We're improving search results when you use quotes

Re:We're improving search results when you use quotes by metadat on Thursday August 04, 2022 @10:26PM (#32350808)

PageRank isn't new at this point, has been publicly available for more than 10 years. If I were less of an idiot myself I'd found a fresh search engine. Other than Dear Bing (who doesn't support the "Verbatim" filter), there are no public independent full-web indexes left.

R.I.P.

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Re:We're improving search results when you use quotes by dietr1ch on Thursday August 04, 2022 @10:33PM (#32350859)

What makes you think that Search still runs mainly guided by page rank?

If that were the case then search engines would differ only on how big their database is, but unless you care about the long tail you wouldn't be able to notice much of a difference.

I don't work in ranking, but considering how the web has changed since the early 2000s I'd guess that page rank's quality has gone down as spammy websites and walled gardens appeared.

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Re:We're improving search results when you use quotes by chongli on Thursday August 04, 2022 @11:44PM (#32351317)

PageRank is basically worthless at this point. Its baseline assumption, that keywords and in-links correlate with relevance, is now broken. The vast majority of stuff out there is SEO'd and link-farmed to death. If you want to find anything relevant with PageRank these days, you first need to find a way to filter out all of the spam. This is why search is so hard now.

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Re:We're improving search results when you use quotes by rightbyte on Friday August 05, 2022 @03:29AM (#32352864)

> find a way to filter out all of the spam

It is the same spam sites I see again and again. A manual blacklist from one puny FTE would probably clean up the wast majority.

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Re:We're improving search results when you use quotes by nikanj on Friday August 05, 2022 @05:40AM (#32353744)

But that would involve hiring a human. Google's prime directive is "Never hire a human do a job well, when you can train AI to do the same job badly"

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Re:We're improving search results when you use quotes by graftak on Friday August 05, 2022 @04:08AM (#32353118)

They could even crowd source this by allowing users to block domains from search results, which should affect its ranking long term.

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Re:We're improving search results when you use quotes by jpindar on Friday August 05, 2022 @12:26PM (#32358360)

As with so many things, they used to do this then inexplicably stopped.

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Re:We're improving search results when you use quotes by anticensor on Saturday August 06, 2022 @11:52AM (#32369150)

You can use -inurl:example.com

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Re:We're improving search results when you use quotes by metadat on Friday August 05, 2022 @12:16AM (#32351569)

Impossibly difficult and resource intensive? Sounds like we need a reset of some kind.

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Re:We're improving search results when you use quotes by summerlight on Friday August 05, 2022 @02:23AM (#32352455)

https://arxiv.org/abs/1710.05649

Google now has moved to model based ranking. In the current (search-hostile) web environment, PageRank or whatever simplistic algorithm doesn't work anymore.

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Re:We're improving search results when you use quotes by ijidak on Thursday August 04, 2022 @11:14PM (#32351116)

Search is a really hard problem.

And as the web scales, it's an increasingly expensive problem. (Servers, storage, bandwidth, etc.)

I'd wager that it's easier to launch the next SpaceX than to launch the next Google.

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Re:We're improving search results when you use quotes by monetus on Thursday August 04, 2022 @11:58PM (#32351425)

Full-web isn't something google can do anymore either, for better and worse.

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Re:We're improving search results when you use quotes by collegeburner on Thursday August 04, 2022 @10:33PM (#32350861)

i've got my issues with brave but iirc they're actually doing an independent web index not just using bing (i think they still use them for images tho). it was really nice to hear somebody else is working on that even if i'm not using it rn.

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Re:We're improving search results when you use quotes by godshatter on Friday August 05, 2022 @01:22PM (#32359124)

I have issues with the Brave browser but I am a big fan of their search product. Just the fact that they are building their own index was enough for me to switch, but I've had better luck with finding useful search results than I previously had with DDG. YMMV, of course. Their forum search results section has been very useful, too.

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Re:We're improving search results when you use quotes by metadat on Thursday August 04, 2022 @10:51PM (#32350988)

Didn't know about Brave's Index. I just emailed them to find out how I can help with the bottom line of making human knowledge accessible for lesser-idiots. Thanks!

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