
Ask HN: Has Google search becomes particularly poor in past few months? - pranay01
Has Google search become particularly bad in last few months? Nowadays, if I want to do deep research on any topic I filter it with site:news.ycombinator.com or site:medium.com. Top results without any filters mostly return content marketing articles with no value. Is it because of high SEO optimization by content marketing sites?
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21
I think I have the same problem.

I used to be very good at google-fu, but now I can't find anything any more.
The neural networks just reinterpret my carefully designed keywords and return
back the popular results that I try to filter out.

~~~
sudouser
yes, hard to explain but I noticed their filter bubble keeps showing me my
latest preferences, so there’s the need to make it “unlearn “...

~~~
strict9
This is the worst thing about google products! One egregious example is Maps
always showing you some random place you looked up a year ago. I don't want it
to learn from me.

~~~
sudouser
there’s a way to erase history but you also lose personal info, or it has to
relearn your places

------
tumblen
Something I have felt for a couple years (that I continually feel more
strongly) is that over time all the independent content, high-quality bloggers
and forum discussions have gotten pushed out of the top results.

They're replaced with nothing but top, recognizable brands like yelp,
pinterest, thewirecutter, forbes, usatoday, etc.

I miss when I'd google something and find a bunch of actual, normal human
beings' experiences.

I think that they probably got bumped out as they triggered some blog-spam
filters, but the alternative of just having results full of brand after brand
isn't really any better.

~~~
bcoughlan
They got bumped out as part of a deliberate strategy by Google to promote the
results of trusted brands like newspaper and magazine websites, which have
become low quality content farms.

Eric Schmidt said in 2008 "Brands are the solution, not the problem… Brands
are how you sort out the cesspool"

~~~
Rjevski
Maybe this was true back in 2008.

Nowadays brands are the cesspool itself.

------
Deimorz
I've found that Google tries too hard to "fix" all my search queries for me
now. The top results often don't include one or more of the words that I
entered, even if they were crucial for what I was trying to find.

I can switch it to "Verbatim" and that helps sometimes, but they really can't
expect anyone except very technical users to even realize that's an option (or
what it does).

~~~
flak48
How do you do that?

I've noticed Google no longer even fully respects keywords/phrases in quotes
which used to force exact matches.

EDIT: NVM, found it by uhm.. googling :
[https://searchenginewatch.com/sew/news/2126346/google-
introd...](https://searchenginewatch.com/sew/news/2126346/google-introduces-
verbatim-searching)

Had no idea this existed though..

~~~
Deimorz
After you search, you have to click the "Tools" button and then change the
"All results" dropdown to "Verbatim".

It's bad UX, there's no indication at all for why I'd want to click on a
dropdown that says "All results".

~~~
gxx
You can append !gvb to a DDG search to directly perform a Google verbatim
search. It's the fastest way to do a Google verbatim search - faster than
Google's own UI.

Not only does appending !gvb to a DDG search perform a Google verbatim search,
it also directly reveals the Google UI for searching a date range.

The combination of normal DDG plus easy access to Google verbatim and date
range seaches gives a pretty nice search experience.

------
DarkCrusader2
They definitely have. Removing the main keywords from my query is the most
frustating thing ever. I just want them to do kind of "dumb" search, without
any machine learning magic about 95% of the time.

I swithed to DDG sometime ago and it is way better atleast for me. I still
switch to google for localised information(local restaurants etc.) though.

~~~
cglouch
I've found that I often get better results on google if I click "Tools" under
the search bar and change "All results" to "Verbatim". It seems to force it to
just do the query without as much of the magic.

~~~
dingaling
They still haven't enabled Verbatim for Image searches though. The difference
in results when switching from verbatim-text to images is shocking.

------
uncoder0
Anecdotally I've been noticing a steady decline in the quality of google
search results for the last ~6 years. The decline has seemed to be
accelerating rather than slowing.

~~~
Jtsummers
I started having trouble about 10 years back. It was like a switch flipped
from one day to the next, literally. Searches that worked one day failed the
next. I was digging through 10 pages of results, having to select `verbatim`
and other options before I found literally the same thing I'd read a week
before. It improved again after that as I relearned how to use this new,
failing, Google. But it's certainly gotten worse again. For instance,
searching for a tv show title will now give you a frontpage mostly showing
current, topical articles on it. This isn't _wrong_ , but sometimes the IMDB
link or even the show's own homepage will be on the second page of links.

If I want _news_ I'll go to the news tab. This also means that my results will
shift from day to day very rapidly as new content gets created because it gets
precedence in the display.

Of course, news searching is also horribly broken. I tried to find an article
(previously found through google news search). I knew when it was published
but couldn't recall the site, selecting those date ranges returned 0 results.
Selecting all time returned results that included dates within that range, but
not the desired article. I eventually found it, by going home and looking in
my browser history.

------
arthev
I don’t know why, but I’ve noticed a decline in relevancy from google search
results. Particularly annoying when google returns results that are basically
the opposite of what I searched for. I’ve started using other search engines
simply because google doesn’t return what I’m looking for. I haven’t kept a
log, but I’m fairly sure this includes searches related to technology.

------
zackmorris
Yes I think that exact matches have suffered but perhaps semantic matches have
remained the same. Qualifiers (is that the word) like + and "" are completely
broken compared to how they used to work, so
[https://duckduckgo.com](https://duckduckgo.com) almost always gives better
results now for programming-related queries. Question searches no longer work
as well as they once did maybe 10 years ago.

But hey, Google's search is still infinitely better than Facebook's and
GitHub's (the only other two that I use with any frequency). The StackOverflow
search that kicks in when you're writing a new issue is generally superb and I
really wonder how they did it (sometimes I begin writing a new issue to get it
to really dig deep and find similar issues).

~~~
pranay01
This reminds me a blog by PG where he proposed that Google can be disrupted by
building search engine for techies (for e.g.) At that time it sounded
preposterous to me, as Google worked perfectly fine for me - but now I really
see this as a possibility. I think DuckDuckGo is following this strategy.

------
oldcynic
It's been dodgy and worsening towards dire ever since they did the brand and
recency updates.

Mind I'm finding I need Google less at all lately. When I first switched to
DDG maybe 20% of my searches were pushed to !g. Now it's very rare, maybe a
few percent, and when I do Google almost never gives better results.

~~~
bleke
I agree, started to notice in google search last year about this time (maybe i
getting older) or maybe DDG started to serve better results. Nowadays, I use
google rarely in this year i can't remember when get better results than DDG,
but maybe it just my bias

------
BlackLotus89
I am preaching this for months now. It's getting so bad that I again started
thinking about writing my own search (crawling my top 20 sites and a search
depth of 2 for linked sites + wikipedia + IMDb + Wiktionary).

Google "correcting" or flatout ignoring search parameter is infuriating to say
the least and I'm finding myself more and more relying on my bookmarks and
synched history for visiting sites I knew I visited.

~~~
DarkCrusader2
> crawling my top 20 sites and a search depth of 2 for linked sites +
> wikipedia + IMDb + Wiktionary

I have been thinking something along similar lines. One thing I wanted to add
is independent (static site)bloggers and content creators, forums like HN and
reddit, stackoverflow etc. But I have no idea how to find these bloggers.
Maybe whitelisting the sites to be indexed is the solution?

Everytime I a stackoverflow answer links to some really amazing blog post, it
saddens me that google wouldn't have shown me that result even if I searched
the exact same topic of the blog post.

------
notheguyouthink
No idea, DDG is my search. I only use google for vague searches where my
search terms are very poor but I don't know the subject enough to refine my
search more clearly. Sadly, this is somewhat frequent.

Regardless, DDG represents easily 70% of my searches.

------
herhor
It might not only be the search engine's fault. Another reason might just be
that the amount of shitty content is growing exponentially...

~~~
dazc
Or the incentive to create quality content has diminished since it's become
much harder to monetize?

~~~
yayana
That's an excellent point for searches on new things. But for things that had
a lot of existing content, I also find them more and more drowned out.

I think the reason is that Google rewards following it's instructions for
mobile, security, etc, and existing quality content is often kept online
merely as a donation to the public. Having the incentives of a spammer and
following through on every rumored 2% rank improvement is almost a requirement
to get near the top results.

~~~
ballenf
I really hope someone working on Google's search algs thinks about this. So,
so many incredible sources of information are found on un-optimized pages.

I'd go so far as to say that an optimized page is often an indicia of low
quality / unoriginal content.

------
hateful
I just thought of something. With all the privacy issues going on lately, how
many of us that are complaining about poor search results have also installed
some sort of add on to block Google from tracking us? Can that have something
to do with it?

For example, my search results tend (or used to tend) to be skewed towards
results dealing with programming or computers in general. If I search for
"exception" I generally get results for "Programming Exceptions" rather than
any other type of Exception that can exist.

~~~
WiseWeasel
From most complaints I've seen, it would seem to be Google's attempts to
decrease the priority of pagerank and exact keyword prominence in trying to
offer more "helpful" results that make it less helpful in many situations.
There should be a 'dumb search' mode for that.

For cases where you don't want a dumb search, maybe analytics blocking could
have an impact, as you suggest.

Personally, I'd like a mode where they interleave dumb/popular and
personalized/relevant results.

------
neoncontrails
I too have noticed this and have also gotten in the habit of prefixing
technical queries with site:news.ycombinator.com. I’m glad it’s not just me.
It’s an imperfect solution and I hope Google is invested in offering a better
one.

------
dazc
Things have changed since the days of Matt Cutts & Co. People complain about
search quality but Google now appear not to care?

------
jolesf
Google search is getting worse, certainly. I'm noticing many google products
are slow and clunky too- Keep, Inbox, Voice, and even Gmail. Most of these
services are the slowest tabs in my browser.

~~~
AlexandrB
It's the perpetual curse of popular, profitable software - bloat. New features
keep getting piled on until the software is slow and complex. See also:
iTunes, Microsoft Office.

------
staikken
I absolutely have seen a decrease in quality. I used to be able to use
keywords to divide the search space very effectively (ie "programming
language" "concept" "version"). Now it seems that Google is concerned with
over fitting and they've relaxed the power of each keyword to filter results
(sometimes ignoring them altogether). The end result is I tend to get articles
that are more general and it's difficult to get a highly detailed forum post
or blog anymore.

------
amelius
One thing to consider: it may be getting worse for us, but better for 99% of
the population.

I can't imagine Google releasing a new version if it wasn't better for most
people.

~~~
matte_black
How do you measure if it actually _is_ better for people though?

~~~
moab
Well, I imagine they use metrics like how many pages you sift through before
selecting a link (presumably the page you were looking for), or whether you
had to modify the search. As some other posters have said, observing a lift in
1% for these kinds of metrics can hide a massive loss of quality for niche
queries or user groups. I imagine folks internally don't just look at
aggregate stats before pushing changes, but refine metrics based on the type
of query or the type of user.

------
jjoonathan
Yes, it has been going steadily downhill for years as the ML transforms google
search from a predictable and useful tool into one that tries to outsmart me
and trips over its shoelaces every time. Very frustrating.

The one upside is that google's increasingly poor search performance helped me
finally make the jump to Duck Duck Go, which I've wanted to do on moral
grounds for some time.

------
dragonwriter
I haven't noticed any significant recent changes and I don't really have the
problem you describe in most searches that I do without sure restrictions.

I have for years seen something like what you describe on single-common-word
searches where Google didn't have much for from my history to go on, but
that's not new.

------
Yetanfou
One of the ways around this conundrum is to use a meta-search engine, Searx
[1] being a good example. Not only does this do away with the search bias (by
not keeping any search history to base that bias on as well as by mixing up
all searches from all users to make it harder to profile those users by other
means), it also shows results from other engines besides Google. You can run
your own instance of Searx [2] or use one of the public instances [3].

[1] [https://www.searx.me/](https://www.searx.me/)

[2] [https://github.com/asciimoo/searx](https://github.com/asciimoo/searx)

[3] [https://github.com/asciimoo/searx/wiki/Searx-
instances](https://github.com/asciimoo/searx/wiki/Searx-instances)

------
oasisbob
Yes. I first noticed about six months ago, and it's been frustrating.

The most annoying habit I've seen is google disregarding the most relevant
part of the query, and returning low-quality news results that aren't at all
relevant.

The "refine-your-search" techniques I was taught in school (the days of Alta
Vista) are coming in handy again.

~~~
hyperdimension
Careful, though. Refine your query enough times and Google will extract free
labor from you...oops, I mean they'll give you a captcha.

------
hateful
Yes, for me it's been getting worse and worse over the past few months. I
don't see as many quick answer boxes up-top and the results are almost never
relevant.

It's hard for me to explain, but it's almost like Google forgot how to
ascertain context for certain terms and now gives a more general result.

------
mhkool
Just a theory: Google's user tracking is very advanced so they thought it is
time to present search results based on your profile. So when you search for
something outside your profile... the results are poor. This algorithm works
for probably 90% of the users.

------
lgregg
I've had a similar experience which is why I almost always use dork search
queries now. You'll get pinged by Google's anti-bot recapcha often but you'll
find things much more effectively.

Heres a cheat sheet I keep bookmarked, [https://www.alienvault.com/blog-
content/GoogleHackingCheatSh...](https://www.alienvault.com/blog-
content/GoogleHackingCheatSheet.pdf).

------
allthenews
I think search has worsened for the layman, but improved for the average, non
technical user.

My theory is that the ML powering search functionality is, predictably,
learning to match the largest body of data, at the coat of niche and/or
technical results. It is an emergent form of consolidation.

Personally, I feel this slow march began when google removed special search
characters.

------
wizardforhire
I’ve noticed this as well! I now use bing and duck duck go exclusively. I’m
surprised that I’m saying this but Bing reminds me of where google wishes it
was now 10 years ago. It’s as if all the good killer little features google
had have matured at bing and google has fallen into some dystopian version of
itself and has gone back to the stone ages.

~~~
pranay01
Are you based out of US? I have heard that Bing works well for the US, but is
not as good for other countries.

------
binjo
I think Google sort of pushes content it thinks you are searching for based on
what others who have used your query or similar queries have clicked. Do you
really dislike the results you see or are you just unwilling to click them
because you think they're heavily SEOed? Most users wouldn't notice this TBH.

------
benbristow
Actually started using Bing the past few days and it hasn't annoyed me enough
to switch.

Usually it sucks because the US version is so much better than their UK
version (I'm British) but it seems closer to feature parity now. Even has
their rewards thing.

Their world cup coverage is pretty good too.

~~~
timbit42
Have you ever tried qwant.com ?

~~~
benbristow
Looks a bit cluttered for my liking

------
ballenf
Technical users are likely employing adblock and/or blocking tracking.

Google search team likely reviews metrics ( _of trackable users_ ) to allocate
resources...

They are blind to tech-savvy users and optimized for the crowd who will click
an ad thinking it's a search result.

------
rtfs
I fully agree and do basically the same. As an expert in some domains, seeing
high-content websites pushed back by some marketing driven shitty websites
lets me really doubt the quality of google's index, this applies especially
fir niche tipics.

------
Fire-Dragon-DoL
Whatever they do, they show me results not including my words first, only the
4th usually include all the words I written, making the first few results very
pointless

------
Jazgot
Unfortunately that's true, the search results quality declined greatly
recently. In many cases I get way better results using bing, yandex.com or
duckduckgo.

------
rajacombinator
Not sure if this is a google problem or an internet problem. But it’s not only
over past few months. Their search results have been in decline for years.

------
kjrose
I've noticed this as well, I've started to use other search engines to get
better results when Google's results were a total wash.

------
kangnkodos
OP - Do you get different results when you repeat the search in incognito mode
(Chrome) or private browsing (Firefox)?

~~~
pranay01
I do get different results on switching to incognito mode - but generally they
are equally poor. My problem is not that google is trying to optimise the
results based on my search history. Its just that the top results in Google I
get are primarily optimised content marketing pieces which hardly have any
good insight. Hence, I filter by default with hacker news.

To give some context I mostly research business(products, market dynamics,
etc) or technologies

------
kjrose
I've noticed this as well. So much so that I'm starting to use some of my
alternatives to get decent results.

~~~
pranay01
What are the alternatives you have tried? Curious, what are other strategies
to get better results.

------
joe_the_user
I would be curious which key-words people notice as suffering the most
decline?

~~~
pranay01
OP here - Don't remember keywords, but generally I want to understand
technologies or markets. For example, how is the market for open source
software evolving, what are the different business models around it, are there
any new products in this space, what are the new technologies? In such
scenarios, I want to see details about people's experience, their experiments,
etc. The results which I get on Google are severely lacking in this regard. I
get boiler plate content marketing articles for 2-3 pages of results, which
really don't give any new insight.

------
mwcmitchell
thought i was the only one!! most of what i get back for specific queries
(especially if they use search operators) is total garbage compared to before
~6mo ago

