> Common sense and technological advancement tells us that, quantitatively, Google search has become better year over year, for all their relevant metrics/cost functions.
lmfao. so you're telling me "quantitatively" that google search results have gotten better, without citing any data at all, but with an appeal to common sense and "technological advancement"?
what if i told you that search is an adversarial problem, and that it's possible for google's tech to be getting better slower than the aggregate tech power used to game google search is getting better? is this not a patently obvious possibility? it's not some kind of gotcha impossibility for google's tech to get much worse over time, even if they weren't hamstringing themselves by lots and lots of user-hostile changes which benefit google's interests rather than their users.
> lmfao. so you're telling me "quantitatively" that google search results have gotten better, without citing any data at all, but with an appeal to common sense and "technological advancement"?
Yes. If that sounds so unacceptable or strange to you, I suggest you try it. Works really well when reasoning about unavailable data, or researching a field with slow peer-review process.
> what if i told you that search is an adversarial problem
Then I get an adversarial reaction and a downvote from you.
> it's possible for google's tech to be getting better slower than the aggregate tech power used to game google search is getting better? is this not a patently obvious possibility?
Yes, that's plausible. Should be measurable quantitively too. Can you cite some data on this? :)
We could compare to the available data on the quality of (HTML) e-mail spam filtering over the years, which all have kept up. Like pg said: Spam is solved, when skilled spammers start creating content which does not look, feel, or talk like spam. So webcontent-spammers still are on the first 2 pages of Google, but with content not classifiable as spam/content farm.
> which benefit google's interests rather than their users.
One of Google's interest is their user. But perhaps not the type of user you are. Studies have shown the value that the tech of Google is delivering its users per year. This value was in the thousandths, and this value has risen. Meanwhile, Google makes about tens of dollars per user per year, less for technical users which don't click ads or block these.
> it's not some kind of gotcha impossibility for google's tech to get much worse over time
It really is, no way to mince it. Google search is funded by Google ad tech. Google ad tech has improved ML by a ton. To say Google tech is getting worse, is to totally overlook deep learning revolution, word2vec, transformers, BERT, etc. etc. etc. To state that, is to reveal the truth that you are ignorant of major technological advances in the past decade, only looking at the issue from the viewpoint of a single atypical Google-search user. What would you even do with quantitive SEQ data?
Do you really think it is possible that Google runs an implementation test of a new ranking model, and deploys it, while all measurements, human labeling, and user tests show it is doing worse? Of course not! Only if you think you are smarter, could you think that Google search changed and has gotten worse.
If Google does ML like the rest of the industry, all model changes move up their designed levers, or these changes are not committed. So if Google was unable to improve search, then Google would have looked exactly like 2008 Google. The fact that it does not, shows either you or Google is wrong. If I had to make a bet...
> Yes, that's plausible. Should be measurable quantitively too. Can you cite some data on this? :)
It's a bit bloody rich for you to come out with that attitude when your entire point revolves around your opinion of 'common sense'
> Do you really think it is possible that Google runs an implementation test of a new ranking model, and deploys it, while all measurements, human labeling, and user tests show it is doing worse? Of course not! Only if you think you are smarter, could you think that Google search changed and has gotten worse.
You seem to be confusing the concepts of 'Google have made their tech more profitable' and 'Google have made their search capability better'.
Of all things, I am sure that this discussion thread did not add value to this community conversation, and as such, serves as spam. Apologies, and let's hope Google bot finds ways to ignore low-information content in a threaded forum. Maybe they could even locate the exact post which caused the derail, and apply some authority penalty on its author.
No, I used common sense, but I actually have the quantitative data that poster was asking about. Right now, I am doing exact keyword matches and trying to find myself. Will get back to you when my analysis is done.
> You seem to be confusing the concepts of 'Google have made their tech more profitable' and 'Google have made their search capability better'.
No, you are confused. Try to Google the article I was talking about. It talks of perceived value to the user. What value would you lose without access to Google maps, search, youtube, gmail, etc.?
Google made their tech more valuable. That sounds like an improvement to me.
> Google have made their search capability better
If you want an explanation for this obvious statement (and not be demanded to ask in return how capitalism works), I suggest you first try to code a simple search engine. I think a 100-line Python script with some imports would do. Only this would make talking about capabilities possible.
I'm not buying the tribal argument, that I'm the wrong user for Google. The results are shite across the board regardless of tribe.
I think they've accepted that SEO has killed past ranking algorithms and are rebuilding rank from the ground up using ML with the entire internet as guinea pig. All of the crap results we're weeding through now is grist for the ML mill.
I am literally typing exact phrases for content I know is there and not getting the results I should.
I think they've cut the cord with past algorithms, not an incremental update, a major one.
My thinking so doesn't make it so, however, so just my two cents.
> We could compare to the available data on the quality of (HTML) e-mail spam filtering over the years, which all have kept up. Like pg said: Spam is solved, when skilled spammers start creating content which does not look, feel, or talk like spam. So webcontent-spammers still are on the first 2 pages of Google, but with content not classifiable as spam/content farm.
I've actually noticed Gmail spam detection doesn't work as well in the last year or two. I get an obvious spam message maybe every other day. Ads with all images and all.
lmfao. so you're telling me "quantitatively" that google search results have gotten better, without citing any data at all, but with an appeal to common sense and "technological advancement"?
what if i told you that search is an adversarial problem, and that it's possible for google's tech to be getting better slower than the aggregate tech power used to game google search is getting better? is this not a patently obvious possibility? it's not some kind of gotcha impossibility for google's tech to get much worse over time, even if they weren't hamstringing themselves by lots and lots of user-hostile changes which benefit google's interests rather than their users.