the utility score given to topics by the internet is in my opinion of rather low value. How many times I have been sure of the utility of something, had the internet lead me to believe its unnecessary/overcomplicated/obsolete and then I found that my angle with the problem lead to that thing having a extreme utiliy and the internet evaluation ends up sounding like its written by some irrelevant and unskilled noob.
shapirus:

--- Quote from: rdl on January 25, 2024, 12:18:45 am ---You could require certain words be in the result. You could require certain words not appear in the results. You could require that a specific phrase or string of words be found.

--- End quote ---
All of the above is still supported by at least Google. I use those all the time.
EPAIII:
OK, I'll bite.

In the past you could require that a specific phrase of string of words be found by wrapping those words in quotation marks. But today, Google and all the other search engines just totally ignore the quotation marks and treat each word as an individual. Worse yet, often the results at the top of the list will contain only ONE of those words while those containing two or more will be further down. And changing the order of the words can completely change their meaning, thereby adding a number of returns that are totally irrelevant to your search. But Google and the rest WANT to be able to report to the buyers of their services that they found more interested, potential buyers. That way they can claim they ARE performing a service for those paying clients that they are NOT. They are actually ripping off their clients while irritating the general public that uses their search engine. In case you can't tell, I do not like Google's search engine.

So, just how do you "require" that the results, the TOP RESULTS contain a specific string of words. Preferably in the order that I use and not rearranged. I and probably many others would really like to know.




--- Quote from: shapirus on January 26, 2024, 10:00:11 am ---
--- Quote from: rdl on January 25, 2024, 12:18:45 am ---You could require certain words be in the result. You could require certain words not appear in the results. You could require that a specific phrase or string of words be found.

--- End quote ---
All of the above is still supported by at least Google. I use those all the time.

--- End quote ---
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