RIP Google, a ‘Search Engine’ from 1998-2018 | Hacker News Reader

RIP Google, a ‘Search Engine’ from 1998-2018

webmarketingschool.com

35 pointsiamben32 comments

This seems to be about a change where, if you search for "time toronto", it'll show you the time in Toronto in a mostly blank page and a button labeled "Show all results".

Very clicky-batey title.

I'm not sure it is clickbait. Previously, typing things into Google would result in a list of webpages that matched the phrase you typed in, with various ambiguity around that to allow for flexibility.

Now it doesn't do that, by default. Yeah, there's button to do it, so it's not like anybody can't access the results anymore. But certainly from the perspective of the first experience, this is a huge change.

Assuming whatever A/B-style test is currently running is "successful", it would be reasonable to assume that this feature would be rolled out to other queries where Google assumes users want an answer to a specific question. That's something that could have a significant impact on the web generally, given Google's dominant position.

They show whatever they want to show. For example see https://www.google.com/search?q=matemathica If you search for "matemathica" they will show the results of "mathematica" instead, and offer to search for the original word. Sometimes they mix the results of the original word and the autocorrected version. Sometimes they show the results of the original and offer to show the results of the autocorrection.

I know, and I did explicitly point out that there was ambiguity in there. But there’s a bit of a difference, I feel.

In your example they still show results, in mine, they do not.

Where is this button? It's not shown in the screenshots in the article or on my mobile: https://s18.postimg.org/rjhqgav4p/wp_ss_20180315_0001.png

Lately my google search results have been total garbage.

Google confuses terms. Whenever searching for something rare, it just "autocorrects" the search term to something common. It often modifies product model numbers and gives results you didn't ask for.

It helpfully drops search terms the user explicitly provides it. It doesn't even help to put + in front of the words, like some years ago.

There's advanced search, but the results are only marginally better and it's horrible to use.

Hands up... yes, it’s fully intended to get you to click through. (I wrote it)

BUT: the underlying point is still valid, these are not sear results, that come from a search engine. These are answers, from an answer engine.

(But still made you click ;) )

This looks like a "user first" approach which I, as a user, really dig. Don't forget that Google is likely losing out on adwords revenue as a result of this change.

On the other hand: 1) this kind of query is not a big driver of Adwords revenue 2) the direct answer is cheaper to compute than a search of the web index 3) this result page is much smaller to generate, serve, load and render

4) they are still showing ads on the page.

I don't see any ads for the query mentioned, but I guess that's a possibility for the future.

Wolfram alpha tells the user how they interpreted your question, google doesn't. So how do you know google is giving you the right answer? Without search results, alternative answers are harder to get. Remember the 'how far is the sun' query ?

I'd rather think this is RIP to the SEO company complaining about not being able to put a a junk page titled "find lbs to kg today" on the "lbs to kg" search result page.

Too often do I see absolute rubbish on the search results page from companies trying to land on top that have no actual relevance to what I want. Also too often does google guess what I really wanted and show me that instead of what I specifically said.

I miss boolean search. How the hell does anyone find anyhing anymore? All my searches are changed to more common shit google thinks I shouod search for instead. Bing, Ddg, arent much better. Is there a simple, powerful search ala google of early 2000s? I would easily pay an absurd monthly amount just to have control again. I feel helpless in a sea of misinformation and google is objectivly making it worse.

1. Search for "one two three".

2. Google returns results with "one" and "three" crossed out, as if you didn't mean to put them in the search.

3. Go to bing I guess?

I don't want to contradict your overall message that search quality has morphed in undesirable ways, I totally agree with the sentiment... but my query doesn't behave in the way hereto described. I currently see a 1961 film named "One, Two, Three" as the first result without any indication the engine believes I've erred.

I don't understand the issue with this.

"Oh no, Google is giving me what I just asked for, what will the people running websites that do this exact thing ever do? I really wish I had to click extra times and load other websites to get this info instead of it just being presented to me when I ask."

I suppose it's not really an issue unless Google moves into your market? Then I'd imagine it's a massive issue. If the bulk of your traffic is Google, and they stop showing you for certain queries, it's going to hurt.

And a big part of this is: Where did Google get their data in the first place. Celebrity Net Worth has been torched by Google, for example, because Google scrapes their data without permission and offers it up without compensating them in any way.

This ends up hurting users, because now the company that's actually getting the data isn't getting compensated, if they go out of business, you get worse data. This is the same problem with blogspam sites getting ranked above the real journalists who uncovered the news.

Source: https://theoutline.com/post/1399/how-google-ate-celebritynet...

It's a big deal if you run "webmarketingschool.com" and make an entire business out of trying to get people from Google to your client's sleazy, useless web pages. For the rest of us, it's great.

Well, I run that site. It’s non commercial, doesn’t have ads, and my clients are all Fortune 50’s.

Do some research before trying to put people down, it’s unbecoming.

It makes sense that a guy whose job it is to make things appear on search results would be angry at a search engine bypassing the sites of people like him.

Rent-seeking at it's finest.

The way Google has been sculpting it's products is consistent with their statement of "organizing information". Now it's almost like web is just becoming a fall back for when Google didn't happen to have the answers to a particular question on hand. But like other commenters are saying, the users love it!

SEO should just addapt there business to not being about gaming the search engines but instead consulting site owners to deliver quality content on well optimize d sites. Let's be honest here though, SEO as it was in the past is a dying discipline in light of the growing safistication of these "knowledge engines"

Google hasn't been primarily a web search company for ages — it's an advertising company. Either way, their ultimate goal is to make more money and evidently they think this helps that.

If you don't like their search service, you can use an alternative. The network effect fortunately doesn't apply to search engines.

I hope (but doubt) that Google will make their search service sufficiently awful that they will erode their own monopoly.

Old and remember Altavista. Google is simply incredible and hard to figure out how they are able to do it and so quickly.

I wonder if their will be a resurgence of web directories.

When I can't find something useful through a search engine, I look for the most active subreddit in the topic area and check their wiki. They are often full of well-organized, curated content and FAQs built from years of newbie questions.

Example: r/fitness

> Right now, example queries that no longer return real results include (but may not be limited to): [...]

> [...] km to miles [...]

> while these searches don’t trigger third party organic results, they DO trigger ads:

Whaaaat? I just tried "km to miles". While the built-in km to miles converter gadget does appear at the top, there are actual search results below that. Pages and pages of non-ad results. The first bunch of results are various unit converter pages.

These SEO scoundrels are such pathological liars that they no longer even care when they are lying in a way that is instantly falsifiable.

I would point out that I do see the thing that they are describing, which I incidentally noticed, and it’s more likely that Google are A/B testing than that everybody is a liar :)

It’s a/b testing most likely. No need to get hyped up.

There’s a screenshot example. More have been found since I wrote that piece.

Best regards, “SEO scoundrel”

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