Hacker News Reader

Comment by JohnFen | Hacker News Reader

This is a fascinating discussion.

> Google has transformed from a comprehensive search engine into something more akin to an exclusive catalog.

That alone goes a long way to explain why Google search had become worthless to me. I had thought that it was mostly that their attempts at interpreting "what I really want" are terrible, but perhaps the reason is actually that they don't index what I really want in the first place.

I almost never want brand/big name sites and the like, but that is mostly what I get.

View on HN

> I almost never want brand/big name sites and the like, but that is mostly what I get.

Google is doing the same thing with youtube. Youtube was a place to get away from traditional media, cable tv, etc. That was the point of the "You" in youtube after all. But now, no matter what I search, it's mostly corporate/traditional media in the list. Youtube was a major part of the 'cut the cord' movement. Now youtube is rebranding itself as 'cable tv re-imagined'.

It's amazing how google and youtube did a complete 180 in just a few years. Google search and youtube are nothing like what it was 10 or 15 years ago.

> But now, no matter what I search, it's mostly corporate/traditional media in the list.

I wish - but now, no matter what I search, it's all idiot influencers youtube shock face thumbnails and contant that can only be targetted at retards.

Not being logged in, deleting cookies and rotating IP addresses may be wonderful for privacy, but the reccomendation engine shows you what the masses are watching and it is incredibly sad.

Yes, and the idiot influencers are propagating the mass consumerist agenda for the corporations.

I observe this as well, however, because Google wants to catch your attention and keep you for as long as possible, it is quite possible that this is also because of the past view history or terms you search. That is, if in the past, you let play lots of videos from traditional media, or search things traditional media like to talk about, then this may reinforce their appering in the search results.

If you watch videos on space flights and search related terms all the time, I expect you'll get related recommendations and links on less mainstream channels.

You're correct about Google's poor interpretation of "what you really want." This issue worsened with AI-driven query interpretation like RankBrain.

But the main problem now is that the content you're looking for just might not be in Google's index at all.

An additional data point: 10 years ago, Google would provide up to 1000 results per query. Now, it's usually no more than 100. They've even removed the total result count from search pages.

Google thinks what you really want is to give them all your attention and money in return for the privilege of breathing on the same planet as them.

This is just how businesses evolve. Early Google was driven by founder vision and engineering excellence. They wanted to build something better than everything else.

Now, those visionaries are gone. Google is run by managers focused on efficiency. Why maintain a massive, costly index when a smaller, cheaper one generates just as much revenue?

> Early Google was driven by founder vision, those visionaries are gone

Their visions are gone but they are still there - they just have planes to fly around in, yachts to sail on and interns to sleep with instead of "doing no evil"

It can get so bad that one is only searching a database of ads. Where the "content" is poorly disguised advertisement. I have found various "search engines" like this over the years. They tend to disappear after a short while.

It always makes me wonder: Who the heck uses these "search engines"?

Their existence suggests there is some completely captive audience to target, e.g., where the audience only knows one source for searching.

An audience that is not going to "reject" the results let alone evaluate them. Even if the results are poorly disguised advertisements. Because this audience is apparently incapable of locating another "search engine".

Perhaps this is also what happens when competition is stifled through anticompetitive practices. People never come to know what they are missing.

Yeah, Google has really tanked in its usefulness to me the past few years. I now routinely have to slap site:reddit.com on many of my searches to get relevant results.

What a joke. :-/

I really like seeking out collecting and curating Old Hollywood content, the kind that mostly lives on old niche blogs. Google is just not great at pulling them up to a point where if I am seeking those niche blogs, Yandex is my go-to.

I find much higher quality content on Yandex for those niche topics.

Are you talking about movie reviews or deeper research / cast interviews etc? If so how would you find that stuff on yandex, what search operators would you have to use?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com