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Comment by at-fates-hands | Hacker News Reader

> We cannot, as a healthy internet, let Google control so much of the web.

It's getting worse too.

Back in the day, you could Google something for a manufacturer and include the name of the manufacturer like, "Pioneer 10" Subwoofer" and automatically the first result would be a like to Pioneer's subwoofer page or their main ecommerce site.

You type that into Google today? You will get 15 results for AMAZON pages with Pioneer speakers. No, I want to buy it from Pioneer, not Amazon. Oh yeah? The actual link to the actual company, who actually makes those speakers? They're on Page 2.

When you have the actual manufacturer being buried in the results, we have a major problem.

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IMO Google is doing the best they can to serve you relevant results, just that everyone and their uncle is spamming internet to get up in the ranking game.

Think of modern google as a question answering machine not a serch engine. And do "Show me Pioneer 10 subwoofer manufacturer specs" instead of just jamming keywords and hoping for the best.

> IMO Google is doing the best they can to serve you relevant results

Maybe, but if so then they're singularly bad at it. Google consistently gives me worse results than DDG and Bing, anyway.

I really think it's because Google is trying to figure out what I "really mean" by my search queries, and it's really terrible at guessing.

I'm genuinely asking: can you share an example where the Google results are worse in your opinion than DDG or Bing? Ideally with a screenshot in case there is some personalization going on. I just want to see a very clear example of it so I can try it out for myself.

What you really mean in a google search is you want to buy something. You only think you don't want to buy. It doesn't matter that you've lost the leaflet for your Pioneer 10 Subwoofer and want to remember which wire goes where in your new house. Or just want to remember some detail of something you had years ago. Google is there to assure you that you really want to buy a shiny new set.

Not buying stuff you already own again serves neither the economy nor Google's advertising profit. Go on, buy another set. Infinite growth depends on it.

That really is their attitude to every product and service.

because you are being swamped by the order of magnitude more people that want to find a price or buy it.

I work at Google (not Search though sorry), opinions are my own.

> When you have the actual manufacturer being buried in the results, we have a major problem.

How do you know though? What if the majority users actually do what you describe in hopes of buying something and thus the shopping results are more relevant for them?

I imagine either there is a bug or this is the case, because I'm sure the links people actually click feed back into the algorithms and the results are modified accordingly.

This being said, it seems like the fact that your results aren't personalized enough to your liking is a shortcoming, assuming you were signed in.

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Third-party shopping results are shown on page one and the manufacturer's store is on page two, and people rarely go beyond page one so naturally they will click the Amazon results. This in turn feeds the algorithm and reinforces its original assumption.

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