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Zepp Twofist · Aug 31, 2017

I've noticed lately that whenever I try searching for anything more complicated than the most basic types of searches on google, it returns generic results related to whatever I am searching for regardless of how specific I make the search. I can even completely change the entire wording of the search, and get the exact same result page. This leads me to believe that google heavily modifies whatever query you input to the most popular search based on keywords from your query.

This probably makes google better for the vast majority of searches. You can for example get the right result if you misspell every single word of your query or ask questions in natural grammar, but it makes my job searching for technical problems significantly harder.

Just today I was searching for a somewhat obscure error relating to calendars in MS Outlook, but every result is just tutorials on how to send meeting requests, even when I specifically include keywords like "error" or "problem" and stuff like that. I've had similar problems before, and I feel this specifically has gotten worse over the past year or two.

In the past I felt like I could manipulate google to provide the exact results I wanted, but now I feel it twists my searches to fit whatever it thinks most people would search for.

Galava · Aug 31, 2017

Zepp Twofist said:
I've noticed lately that whenever I try searching for anything more complicated than the most basic types of searches on google, it returns generic results related to whatever I am searching for regardless of how specific I make the search. I can even completely change the entire wording of the search, and get the exact same result page. This leads me to believe that google heavily modifies whatever query you input to the most popular search based on keywords from your query.

This probably makes google better for the vast majority of searches. You can for example get the right result if you misspell every single word of your query or ask questions in natural grammar, but it makes my job searching for technical problems significantly harder.

Just today I was searching for a somewhat obscure error relating to calendars in MS Outlook, but every result is just tutorials on how to send meeting requests, even when I specifically include keywords like "error" or "problem" and stuff like that. I've had similar problems before, and I feel this specifically has gotten worse over the past year or two.

In the past I felt like I could manipulate google to provide the exact results I wanted, but now I feel it twists my searches to fit whatever it thinks most people would search for.

I believe that Google is implementing new algorithms for long queries thanks to deep learning, and will try to show you the answer to your problem/question/etc instead of showing you a list of standard results.

The AI might be seeing that regardless of the wording, it thinks that what it's showing is what you want, instead of displaying a normal google search.

Eggbok · Aug 31, 2017

I've noticed this as well, I was looking for ways to fix an android phone and it kept bringing me forums about iPhone issues. I literally entered android phone and still got a bunch of results for iphones. I ended up going to YouTube to find what I needed lol.

CHC · Aug 31, 2017

Anecdotally, I can't disagree with you. Another problem I have is that it just literally disregards certain words. So if I search for, like "flank steak medium rare" it might return the exact same results as "steak medium rare" and just decide not to include the cut of steak I specified. This is a made up example, but it does shit like that all the time, basically just repeating results whenever I want to get more specific. Unless, of course, I put the new word in quotes, but why should I have to do that?

Also, yes, like you I typically have to comb through like a full page of fairly generic, maybe even machine generated how-to-guides on ad-driven websites before I reach an actual forum or something made by humans that actually tells me how to do what I need to.

Guevara · Aug 31, 2017

Yes, more and more I have to look for verbatim results and/or put everything in quotes.

hydrophilic attack · Aug 31, 2017

put the crucial search terms within quotation marks and they won't be ignored

example:

Eggbok said:
I've noticed this as well, I was looking for ways to fix an android phone and it kept bringing me forums about iPhone issues. I literally entered android phone and still got a bunch of results for iphones. I ended up going to YouTube to find what I needed lol.

put android in quotation marks to ensure every result includes android

Wowfunhappy · Aug 31, 2017

Use the option to search for verbatim results and this won't happen. Super useful in specific situations.

WedgeX · Aug 31, 2017

Tangentially related, but google results have been forcing local answers on me. Particularly when it comes to trying to find research or organizations. Most results come back locally rather than nationally, even with any preferences turned off. It's been challenging.

Zepp Twofist · Aug 31, 2017

Wowfunhappy said:
Use the option to search for verbatim results and this won't happen. Super useful in specific situations.

Sure, I do that when I can but for the stuff I am looking for that's not always an option. Often I need to use a combination of quotes, subtractions and date ranges to get the results I want as well.

rbanke · Aug 31, 2017

Guevara said:
Yes, more and more I have to look for verbatim results and/or put everything in quotes.

hydrophilic attack said:
put the crucial search terms within quotation marks and they won't be ignored

example:

put android in quotation marks to ensure every result includes android

Wowfunhappy said:
Use the option to search for verbatim results and this won't happen. Super useful in specific situations.

I do this and/or restrict search timeframe constantly, do you guys also often get the 'Unusual Traffic' message when doing so? They seem to be intentially making it difficult for users to be specific in their searches.

Izayoi · Aug 31, 2017

Oh god. If Google become ineffectual, humanity is lost forever.

ItIsOkBro · Aug 31, 2017

ive also been noticing that when im searching for something particular its been assuming (wrongly) what i mean instead of prompting me with a did you mean?

Khaz · Aug 31, 2017

Google search: foo bar
First result: tangentially related to foobar, in theme only
ctrl F foo: zero results
ctrl F bar: zero results

yay!

Galava · Aug 31, 2017

Izayoi said:
Oh god. If Google become ineffectual, humanity is lost forever.

Just wait for the next Google homepage update and you will see where things are headed.
They want to become the "we give you the info you want before you ask for it". And even if you ask for it, you will do it by asking to an online AI.

Robdraggoo · Aug 31, 2017

Izayoi said:
Oh god. If Google become ineffectual, humanity is lost forever.

I have survived more than half my life without it. We will be fine.

ChubbyHuggs · Aug 31, 2017

I hate that depending on the site even being one letter off gives you zero results. Like come on, the rest of it should at least bring up the site.

Coreda · Aug 31, 2017

About a month ago I literally put in a four word query and the results on the first page had three of the four words crossed out under the blurbs. Meaning it wasn't even returning results that matched what I had entered.

Everything like that now requires double quotes, but even that is ineffectual for some searches. It's ridiculous and only has become worse for anything specific over time in my experience, not to mention the neverending SEO gaming of the results for more general queries related to products/services.

ChubbyHuggs said:
I hate that depending on the site even being one letter off gives you zero results. Like come on, the rest of it should at least bring up the site.

I'm surprised there isn't better phonetic and word similarity algorithms for 1-2 word queries where it's apparent the user is struggling to find results (eg: multiple attempts typing variants of a similar string). There can be zero relevant results for something you think you heard only to later discover the correct spelling is slightly different.

Bitmap Frogs · Aug 31, 2017

I agree.

Searching for technical problems in the past would quickly return forum pots with people who were dealing with the same issues. Nowadays I get pages of ad-driven guides and whatever that do nothing. Quotation marks are now mandatory on google...

It's become a lot less useful as a tool.

snacknuts · Aug 31, 2017

I had this happen yesterday:

Google, what are you doing?

Wowfunhappy · Aug 31, 2017

rbanke said:
I do this and/or restrict search timeframe constantly, do you guys also often get the 'Unusual Traffic' message when doing so? They seem to be intentially making it difficult for users to be specific in their searches.

Only if I also add in a bunch of other advanced options. I usually just have to answer a pretty simple captcha though.

FyreWulff · Aug 31, 2017

yes, their personal bubbling of results has gotten annoying. Also god help you if what you're looking for has a recent event related to it or uses similar words, your entire results page will be a news story instead of what you're looking for. i'm looking for the words but it's like google is trying to "aol keyword"-ize search

Blizzard · Aug 31, 2017

I've felt this way for years, that Google has started sucking for specific technical searches when you know exactly what you're looking for.

rbanke said:
I do this and/or restrict search timeframe constantly, do you guys also often get the 'Unusual Traffic' message when doing so? They seem to be intentially making it difficult for users to be specific in their searches.

Yep, using "allintext: whatever" to force Google to do what you want gives you occasional captcha blocks which is irritating.

zou · Aug 31, 2017

been getting worse since 2011. it's beyond useless for the majority of queries now.

anything other than basic shit like "weather" returns results that have nothing in common with the keywords or spam shopping comparison sites.

JoeM86 · Aug 31, 2017

Google's search has been a bit odd lately.

Take Pokémon stuff. Typically my site is #2 or #3 for the searches for each individual Pokémon. However, lately due to GO, they have been prioritising all the random new sites who are just posting about GO which has been killing my search positions, and it takes forever to build up again.

Even when people are searching for specific things for Sun & Moon, GO content is still dominating the searches because Google's algorithms think that's what people want.

axisofweevils · Aug 31, 2017

That's why i moved to duckduckgo

RoadHazard · Aug 31, 2017

Khaz said:
Google search: foo bar
First result: tangentially related to foobar, in theme only
ctrl F foo: zero results
ctrl F bar: zero results

yay!

¯\_(&#12484

_/¯

zou · Aug 31, 2017

hell, even for basic keywords the results are a joke.

searching for windows laptop returns "windows 10 guide", "desktop skype download" as results 10-20.

edit: this is atill one of the most pathetic searches on google ever (2015). so bad I had to take a screenshot.

ItIsOkBro · Aug 31, 2017

rbanke said:
I do this and/or restrict search timeframe constantly, do you guys also often get the 'Unusual Traffic' message when doing so? They seem to be intentially making it difficult for users to be specific in their searches.

that reminds me that ive been increasingly using timeframe restrictions as well. if something happened recently with similar keywords to what im searching for it becomes impossible to find without resticting time to before that thing happened.

Coreda · Aug 31, 2017

rbanke said:
I do this and/or restrict search timeframe constantly, do you guys also often get the 'Unusual Traffic' message when doing so? They seem to be intentially making it difficult for users to be specific in their searches.

I can sometimes get a string of capchas in a row while searching for something specific and changing parts of the query to refine the results. Each one can take minutes. Like wtf Google, as if one set of tiles isn't enough they force me to go through a dozen. Not even trying private mode can circumvent it.

The only additional parameter I use that I'm aware of is complete=0, which prevents auto complete search suggestions.

RoadHazard · Aug 31, 2017

zou said:
hell, even for basic keywords the results are a joke.

searching for windows laptop returns "windows 10 guide", "desktop skype download" as results 10-20.

edit: this is atill one of the most pathetic searches on google ever. so bad I had to take a screenshot.

Don't know what's wrong with you guys' Google.

M3d10n · Aug 31, 2017

Yeah, it sucks. Sometimes I feel I'm using altavista due to ridiculous signal to noise ratio.

CTLance · Aug 31, 2017

Can attest to the fuzzing/localisation of search results to the point that they're no longer useful. Helps sometimes, but more often than not it's counterproductive and feels like swimming in molasses.

It helps if you familiarise yourself with the search syntax.

https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2466433?hl=en

In particular, excluding certain search terms by means of putting a minus in front of the word always helps weeding out useless stuff.

talkingood · Aug 31, 2017

I've noticed this too and it is frustrating.

Also I've noticed that Pinterest is really messing up Google image searches -- it seems a lot of the things I look for return results from Pinterest, instead of the original image. This just complicates things.

Kinitari · Aug 31, 2017

zou said:
hell, even for basic keywords the results are a joke.

searching for windows laptop returns "windows 10 guide", "desktop skype download" as results 10-20.

edit: this is atill one of the most pathetic searches on google ever. so bad I had to take a screenshot.

Why does your Google look weird? And my search for the same thing actually gives good results

13ruce · Aug 31, 2017

snacknuts said:
I had this happen yesterday:

Google, what are you doing?

Lol.

M3d10n · Aug 31, 2017

Kinitari said:
Why does your Google look weird? And my search for the same thing actually gives good results

That's exactly the problem with Google, it's "localizing" and "tailoring" the results, but utterly failing at it.

zou · Aug 31, 2017

RoadHazard said:
Don't know what's wrong with you guys' Google.

what made you think that search was a recent one? I took that screenshot end of 2015.

regardless, since google likes to mess with results for each user, it's unlikely you'll get the same or even similar results as another user.

Zhengi · Aug 31, 2017

Izayoi said:
Oh god. If Google become ineffectual, humanity is lost forever.

That would be another reason to switch to Bing.

Zoc · Aug 31, 2017

Thankfully google isn't the only game in town anymore. Google, DuckDuckGo, bing, etc all have their own advantages over each other.

zou · Aug 31, 2017

Zoc said:
Thankfully google isn't the only game in town anymore. Google, DuckDuckGo, bing, etc all have their own advantages over each other.

true, if google fails me Google usually works.

and no, there's google and bing. duckduckgo pulls results from google and bing. blekko used to be great, but they got bought and shut down.

ronaldthump · Aug 31, 2017

I googled happy crying dad (as I wanted to find a joyful dad pic for fathers day) and got pics of guys holding children with their heads half exploded.

:/

sigh.

neoanarch · Aug 31, 2017

The search results have been ass for a while now. At least the first page.

FyreWulff · Aug 31, 2017

yeah screenshots are pointless, everyone's google searches are personalized. your view of google isn't the same as everyone else's.

hydrophilic attack · Aug 31, 2017

rbanke said:
I do this and/or restrict search timeframe constantly, do you guys also often get the 'Unusual Traffic' message when doing so? They seem to be intentially making it difficult for users to be specific in their searches.

yeah i get that too when i make very specific searches

seems like some people use those more advanced search tools for automatic searches and google wants to curb that

Spiritwalker · Aug 31, 2017

zou said:
snip

Kinitari said:
Why does your Google look weird? And my search for the same thing actually gives good results

Looks like an older design to me. Even has the old logo.

Duane Cunningham · Aug 31, 2017

snacknuts said:
I had this happen yesterday:

Google, what are you doing?

Ha, how the hell did that happen?

ItIsOkBro · Sep 1, 2017

just look at this shit. trying to find if the brightness of this TV is reported anywhere

assumes i meant units instead of nits without asking

disregards the entire model number and shows results for LC only

McLovin · Sep 26, 2017

Ive been trying to find this specific thing that may or may not be legal on google for days. Kept getting led to sites full of malware. I gave up and switched engines and found what I wanted in less then a minute. Google search results are seriously fucked. Its almost useless.

Its Star Trek Discovery, I pay for Cable, Prime, and Netflix and I see my movies in the theater and Ill be damned if I have to pay for another streaming service to watch one damn show.

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