Apple, Google and a Deal That Controls the Internet

Re:Apple, Google and a Deal That Controls the Internet by Exmoor on Sunday October 25, 2020 @02:30PM (#24888636)

I've read this type of comment a few times on HN and always find it interesting. I've been using Bing for probably 10 years on desktop and Google on my phone (because Android). Generally I've found that I prefer the Bing results to the Google results more often than Bing. I've honestly had the opposite experience (frustrated with Google results, so I switch to Bing) so I wonder how much of it is based on subconscious assumptions about which we assume is better?

I'm sure there's some site the obfuscates results and could probably answer the question a little more scientifically.

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Re:Apple, Google and a Deal That Controls the Internet by fastball on Sunday October 25, 2020 @03:45PM (#24889297)

I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't think it's subconscious bias in my case of preferring Google to all others.

My process: think of something I want to find, think of all the keywords I can, type them into the search engine.

Google helps me find what I'm looking for faster than Bing or DDG.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Apple, Google and a Deal That Controls the Internet by lanstin on Sunday October 25, 2020 @05:22PM (#24889993)

I think given a given search algorithm there is an art to searching effectively with that algorithm. For example for a long time you’d search based on the words you expect in an answer to the question. As Google got more into the “reading the search query as a question” mode you had to shift a bit to framing the query with words from a question that would typically be asked to get the search results. I suspect some of the friction between switching search providers is that we unconsciously get tuned to what terms to use to get the answers we want.

[ Parent | on HN ]