
Another look under the hood of search - bjonathan
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/another-look-under-hood-of-search.html
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seunghomattyang
Am I the only one who really likes behind-the-scenes videos? Sometimes I enjoy
them more than the actual products/movies.

Anyhow, it's great that Google is making constant improvements to its search
but lately, I feel like the results aren't as good as they used to be because
of SEO spam and people gaming the algorithm solely for profit.

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wgx
What surprised me was the human element, I'd expected it to be more data-
driven with less human debate.

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mckoss
I agree. Why are do so many people need to weigh in on what the "numbers" must
be telling them. The process seems way more subjective than analytical.

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mckoss
What's the spin here? Google is trying to project:

    
    
        - Search is a hard, interesting problem - and we have really smart
          people working on it (come work with us).
        - Search is a competitive business (don't regulate us).
        - We use a scientific process (don't investigate our practices
          as a potential conflict of interest).
    

The video is interesting. But one thing NOT addressed is how much is the
search experience improving? Yes, they've made "500 changes" to the algorithm
last year. By what measure is search quality going up (or down)?

I sense an improvement over the last 6 months (seeing less low quality or spam
links) - but I'd like to see this quantified.

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ilv
I was expecting Sanjay Gupta to pop in!

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gojomo
Surprised to see that what appears to be the "feature launch committee" has
about 30 people in the room... and another 15 or so patched in by video.
(Perhaps most are just 'flies on the wall' to learn?)

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mckoss
This was pretty typical at Microsoft too. Many groups (Windows, Office,
Exchange, etc) had a leadership group hold a regular "war room" type meeting
at which major decisions were made. From 10 to 30 participants was common at
these (usually weekly) meetings.

It's a sign of bureaucracy, not trusting important decisions to individual
contributors, and an ass-covering vehicle to remove blame when mistakes are
made.

Some of it reflects a needed amount of "care" - but it can easily lead to bad
organizational dynamics.

