Ask HN: Has Google search become quantitatively worse?

Re:Ask HN: Has Google search become quantitatively worse? by notreallyserio on Tuesday November 30, 2021 @10:28AM (#29393144)

Way, way worse. There was a time you could force Google to only return pages with a specific term by wrapping it in double quotes (or further back, prefixing with a plus). This was useful when trying to learn about a specific error message/code. Now, it's a total crapshoot, and you may not get a single useful result at all.

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Re:Ask HN: Has Google search become quantitatively worse? by sumtechguy on Tuesday November 30, 2021 @10:40AM (#29393297)

For many searches like that I use 'tools->all results->verbatim'. Seems to help.

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Re:Ask HN: Has Google search become quantitatively worse? by akvadrako on Tuesday November 30, 2021 @10:52AM (#29393458)

I've been using the verbatim mode by default for a couple years. It does improve the results substantially.

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Re:Ask HN: Has Google search become quantitatively worse? by alok-g on Tuesday November 30, 2021 @01:41PM (#29395754)

Same here. However, comparing what verbatim mode was before and is now, it has gone much worse.

I just want barebones keywords search, with just the caveat to index just the words on the main part of a web page, not the surrounding ads, etc.

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Re:Ask HN: Has Google search become quantitatively worse? by skinkestek on Wednesday December 01, 2021 @07:55AM (#29403219)

Depends on which experiment you are part of.

For long stretches of time Google flat out ignores verbatim operator when I try it.

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Re:Ask HN: Has Google search become quantitatively worse? by finite_jest on Tuesday November 30, 2021 @01:15PM (#29395427)

Interesting, is it any different than putting the query in quotes?

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Re:Ask HN: Has Google search become quantitatively worse? by notreallyserio on Tuesday November 30, 2021 @01:40PM (#29395741)

Google may ignore the quotes entirely, although it's not clear when.

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Re:Ask HN: Has Google search become quantitatively worse? by petemcc on Tuesday November 30, 2021 @10:41AM (#29393312)

Came here to say this. I have noticed this increasingly in the last few weeks, constantly getting 1st page results with the exact-match term struck through and semi-relevant-but-not-really results. Struggling to think of motivation for why this would be. Or is it a byproduct of shifts elsewhere.

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