Minor things that bother you

[bm7]

My exact search was clark county nv ballot drop off sites (I've never lived in a jurisdiction that really does vote by mail and I was curious whether drop-off sites were plentiful enough that they were convenient to access). It looks like Google might be prioritizing Clark County WA because it actually provides a list of drop-off locations, while Clark County NV just says you can drop the ballot off at any polling place and that a list of additional locations will be provided in the mail with the ballot.

Still, though, it's a flaw in the ranking algorithm if the amount of content available is given a higher priority than whether it actually matches the search terms.

In general I've found Google's results to be really bad the last year or so. It constantly places results that it says doesn't include some of my search terms above ones that do. Sometimes I'll put something in quotes and it'll completely ignore them. DuckDuckGo and Bing are better IMO than Google is nowadays.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

Maybe we need a new general "Google just fucking SUCKS now" thread.

[Rothman]

Heh.  Actually heard someone say they were from "Nack-i-dish" Louisiana today for the first time.  The pronunciation and spelling mismatch is a minor bother to me.

[LilianaUwU]

Heh.  Actually heard someone say they were from "Nack-i-dish" Louisiana today for the first time.  The pronunciation and spelling mismatch is a minor bother to me.

Wooster, MA, am I right?

[Big John]

Heh.  Actually heard someone say they were from "Nack-i-dish" Louisiana today for the first time.  The pronunciation and spelling mismatch is a minor bother to me.

Wooster, MA, am I right?

There is a Wooster Ohio spelled that way instead of the Massachusetts version.

[Rothman]

Heh.  Actually heard someone say they were from "Nack-i-dish" Louisiana today for the first time.  The pronunciation and spelling mismatch is a minor bother to me.

Wooster, MA, am I right?

Wuhstah.

[roadman65]

Ibuip shows up sometimes when I type in but.

[Rothman]

Ibuip shows up sometimes when I type in but.

Wut.

[roadman65]

Ibuip shows up sometimes when I type in but.

Wut.

Autocorrect must be doing its thing.


Another thing that's annoying.

How about pay walls when you find an article with the answers you need. It shows up on Google first but when you open the link the first thing the site owner wants is his money from you and an indefinite subscription.

[kphoger]

Clark County, NV has a population of 2.2 million people. Clark County, WA has a population of 500,000. I currently have an IP address that geolocates to well within the boundaries of Clark County, NV.

Why, then, when I search for some aspect of how the county government works, does Google consistently return search results for Clark County, WA ahead of Clark County, NV, even when I explicitly include 'nv' in the search?

When I googled "Clark County" (no state), my top return is Clark County NV.
But it sounds like your search is more extensive.

I would guess that whatever you are additionally putting in for ""aspect of government" (whatever it is, examples being "parks" or "taxes") that it is hitting on the WA site.

My exact search was clark county nv ballot drop off sites (I've never lived in a jurisdiction that really does vote by mail and I was curious whether drop-off sites were plentiful enough that they were convenient to access). It looks like Google might be prioritizing Clark County WA because it actually provides a list of drop-off locations, while Clark County NV just says you can drop the ballot off at any polling place and that a list of additional locations will be provided in the mail with the ballot.

Still, though, it's a flaw in the ranking algorithm if the amount of content available is given a higher priority than whether it actually matches the search terms.

When I replace the "nv" in your search "nevada", the top hit is for Washington, the second hit is for Nevada, and the third hit is for Nevada.  However, here's what I've noticed:

1.  The Washington hit (#1) says "Missing: nevada".
2.  The first Nevada hit (#2) says "Missing: off".
3.  The second Nevada hit (#3) has all search terms included.

So I think the real question is why Google would put results that are missing some of your search terms ahead of results that aren't missing any—especially in the top three.

[vdeane]

^ Just another example of how Google's quality has declined over the years.  A lot of people like to blame social media for taking over the internet, but really, it's all specific changes Google has made to their functionality (specifically, removing a lot of it) and algorithm (massively favoring some types of results while getting rid of many others).

[kkt]

So I think the real question is why Google would put results that are missing some of your search terms ahead of results that aren't missing any.

This is a pretty easy question.

[kphoger]

So I think the real question is why Google would put results that are missing some of your search terms ahead of results that aren't missing any.

This is a pretty easy question.

I actually just modified my original post to include "especially in the top three".  I could see farther down the results list, but seriously.  If I type a word in the search string, then I don't expect hit #1 to exclude that word.

[webny99]

So I think the real question is why Google would put results that are missing some of your search terms ahead of results that aren't missing any.

This is a pretty easy question.

I actually just modified my original post to include "especially in the top three".  I could see farther down the results list, but seriously.  If I type a word in the search string, then I don't expect hit #1 to exclude that word.

The algorithm could be - probably is, actually - weighing the prevalence of all of your search terms in the results. If a certain result is extremely relevant to terms 1-3 (say it contains dozens of references to them) but missing term 4 entirely, it might see that as more relevant than something that contains all of 1-4, but only one or two times each.

In this case, there are seven words in the string. The Washington result seems to be very detailed, so it's probably a perfect match on the other six terms, while the Nevada result(s) may be loosely correlated to all seven terms, but provides less detailed/relevant information overall. The algorithm doesn't have any way to know that the entire search is hinging on "Nevada" and anything without it is irrelevant. Place names, especially duplicate place names like Clark County, are somewhat unique in that regard; most searches would tend to strike a more even balance between the importance of each word.

[Scott5114]

This is why fuzzy search algorithms are bullshit—they are dancing all around trying to guess what the user wanted when the user told them exactly what they wanted! If they went with a braindead straight text match they'd get better results than all the million-dollar code that produces the wrong result!

[webny99]

This is why fuzzy search algorithms are bullshit—they are dancing all around trying to guess what the user wanted when the user told them exactly what they wanted! If they went with a braindead straight text match they'd get better results than all the million-dollar code that produces the wrong result!

Point taken for this example (and really for any search with dependent terms, e.g. Clark County is dependent on Nevada to be relevant), but that's probably a relatively small percentage of searches. I would argue that which is better depends on the nature of the search.

[Scott5114]

I would argue that which is better depends on the nature of the user. Those of us that have been using Google since the 2000s got to where we could accurately predict what it would do with our input (thus why I put nv instead of nevada, I was confident enough that Google would expand it out for me that there was no need to write it out) and thus, combined with operators like - and +, could write very specific search strings that would return very specific results. Now all of that functionality is watered down because the algorithm is trying to guess what we really mean and guessing incorrectly (and worse, unpredictably).

I don't want to play guessing games. I want precision, and I'm fine with taking some time to learn how to use that precision so I can have a powerful tool in my arsenal. Now, I get that 99% of people don't want to take a couple of hours to figure out how to find the pinpoint spot that blows up the Death Star (in my defense it's a good time investment to me because I have a lot of Death Stars I need to blow up), and so the fuzzy algorithm works ok enough for those people. But please give me a box I can check to identify as a local and not a tourist so I can bypass the rigamarole and get to where I want to go.

[WillWeaverRVA]

Well, Poiponen13 has at last been dealt with, so he is no longer a minor thing that bothers me.

[kphoger]

The algorithm doesn't have any way to know that the entire search is hinging on "Nevada" and anything without it is irrelevant.

It should know that by virtue of the fact that I typed it.

[kphoger]

The 'permanent press' setting on my washing machine does not press my clothes, nor are the results permanent.

[Big John]

The 'permanent press' setting on my washing machine does not press my clothes, nor are the results permanent.

Or women getting a permanent hairstyle have to repeat the process later on.

[jeffandnicole]

...The algorithm doesn't have any way to know that the entire search is hinging on "Nevada" and anything without it is irrelevant.

It does have one way, and you just did what is required.

Next time, when you put your search term in, put the word(s) that mean the most in quotes. That should bring the optimal finds to the top of the list

Yes, I know, I'm sure somw people will say "but all the words are important". Work with what you got.

[webny99]

The algorithm doesn't have any way to know that the entire search is hinging on "Nevada" and anything without it is irrelevant.

It should know that by virtue of the fact that I typed it.

I phrased it a bit better in my following post. In this case, "Nevada" takes on outsized importance because there are multiple different, completely unrelated, Clark Counties, but none of them except for the Nevada one are relevant to your search. That's not usually the case with your average search.

[J N Winkler]

The 'permanent press' setting on my washing machine does not press my clothes, nor are the results permanent.

Until I looked into how to wash button-up shirts in a way that maximizes durability, I didn't actually realize permanent-press settings on washing machines were designed to accommodate a specific patented process for producing wrinkle-resistant clothing that began to be marketed only in the 1990's.  In other words, the permanent-press cycle makes sense for a dress shirt that is designed for it, but is not a "gentle" alternative for, say, plaid flannel shirts.

[kphoger]

This is probably a controversial one, and I know I'm probably in the minority.

It bothers me when people pile their dirty dishes in the sink instead of putting them on the counter.  If you're not going to wash your own dish, then don't make me have to navigate around it to wash mine.  And, if I'm about to wash all the dishes, then I don't want to have to take them all out before filling the sink.