People who say this are never able to produce a single actual search query for which Google returns acceptable results but other engines do not. Perhaps you can be the exception.
People have this outdated idea that Google will reliably search through the entire internet to give the result that matches their query best. This goes against that, and is why they complain.
I keep seeing this sentiment around here, which confuses me because I think gsearch is better than ever. I find what I need instantly in 90% of cases, and when I don't, other engines don't really do better. Granted, I use ublock, but even with that turned off I'm not bothered by the ads. Can you provide examples of a query which gives unusable results, but Bing (or whatever) works?
If it's actually working fine, then Google search is aiming at a demographic or use case that I'm not a part of.
I can confidently say that because Google search absolutely doesn't work fine for me. Well, to be entirely fair, it didn't work fine for me a couple of years ago and I stopped using it entirely as a result. If it's improved since then, I'd have no way of knowing. My current search solution works great, so I have no incentive to revisit Google.
That seems extremely short-sighted. There’s nothing stopping people from coming up with a better way to find what you’re looking for than Google’s search engine.
Everything I've heard from people I know at Google suggests otherwise. Most searches for most people ... work. I too struggle to have google work in specific research cases, and I would like more power-user toggles, but basic searches like "$celeberty_name photos" or "$my_kids_school calendar" or "pizza places near me" just sorta work.
one thing to always remember, which may also easily repulse you from ever using google search again - it does not give search results. it generates a carefully crafted page which caters to your bubble. so does FB, so does Twitter, etc. just using different algos. Google search does not return the same results for the same query for different people, which a) makes it so different from AltaVista and historical search engines (from ElasticSearch if you want); and b) this is enough to NOT treat it as a search engine, even though is still billed as one....but as a personal wall of ad-designated BS.
You're vastly underestimating the uniqueness of search queries these days. Various sources within Google have said that 25% to 50% of queries entered into Google have never been seen before at all.
Can you provide an example of this? People always say this, but never provide the query.
Because anyone who's used Google in the last 10 years knows that Google tailors its results to what it thinks you want to see.
So a search query that fails for one HN reader may work for another, or at least work differently.
A repeated frustration in my life has been explaining to bosses that the search results that appear on their personal phone are not the same as what will appear on a client's computer.
Even if we pretend for a moment that your statement, that google's search is "shitty", is universally accepted as truth, you can't blame this one on Google.
People have been committing horrifying atrocities in the name of SEO for years. I've seen it firsthand. And it spectacularly backfired each time.
This can very probably be yet another one of such cases.
I'm sure you're a real person deserving of respect and love. If I say that the search results are terrible it's not a comment on your humanity or that if your colleagues. People have genuine problems with Google and a reasonable expectation based on experience that they won't get any joy by trying to appeal to big G. You can say that you're just flesh and blood, but don't discount the well-founded displeasure of users.
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