According to a Google leak, we’re all to blame for poor quality search results (2024)
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Though this part worries me: "Google pays attention to how long someone stays on the page after clicking on a search result. They actively look for which result had the “longest click” from users (longest engagement)."
Longest visit is very different from best result.
Sure it's different, but is it _very_ different? They have to choose some sort of metric. A long visit time does seem like one good indicator of the goodness of a result. Consider that they use other indicators as well, and their business largely benefits from their search being useful. It is in their interest to choose good metrics, and I'm sure they invest a lot of time into it. Why do you doubt this seemingly-sensible metric, which google has a motive to get right?
I’m not surprised at all that Google chose this as a metric. It’s very different from a metric that emphasises quality for the user.
“The biggest problem facing users of Web search engines today is the quality of the results they get back. While the results are often amusing and expand users’ horizons, they are often frustrating and consume precious time. “
https://snap.stanford.edu/class/cs224w-readings/Brin98Anatom...
And those are both common enough that yes it's very different.
And I said it worries me, not that I'm confident google is using it wrong.
If I click in, and spend a bit of time reading, maybe I even scroll through your archive of previous articles, then that's a good sign, yeah?
What do you consider a better metric for user engagement?
Or it's a sign that the information I needed with right there.
> If I click in, and spend a bit of time reading
If I click in and spend time searching for what I wanted, that's a bad sign, yeah?
User "engagement" is a rotten metric that doesn't represent what most of us actually care about - results and answers, ASAP.
I'm not claiming this would work but if search engines had a thumbs up/down button next to results I would use it if it informed the ranking algorithm or personalized it for me.
Recipes can be protected under copyright law if they are accompanied by “substantial literary expression.”
would be interesting to find out whether that recipe site filler text counts as "substantial literary expression" in front of a judge. it certainly doesn't pass my smell test
The page, including the recipe and the intro, can be protected. But if you extract the recipe verbatim and publish it without the intro it used to cooccur with, no one can stop you.
I said that this is the "received wisdom" on why recipe sites do this. I didn't say it would work. I didn't say that they think that's why they're doing it. But it is a popular theory.