
The growing irrelevance of Google Search - pdeva1
http://movingfulcrum.tumblr.com/post/64047972978/the-growing-irrelevance-of-google-search
======
ultimatedelman
So... instead of using a tool that will search virtually every source of
information on the internet for you to bring you the most relevant results,
you are blogging about how you limit your search breadth to single places that
you happen to participate in...

...yawn

~~~
iwasphone
Exactly. He should have appended "...to me" to the end of his title.

~~~
mhurron
You could do that to pretty much every opinion piece posted and upvoted on HN.
Many posters here have obvious blinders on, posts about what someone is doing
are presented as 'this is what everyone is doing' or 'this is what everyone
will do' because if this person is doing it, everyone must be.

It's just so obvious.

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deletes
Specialized search is what it is, specialized. Google actually supports that,
but it does involve a slight effort.

For example:

How was the finale of Breaking Bad?

Twitter:[https://twitter.com/search?q=How%20was%20the%20finale%20of%2...](https://twitter.com/search?q=How%20was%20the%20finale%20of%20Breaking%20Bad%3F&src=typd&f=realtime)

Google:[https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=Are+people+ab...](https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=Are+people+able+to+finally+login+to+GTA+Online%3F+site%3Atwittercom#hl=en&q=How+was+the+finale+of+Breaking+Bad%3F+site%3Atwitter.com&safe=off)

Are people able to finally login to GTA Online?

Twitter( had to shorten the string => more effort ):
[https://twitter.com/search?q=login%20GTA%20Online&src=typd&f...](https://twitter.com/search?q=login%20GTA%20Online&src=typd&f=realtime)

Google:
[https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=Are+people+ab...](https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=Are+people+able+to+finally+login+to+GTA+Online%3F+site%3Atwittercom#hl=en&q=Are+people+able+to+finally+login+to+GTA+Online%3F+site%3Atwitter.com&safe=off)

Google seems to be doing just fine IMO.

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hawkharris
I do think that Google becomes paradoxically less useful as it gets more
effective, but not because other websites are displacing it. I'll use a
personal anecdote to explain what I mean, though I acknowledge that not
everyone shares my situation.

In college, I used Google for 90% of my assigned research papers. I would
rattle off questions, fetch some quotes and start synthesizing them into my
writing. The other 10% of the time, I had professors who required book sources
and sometimes ask me to bring the books to class.

Retrieving book sources always seemed like a pain in the ass. It required the
labor of traveling to the campus library, finding a call #, etc. But a certain
perk went along with all that labor: I was much more strategic and deliberate
in my research. When you don't have an instant answer machine at your finger
tips, you have to plot your course more carefully.

Interestingly, in my case, I spent about the same amount of time doing library
research as I did using Google, even though Google should have been much
faster in theory.

I was very impulsive and non-strategic in how I used Google to gather
information. This is my shortcoming, of course, but I think Google enables it
- more so as it becomes faster and more effective in returning information.

~~~
cynwoody
Back in 1994, I was planning a bike trip down the US west coast, Washington
State to Mexico. I wanted to know sunrise and sunset times. At the time, the
town library was across the street. So, I walked over, asked the nice lady at
the desk to suggest a reference, and pumped in the nickels to xerox the pages
I needed. Nowadays, I wouldn't even have to get up from my desk.

These days, if I were doing serious library research, I would bring along a
computer or tablet. I would let Google take me as far into the subject as
possible, so that I would know where to begin when looking for dead tree
resources. I expect my main problems would be along the lines of, Google says
this book is relevant, does the library have it? Or similarly relevant books?

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alan_cx
For what it's worth, I'm desperately trying to switch to Duck Duck Go, and so
annoyingly often I have to go back to google. In the end, that tells me google
is still the most relevant search than the next best non creepy alternative.

~~~
ggchappell
That used to be true for me & DDG, but it's happening less & less. In fact, a
couple of days ago, I found a situation where Google's search results were
pretty much useless, while DDG got me what I wanted. I was looking for lyrics
to a song. There was some site claiming to be a lyrics search engine that
appeared to have SEO'd their way to the top of Google, so a Google search for
lyrics got me to ... another search engine. But DDG got me the lyrics.

Also, we should note that DDG's "!g" syntax means you never have to deal with
Google's search box.

~~~
alan_cx
Sure, there must be some situations where DDG wins.

But look at what you have said; in the last couple of days you have only one
example of google failing you. Presumably for the rest of that time google was
perfectly fine or better. Only once in that time did you have a better result
from DDG.

Some would call that damning with faint praise. With that ratio, the only sane
conclusion is to use google.

Currently DDG is my default search. But most of the time I do the DDG search,
give up and repeat with google. As I say, Im trying but its not productive for
me.

------
lurkinggrue
Breaking! Blogger claims search is dead because he isn't using it.

~~~
chamanbuga
But isn't it true for a certain segment of the population. People are
searching on Twitter, Facebook, FourSquare, etc... These social search results
have more credibility and relevance to me than vanilla results on search
engines. If I use FB connect Bing does a good job of displaying results from
my friends. We're still a farcry away from a unified search engine of all this
data because rightfully each of these technologies want to own and monetize
this data.

~~~
lurkinggrue
True, I guess in my case I don't care to search in a social context.

I just never found twitter results any more relevant than google.

------
glass_of_water
I think Google Search is quite relevant, because it aggregates information
from all of these sources. You don't have to think about which site would give
you the best search results for a given query; Google does that for you.

------
siglesias
A huge one that was omitted, questions of the class: how much does this thing
cost? Is this thing any good? What's the best X I can buy?

Amazon.

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runn1ng
I don't agree.

While yes, very often, I will land on the same few websites when searching for
something (wikipedia, stack overflow, google+/google maps reviews, youtube
videos), I still use google to actually get there.

Google still has, after all, a better search results ranking than wikipedia,
twitter or stack overflow.

~~~
hrkristian
Agreed. The blog author misses out on a very essential part of Google Search,
if he wants the best Twitter result, he'll only have to include 'Twitter' in
the Google search. An added bonus is of course that the top non-Twitter
results will be right there, maybe even some information about BS claims on
Twitter.

How odd such a pointless and short blog post has made it this far up on HN.

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mcarvin
The OP is stating a truism that I agree with (true with all truisms). Google
is your default search engine for any query where (you believe) Google offers
the highest probability of delivering the intended content/ answer.

So any product, in any vertical, that can respond to a query with greater
utility than google - and condition it's userbase that that is the case - has
the potential to supplant google for those queries. Great example is the drift
of search traffic for flight travel on google to direct traffic to sites like
kayak and expedia. (another example is the shift of people search).

The challenge of competing against kayak-like companies that offer great
products in specific verticals, will only grow. So if you believe search
traffic will not naturally decline over time you are effectively arguing that
google will be able to outperform the pace at which new products will be built
that have kayak (flight search) / linkedin (people search) / coverhound (auto
insurance search) - like potential.

And I think Eric Schmidt would agree.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeIIpLqsOe4](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeIIpLqsOe4)

~~~
cynwoody
Travel search is one vertical in which Google has a serious interest. In 2011,
they acquired ITA Software,† which developed QPX, a widely used, Lisp-based
airfare search and pricing system. They have since rolled out Google Flights,
which competes rather directly with Kayak and Expedia.

†[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITA_Software](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITA_Software)

~~~
mcarvin
Agreed. I think that is the point the OP is making. As sites like Kayak grow
in popularity, the usefulness of a discovery tool (search), diminishes.

------
10098
I do google search to find SO and wiki links and don't understand what this
fellow is talking about.

~~~
elboru
Agree, for me is easier to quickly find answers going directly to chrome's
url/search bar, type my query and find the answer either in SO or Wikipedia.
Even though SO and Wikipedia's search engine are good, they certainly aren't
better than Google's, and yes, they're great information resources but they
are not the whole Internet, maybe 15-20% of the time I find answers somewhere
else.

------
source99
This needs to be analyzed from a revenue viewpoint. How much money does
someone make when I search for how good the finale of breaking bad vs when I
search for car insurance or home mortgage rates. Both searches are likely to
some revenue but it's hundredths of a penny vs thousands of dollars over the
lifetime of the customer.

Is google becoming less likely source for some searches? Maybe

Can I buy car insurance or get a mortgage on Amazon? Not yet.

The day I can go direct to Amazon for these items is a scary day for google.

------
danso
The OP's argument is a bit weak. Really, you would search for opinions (e.g.
finale of Breaking Bad) by looking throughout Twitter? That's the OP's idea of
efficient consumption of information?

Twitter is great for what's happening _right now_. In any case, when I want to
know that kind of thing with some immediacy. it's good enough to search for
"Breaking bad finale" and Google would've gotten you some of the latest
reviews from half-decent publications, and those reviews and their comment
sections would make for better reading than tweet streams.

I do, however, agree with the OP that the knowledge silos are getting much
better. But when I have a slightly obscure technical question, I never go
straight to Stackoverflow...I use Google, and 80% of the time it takes me
there. But for the harder problems in which my exact error message may have
been discussed in a technical forum, Google is great for sussing it out. But
as the silos get better, I wonder how that hurts Google's bottom line? By
using Google as a way to get to StackOverflow, I'm consuming Google resources
but not clicking on any adds. There's only so much use they can get out of my
usage data...

------
holograham
While I may not discount the search for "opinions" has passed Google by I
think the search for information with Google is still quite relevant. Google
does a pretty good job with indexing SO, Yelp, and Wikipedia that nearly
always my top 3 results are a link to one of those site for a question that I
would generally find on those sites.

------
grahamburger
Anecdotally, this seems true only for some iPhone users. For Android users
(myself included) it's still supremely convenient to slide up and speak or tap
my search. I end up on StackOverflow a lot too, but Google gets me there.

------
omonra
I'd summarize this as 'Some guy prefers to find answers on twitter'.

I, on the other hand, personally never use twitter. So I guess that evens
things out for Google. Larry can sleep easy now.

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exo_duz
Stackoverflow, Twitter, etc. may have all the information but as the writer
says the results from long tail search results which are most accurate are
still from Google.

Google is still useful in searching if what you need is not just in a 1-2 word
search. It's more the ethics of the search company which I think is the
problem.

I personally started using Duck Duck Go because of all the targeted ads which
Google seems to bombard me with.

------
BoldBoldness
I find myself using reddit more for its search function rather than for
general browsing. If I have a certain question I need answered or need advice
about really anything, it's very likely that 5 other people already asked the
same question before. Plus, it appears to be a much more effective way to cut
out the junk results from Google and give more honest and straightforward
answers.

------
michaelwww
I tried to delete my YouTube account today as a test. I failed because it
seems the only way now is to delete all your accounts on Google, including
Gmail and Google Docs. Google basically wants to take over my identity and
manage it. "You can check out but you can never leave at Hotel Google" is what
I fear. What if I did delete everything? Would that even work? Don't know.

~~~
spankalee
Google is moving to one account for all of Google, like it should have been in
the first place. Of course deleting your YouTube account would delete
everything else.

~~~
michaelwww
That's b.s. There are YouTube videos I watch recreationally that I don't
necessarily want to attach to my public identity.

~~~
bsullivan01
_There are YouTube videos I watch recreationally that I don 't necessarily
want to attach to my public identity._

Wait until what you viewed is broadcast [http://uk.news.yahoo.com/google-
users-stars-online-ads-14411...](http://uk.news.yahoo.com/google-users-stars-
online-ads-144115119.html) all over Google, and maybe the web via Adsense ads.

~~~
michaelwww
What happened to "Don't be evil?" I turned that off but the problem is you're
never sure if you've actually handled something correctly because they make it
so darn difficult.

------
wslh
If you liked this article you might like Challenging Google’s Search Engine:
[http://blog.databigbang.com/letters-from-the-future-
challeng...](http://blog.databigbang.com/letters-from-the-future-challenging-
googles-search-engine/)

------
dlokshin
My recent search tendencies are very similar to the OP but for an entirely
different reason: Google results have gotten really bad for me. I almost never
find something I'm looking for on first try. I often do with StackOverflow and
Yelp, though.

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erbo
The flipside of his argument is, of course, is it _really_ a good idea to rely
on silos like Twitter, Yelp, StackOverflow, and Wikipedia for all our
knowledge resources? Those then represent single points of failure, which can
be taken down by an errant backhoe or intercepted (and surreptitiously
altered?) by the NSA. Google, on the other hand, will aggregate more sources
of information than just those, and it's unlikely they can be taken out by a
backhoe. (The NSA is still a problem, at least for interception, but perhaps
not for alteration...)

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SmileyKeith
Seems like no one really agrees with this. So that's a relief to me.

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vinceguidry
"If I don't use it it must be irrelevant."

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kbar13
> my group of friends are more interesting than yours

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terribleinsight
The growing centralization of information.

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bsullivan01
I consciously try not to use Google but when I do it's with ad blockers. For
products is Amazon directly--they are usually #1 anyway after the many ads
Google puts on top. Ironically Google is training people to go directly to the
top sites by putting them on top for virtually anything.

