Google Search is Much Less Useful Now

[Kavik]

In the past several months, I've noticed that Google searches have become less and less relevant. It is hard to find what I'm looking for even if I am very specific. I have not been scientifically analyzing this, so I don't have specific examples except the most recent one. From what I recall, this ranges from innocuous things to news/politics, so maybe there is no funny business.

I know that Google creates a "bubble" of info which basically reinforces what a person is interested in rather than proportionally showing what is out there, but, to my tinfoil hat, what I've been experiencing seems more like Chinese government level censorship in which only generic results are returned. Current example: I heard a passing mention of "tyranny in Australia" and Google basically only returned travel information, a restaurant Facebook page, and one relevant DailyMail article. I had to go to DuckDuckGo to find more relevant articles. Granted, the articles I've found are from websites I've never heard of, plus Russian State Propaganda (RT); nevertheless, I, at least, wanted to find what the video was referring to whether or not it is biased or reliable.

That said, from memory, I think I've had similar results with non-news related things, but the news and politics ones obviously stand out. Has anyone else noticed this, or am I being paranoid?

[tp4tissue]

It's still better than baidu,  pretty much baidu just directs you to products from alibaba related or not, its solution is buy something on alibaba. 

[Findecanor]

I've noticed that DuckDuckGo doesn't recognise when I put search words in quotes, prefixed with a + as something that must match a word on the page. It still gives me something with approximate words.

[noisyturtle]

DDG is a terrible search engine. I love it in concept, but man does it suck.

I think what Google has been doing is adjusting algorithms with popular searches, so even when you are searching for something quite specific it will throw up results relating to whatever the general populace is searching at that time. It sucks having your interests be affected by social media trends but that's what they think we want (it is not.)

[Leslieann]

Google absolutely will alter searches based on past results (as well as other people) and create a bubble, I attribute a LOT conspiracy theory stuff to Youtube because of this. Once you stumble into that section of Youtube it's hard to get out of it and now the user in bombarded with flat Earth and perpetual motion generators and other garbage. Facebook has the same problem.


While you can blame the algorithm I think the greater issue is lack of human oversight, not just on Google and Facebooks part but a Lot of these companies in general and those using them. It's cheaper to assume things are working (the A.I. didn't warn me!) than to bother actually making sure and at some point it's going to bite them all in the a$$. It already happened on the stock market at least once.

[noisyturtle]

Google absolutely will alter searches based on past results (as well as other people) and create a bubble, I attribute a LOT conspiracy theory stuff to Youtube because of this. Once you stumble into that section of Youtube it's hard to get out of it and now the user in bombarded with flat Earth and perpetual motion generators and other garbage. Facebook has the same problem.


While you can blame the algorithm I think the greater issue is lack of human oversight, not just on Google and Facebooks part but a Lot of these companies in general and those using them. It's cheaper to assume things are working (the A.I. didn't warn me!) than to bother actually making sure and at some point it's going to bite them all in the a$$. It already happened on the stock market at least once.

I watched one Spirit Science video like two years ago and they still constantly show up in my recommended

[Kavik]

DDG is a terrible search engine. I love it in concept, but man does it suck.

I think what Google has been doing is adjusting algorithms with popular searches, so even when you are searching for something quite specific it will throw up results relating to whatever the general populace is searching at that time. It sucks having your interests be affected by social media trends but that's what they think we want (it is not.)

Yeah, I agree that DuckDuckGo is terrible. I never use it normally; it was just my default reaction when I couldn't find what I was looking for.

It's just weird that I used to use Google exclusively because I could never find anything with DDG, Yahoo, or Bing, but now I do occasionally have to switch to something else. Google used to function seemingly perfectly, but now it's meh.

[iri]

I switched to DDG from Google because I couldn't find what I was looking for. The last drop was Google replacing "fat" with "plus sized" when I was looking for a "fat bike". DDG works fine for me.

[Sintpinty]

Thats why i use duckduckgo

[yui]

DDG is a terrible search engine. I love it in concept, but man does it suck.

I think what Google has been doing is adjusting algorithms with popular searches, so even when you are searching for something quite specific it will throw up results relating to whatever the general populace is searching at that time. It sucks having your interests be affected by social media trends but that's what they think we want (it is not.)

Yeah, I agree that DuckDuckGo is terrible. I never use it normally; it was just my default reaction when I couldn't find what I was looking for.

It's just weird that I used to use Google exclusively because I could never find anything with DDG, Yahoo, or Bing, but now I do occasionally have to switch to something else. Google used to function seemingly perfectly, but now it's meh.

i find that duck duck go is much better nowadays than 2 to 3 years ago, to the point of being a decent google alternative, better than bing/yahoo anyway.
As for google bubbles, at least in Europe you can disable search customization in google, or at least you could last time i checked, and although it still will not react to words it finds offensive (i guess fat may be) and will try to not take a political side it seems pretty good at finding the right things when i ask it for. Although i use it a lot more for electronics and programmatic isues than searching politics...