
Is it time to stop trusting Google search? - bauta-steen
https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/10/16633574/stop-trusting-google-search-texas-shooting-twitter-misinformation
======
moepstar
Not sure if this is just me, but Google Search results are getting less and
less relevant for my queries and at the same time, provide more and more
spammy sites as results.

Finding a useful site on page 2 and beyond? Good luck!

I've switched to DDG half a year ago or so and haven't looked back much. I
only once in a while use the !g bang and almost always come back disappointed.

Sure, there are also some spam results on DDG (and probably there are going to
be many more once it gains more relevance to be spammed) but for now and my
searches i exclusively use DDG on my private computers as well as at work...

So, to summarize, i think the relevancy of Google as a search engine will,
imho, continue to drop and also the perceived "truthiness" of statements found
thereon as well.

To add, i also don't necessarily think of this as a "Google" problem - the
same people that will believe in a statement gathered from a quick search will
also believe in the same thing when they see it in a Facebook post, Whatsapp
chainmail or whatever....

~~~
amelius
If I type "GitHub" in DDG, then the first result is the Wikipedia page, the
second is some ad, and the third is the actual GitHub website. Seems in the
wrong order if you ask me.

Anyway, I also use DDG, but I always end up using "!g". At least this gives
DDG some metrics on how well they are doing.

~~~
smsm42
Typed "github" right now - github.com is the first one. First non-github
result is 8th (git-scm.com). Not sure what's the difference.

~~~
amelius
Did you try on mobile? (I did)

~~~
rangibaby
Yes. My first result it Github.com with a blurb about the site and the Github
logo. Wiki article is 3rd.

------
Mayzie
I find Google annoying to use ever since they removed the AND (+) operator
(i.e. that search term MUST be present on the page).

Whenever I need a query that involves the AND, I always have to resort to Bing
to get a result. Putting things inside quotation marks in Google doesn't help
one bit - they're not a replacement.

Removing features and not replacing them causing irrelevant results is what's
degrading Google for me.

~~~
heeen2
Put the term in quotes to get the same behavior

~~~
kbp
This stopped working like this a long time ago; if you put something in
quotes, Google will still sometimes return pages that don't include it, or
that contain "synonyms" for it. You need to turn on the verbatim option for
the old behaviour, I think.

~~~
retailbuyout
Verbatim has worked for many years.

~~~
zeep
both verbatim and the quotes don't act the same as the + operator did

------
briga
We used to rely on gossip and hearsay to determine what was true. Now we rely
on social media and search engines. Which are basically just gossip and
hearsay amplified a million-fold.

One of the strengths that's getting overlooked here is that crowd-sourced news
seems to be more reliable than news from any one source. Everyone is biased,
but if enough people are talking about something the bias tends to cancel out.

I do like the fact that people are finally starting to take a closer look at
the hold algorithms hold over our lives. Maybe tech companies are going to
start addressing some of their flaws.

~~~
qiemem
> One of the strengths that's getting overlooked here is that crowd-sourced
> news seems to be more reliable than news from any one source. Everyone is
> biased, but if enough people are talking about something the bias tends to
> cancel out.

The problem with this is that people only have time to check a limited number
of sources. Furthermore, many orders of magnitude more sources means that
there are many orders of sources that are dangerously wrong as well. Thus, if
someone sees a number articles/tweets/posts/whatever from a variety of people
espousing that the Texas church shooter was an antifa commie starting the
revolution, they are much more likely to believe it.

On top this, with so many sources, people need methods of filtering, and, of
course, one of our primary methods of filtering is to find communities/people
we tend to agree with. Thus, the now cliche echo chambers are born. These
communities are furthermore highly susceptible to manipulation (see the
russian facebook ads).

Furthermore, this makes the system fairly easy to take advantage of. If a
number of people that seem unrelated online engage in a coordinated effort to
spread a particular message, they can do it with ease, since when you see the
same message from multiple, seemingly unrelated sources, you're much more
likely to believe it.

So while you're right that we used to rely on gossip and hearsay, simply
amplifying the number of sources in no way implies that we're getting a less
biased message.

~~~
briga
>So while you're right that we used to rely on gossip and hearsay, simply
amplifying the number of sources in no way implies that we're getting a less
biased message.

That's sort of what I was getting at. At heart, these new technologies aren't
necessarily more reliable than what we had before. But on the other hand, I
think that at the very least they're not any less reliable either. Simply by
having more people reaching a consensus on something, you're probably going to
have some great diversity of opinion.

In his book The Wisdom of Crowds, James Surowiecki posits that there are four
factors that determine whether or not a crowd will be able to make intelligent
decisions: diversity of opinion, independence, decentralization, and
mechanisms for aggregation of collective judgement. Not to be self-
congratulatory, but I think that's part of the reason communities like HN
produce more intelligent and well-reasoned content than, say, an NRA fan club
on Facebook.

------
codingdave
I wasn't aware that there was a perception that Google's results had any
indication of the truth of the content it returned. I thought everyone just
knew that anything on the web is just as likely to be false, spam, shills, or
just bad marketing as it is to be an accurate worthwhile piece of content.

So while Google may have its flaws... I wouldn't go to them to solve this
problem. I'd teach the people more critical thinking and encourage them to
apply it to whatever they read.

~~~
mtgx
Maybe there wasn't one. But Google has moved from a "top 10 results" strategy
to a "we'll give you the _best_ answer for your question" search strategy.
They did this for one because that's what kind of service they'd ideally like
to be for their users, but also because that's the only way voice search can
work - by giving you _just one answer_.

The problem with this is that while before the #1 result on their search
engine didn't actually have to be the best most relevant result that there is
on the internet, but just one of the best answers, now it _has to be_ the
absolute best and most accurate result, because of this shift in strategy of
only showing you one answer. They can't afford _any_ mistake with this. And
that's way harder to solve as a problem than the problems they had before with
the top 10 results.

~~~
skybrian
In this case, it apparently wasn't an answer, though. It was a box saying
"popular on Twitter". That's not much of an endorsement.

It's a cliché to say that people should think more critically. In this case
it's just a matter of knowing what "popular on Twitter" means when it comes to
breaking news. It's not really about whether you trust Google and more about
knowing that Twitter rumors are often inaccurate, however you run across them.

------
tyingq
Here's a graph depicting Google's quarterly revenue, in billions, versus total
number of internet users, also in billions.
[https://imgur.com/a/eBB9E](https://imgur.com/a/eBB9E)

The gap that opens up between the two roughly shows how much more advertising
they are pumping at us. Some of it understandable, like their acquisition of
YouTube. A lot of it, though, is just turning search results into nothing but
ads above the fold.

Investors are expecting to see that gap grow at the same, or higher pace. From
my perspective, that means anything that doesn't advance that goal is a low
priority. Whether that's accurate news, quality of the organic search results,
etc.

~~~
MarkMc
Part of the gap can be explained by: (1) Increasing income of internet users,
(2) The average user spending more time on the internet, (3) Google getting
more effective at matching advertisers with Google users

~~~
majewsky
> increasing income of internet users

If anything, the average income of internet users is decreasing. The majority
of people in the rich countries have been online since the 90s and early
2000s. Everyone who's been joining after that is most likely from an
underdeveloped or developing country.

~~~
MarkMc
Good point - I missed that.

Your comment reminds me of a story [1] about how a Google engineer once
significantly reduced the size of the YouTube video page but average load
times _got worse_. Turns out they were getting lots of new users from third
world countries with much worse connection speeds.

I also wonder to what degree this effect counters the argument that average
incomes in Australia and US have not risen for decades [2]. Perhaps native-
born people see their incomes rise, but the average is dragged down by
immigrants who typically have lower incomes.

[1] [http://blog.chriszacharias.com/page-weight-
matters](http://blog.chriszacharias.com/page-weight-matters)

[2] [http://www.rossgittins.com/2017/09/sorry-but-using-
migration...](http://www.rossgittins.com/2017/09/sorry-but-using-migration-to-
boost.html?m=1)

------
serveboy
I cannot use Google without the Google Search Filter extension.
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-search-
filt...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-search-
filter/eidhkmnbiahhgbgpjpiimdogfidfikgf?hl=en)

Having the results you are most interested in highlighted and the bad ones
removed seriously upgrades the search experience. Would be nice if Google had
this functionality built in. I know they had the remove results thing builtin
back in the day, but I find highlighting trusted sites even more important.

------
azangru
The way this journalist is using Google is so different from the way I use
Google that I find it hard to understand what the problem is.

Trying to think what I googled recently. Let’s see...

\- what new pages have appeared about ReasonML over the past week

\- ditto for rxjs

\- any code samples of doing server-side rendering when using redux-
observable?

\- any examples of applying functional javascript patterns to drawing on
canvas?

\- what javascript conferences are planned for the coming year?

\- how is the phrase "the good wife" used in the books (searchable via Google
Books)? is the title of the eponymous series an obvious allusion to some
literary work? (haven’t fugured that one out, by the way)

For all these searches, I was very happy with what the relevance of what
Google found.

~~~
pavlov
You use Google for very specific niche queries where you already know enough
about the topic to judge the veracity and usefulness of the results. If
someone makes a site that associates ReasonML with ISIS and Google surfaces
that as the #2 result, you'll just laugh it off.

The article is talking about people using Google for news and contested
political topics. The extent of damage resulting from poor/misleading/fake
results for the search "Texas church shooter" is much greater than for
"ReasonML".

~~~
azangru
> You use Google for very specific niche queries where you already know enough
> about the topic to judge the veracity and usefulness of the results. <...>
> The article is talking about people using Google for news and contested
> political topics.

Yes indeed. Could it be that search engines are in principle ill suited for
searching for news and contested political topics, especially if one has no
way of judging whether a particular result is correct or not? Or, more
generally, that searching without knowing how then to verify the quality of
the results is a pretty silly undertaking?

In other words, shouldn't all responsibility be on the user of a search
engine, and not on the search engine itself?

------
chatmasta
I switched to DDG on mobile at the recommendation of others on HN. I've been
on it for a few months and it's great. 90% of the time it gets me what I need.
When it doesn't I just add a !g and get the google results. Most of the time
when I'm adding the !g is because I need a specific google feature like
knowledge box or maps.

I haven't enabled it on my laptop because Google and I have been finding
answers to my programming problems for 10 years. We have a nice relationship.

------
mythrwy
Very low quality article.

Rehashes a few talking points from media about Google having bad results in
searches, throws in the election stealing with fake news conspiracy theory and
presents the whole steaming pile with hot pink highlights as something worth
reading. Fails to explain why I should not trust Google search (other than
some bad results may pop up... a fact I'd previously believed to be well known
about the Internet in general).

------
voidr
After these I find it hard to trust Google's results on subjects like
politics:

[https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/25/google-tweaks-search-to-
he...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/25/google-tweaks-search-to-help-combat-
fake-news/)

[https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/aug/7/google-
fires...](https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/aug/7/google-fires-james-
damore-criticizing-diversity-pr/)

[https://theintercept.com/2017/08/30/google-funded-think-
tank...](https://theintercept.com/2017/08/30/google-funded-think-tank-fired-
google-critics-after-they-dared-criticize-google/)

I switched to DDG. I still occasionally use Google to search for local
businesses.

Google might have good intentions, however you could say the same thing about
SOPA, PIPA, and SESTA as well.

Using "bots" or "algorithms" isn't a way forward either:

[https://youtu.be/KwzJlvx4ndk?t=205](https://youtu.be/KwzJlvx4ndk?t=205)

I just want a search engine that considers me a grownup, gives me the raw
unfiltered data and let's me make my own conclusions.

------
bob_theslob646
Why is the verge so negative on Google? Stop trusting them for search? Maybe
if you are searching for simple things, but for more advanced searches Google
is, by far, the best.

~~~
tyingq
First hand experiences?

[https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/14/16309752/google-rehabs-
ne...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/14/16309752/google-rehabs-near-me-
search-adwords-crackdown)

[https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/12/15259400/burger-king-
goog...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/12/15259400/burger-king-google-home-
ad-wikipedia)

------
xvilka
Still Google provides best results for niche, highly specific queries, usually
technical ones.

~~~
johannes1234321
With niche queries Google often tries to "improve" my query to more mainstream
stuff ...

~~~
blakesterz
Google still _almost_ always gives me what I want but when they "improve" my
results by excluding words for me it ALWAYS fails. This morning I went looking
for an Ansible role and the first few results it "helpfully" excluded the word
ANSIBLE for me. I see this behavior quite often and I really do not understand
it.

~~~
zeep
The way I see it is that Google is getting closer and closer to showing you
only what they want... They tell you that they are guessing what you meant so
that if it is completely unrelated, you don't get too suspicious.

~~~
scholia
Or maybe they are showing you what _most_ people want, on the grounds that
most people search for the same stuff.

In the context of billions of users doing billions of searches, HN readers
could be fairly extreme outliers...

------
bowlich
I switched to Startpage last quarter as my default search engine. I did this
mostly to make myself consciously aware of every time that I actually use
Google.

My experience thus far. Google beats out Startpage when it comes to queries
related to programing issues. If I have an error, or some issue Google seems
to do a decent job of sending me to the right documentation or relevant
Stackoverflow question.

Google also seems to do a decent job if I'm searching for particular
commercial services if those services have physical location that it can point
me to (Restaurants, brick-and-mortor stores, etc). All search engines seem to
fail horribly if I'm looking for contractors/service providers in my area. Try
searching for who actually provides internet coverage for your street address
and you'll end up with every provider under the sun listed in the results. Try
searching for a plumber, electrician, chimney sweep, roofer, etc. and you'll
get SEO crap for people not even in your state. I've found going directly to
government registries (broadband.gov, Arizona Registrar of Contractors
[[https://roc.az.gov/]](https://roc.az.gov/\])) to be the only way to get
around this.

What I've really found disappointing is how search results for humanities
related topics have really gone down hill in the last decade. For example, I
just searched for "The Rebel Camus." The results are always Wikipedia, Amazon,
and then after that an assortment of either encyclopedias, links to Youtube,
Goodreads (or similar sites). Used to be, that I would get taken to the
personal website of a scholar, hosted at a University, whose life studies
revolve around that topic -- links to scholarly papers, coursework, suggested
readings on the topic.

~~~
apeace
> Google beats out Startpage when it comes to queries related to programing
> issues.

I have found that Duck Duck Go has excellent results for programming issues.
You should try it!

I can echo what you said about services with a physical location. Typically
when I'm looking for something nearby, I will search in DDG with the g!
modifier to take me straight to Google. The place that I want almost always
appears on the right, with map, phone number, hours of operation, etc.

------
sudshekhar
Unrelated thought:

With the growth of 'category kings' (Amazon, Stackoverflow, Wikipedia etc)
does anybody else feel that google's search becomes less and less useful?

I never understood the 90's obsession with domain names until I skimmed
several news articles from that era. The main logic was:

1\. People will go to a couple of websites for most their needs, the ones with
memorable names will be easier to go to.

2\. Things like search engines (Google) weren't as hot as curation directories
(yahoo) because nobody expected so much fragmentation on the web.

3\. The more fragmented the market in an industry, higher the value of search
ads. If you know the most options and high quality reviews are available on
Amazon, you don't really bother with as many reviews.

While this analysis failed for the past few years, with the amount of
consolidation happening in the industry recently its _possible_ search engines
loose their main source of income (e-commerce) and start being used more from
ideleness/curiosity perspective.

Wonder if google should pre-emptively start penalizing the aggregation
marketplaces and promote direct providers (essentially try to be the Ebay for
everything) to prevent such an outcome.

~~~
blakesterz
>> does anybody else feel that google's search becomes less and less useful?

Not for me, not at all. I do like your thoughts on domain names though, I've
never considered that.

~~~
sudshekhar
> Not for me, not at all.

At the risk of being presumptious, I would classify searches into broadly two
categories:

1) Finding good providers/discussion places regarding something you need, say
news, goods, experiences etc

2) Finding more info about a specific piece of content/goods . Eg: Product
reviews, solutions to some technical doubts etc

For most people I know, 1) is pretty much sorted. They have a list of places
they check for clothes, groceries, jobs etc. News is read from specific
websites/apps. Reddit/HN/Fb/Twitter provide most the social interaction and
discovery aspects.

2) is where I see Google providing much more value. But the way things are
proceeding, most of the top links relevant to a google search are generally
from aggregators themselves. Amazon for most ecommerce, Tripadvisor for
travel, Stackoverflow for tech, Practo (in India) for doctors etc.

Let's assume Stackoverflow introduces points for using (and help 'improving')
their own search. Most people will open stackoverflow first before searching
on google. Amazon has already achieved this level for most things related to
e-comm (specially less expensive products).

There will still be a market for Google ofcourse, but it will be a much
smaller chunk than currently being predicted.

I actually stumbled across this line of reasoning when somebody asked me if
its a good idea for individual service providers (docs/merchants etc) to open
their own websites. For 99% of them it isn't.

Ofcourse, any counter comments are welcome!

------
weberc2
Maybe we shouldn't be thinking of Google as a source of truth, and instead
educate people on the differences between popular/relevant and "true". I don't
trust Google or progressives or the alt-right to arbitrate truth;
epistemological fractures are already the cause of much of our political
dysfunction, no need to bring that into search as well.

------
sgt101
It's interesting that newspapers used (before they all went effectively bust
or got bought by monsters) to make a big deal about editorial independence and
journalistic integrity. This caused people to trust them (in time). How come
Google doesn't appoint a board of editors and grant them independence ?

------
FullMtlAlcoholc
Google is not an oracle. Trusting search results is the problem especially,
when the algorithm reutrns popular/relevant results, is the problem. Using
Facebook as your primary news source is the problem.

It's become fashionable for media outlets lately to beat up on tech companies
and blame them for the general public's lack of critical reasoning and
analytical skills. Many decry that democracy is under threat. However, it is
often said that an educated and well-informed citizenry is necessary for a
viable democracy.

------
visarga
A lot of people discuss about Google's faults and improvements. If there's
anything I want from Google is cheap API access to search for deep searches
(much more than the first 1000 results). There's no systematic way to get deep
into results, and running even a few thousand queries breaks the bank. It's
useless for automated search agents.

------
alexasmyths
" Google search promoted false reports about the suspect, suggesting that he
was a radical communist affiliated with the antifa movement"

This is bad, but Google is not there to provide the truth, but rather to
search the internet.

I agree we should all be wary, but I don't think it's a search Engine's job to
sort truth from fiction,

------
lowglow
PSA use DuckDuckGo: [https://duckduckgo.com/](https://duckduckgo.com/)

~~~
badnerd
I second DuckDuckGo, especially because of the !bang modifiers. Makes it easy
to also get to Google — just incase the query is too vauge, which DuckDuckGo
still needs work on.

------
zerr
Time to time I use alternative search engines (Yahoo, Bing) - it's an eye-
opening indeed.

------
jacksmith21006
Use Google search all day and just find it amazing at getting what I am
looking for. Never seen Google filter in a way that helps them. I will get
negative Google articles and they would be the first Google filtered it there
was an issue.

------
ravenstine
Just type "george takei lies" into both Google and DDG and tell me which set
of results isn't just a list of his tweets.

------
alvil
Agregators and spam. Can't agree more.

------
rodolphoarruda
DDG aside, what other options do we have?

------
odammit
tl;dr: there needs to be a tl;dr on every web page so People don’t have to
read content they don’t care about to get an answer to something they googled.

Yeah? Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t google much.

I go straight to BBC or the Guardian for news.

I get my tech news from email lists or HN.

When I’m curious about random stuff, I’ll end up on Wikipedia.

What i use google for is getting to a deep link in a site i know i want to go
to:

* shortcuts to amazon

* shortcuts to stackoverflow

* probably specific porn term

When I use google I’m usually looking for a specific answer to something that
I’m not sure where to find it.

The two most recent example are:

\- safety rating and electric range of the Volvo T8

\- a recipe for chicken tortilla soup

And here is where i get to “maybe”.

I want an answer to those questions. What do i get? 40 paragraphs of SEO
unique content around some experience someone had as a child with their
grandma and then a recipe for chicken tortilla soup buried in there somewhere.

I’ve started and worked for a few big content sites and i know the SEO game
well.

Websites that want to show up in google can’t just focus on what their core
competency is, they also have to be content site and have writers.

It kinda sucks because I just hit the back button when I’m expecting a
succinct answer and I’m confronted with a novel (and i think that’s still a
big penalty to them) and try to find the quickest answer without reading a
life story or opinions on a car.

