Google's Top Search Result? It's Google (themarkup.org) 55
In Google's early years, users would type in a query and get back a page of 10 "blue links" that led to different websites. "We want to get you out of Google and to the right place as fast as possible," co-founder Larry Page said in 2004. Today, Google often considers that "right place" to be Google, an investigation by The Markup has found. From the report: We examined more than 15,000 recent popular queries and found that Google devoted 41 percent of the first page of search results on mobile devices to its own properties and what it calls "direct answers," which are populated with information copied from other sources, sometimes without their knowledge or consent. When we examined the top 15 percent of the page, the equivalent of the first screen on an iPhone X, that figure jumped to 63 percent. For one in five searches in our sample, links to external websites did not appear on the first screen at all. A trending search in our data for "myocardial infarction" shows how Google has piled up its products at the top. It returned:
Google's dictionary definition.
A "people also ask" box that expanded to answer related questions without leaving the search results page.
A "knowledge panel," which is an abridged encyclopedia entry with various links.
And a "related conditions" carousel leading to various new Google searches for other diseases.
All of these appeared before search results by WebMD, Harvard University, and Medscape. In fact, a user would have to scroll nearly halfway down the page -- about 42 percent -- before reaching the first "organic" result in that search.
Google's dictionary definition.
A "people also ask" box that expanded to answer related questions without leaving the search results page.
A "knowledge panel," which is an abridged encyclopedia entry with various links.
And a "related conditions" carousel leading to various new Google searches for other diseases.
All of these appeared before search results by WebMD, Harvard University, and Medscape. In fact, a user would have to scroll nearly halfway down the page -- about 42 percent -- before reaching the first "organic" result in that search.
You must be from Bing I guess (Score:4, Interesting)
"When we examined the top 15 percent of the page, the equivalent of the first screen on an iPhone X, that figure jumped to 63 percent. "
Just googled "myocardial infarction" on a desktop.
1.The first result is Wikipedia. .gov sites
2.Harvard Health www.health.harvard.edu
3.Medscape
4.webmd
5.healthline.com
6.another Health.harvard result
7.mayoclinic
8. hopkins.medecine
9.Cleaveland Clinic
10. and 11. excerpts from books on
Then the page is finished.
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To give an example of that nonsense:
I just ran a comparison search for Abraham Lincoln on DuckDuckGo, Bing and Google. DDG and Bing had some snippets (news, Wiki, etc) but search results were on the first page. On Google I had to scroll down two and a half pages on my desktop computer to get to the search results.
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Really? I just googled it. Right under the "About 138,000,000 results (0.83 seconds) " is:
en.wikipedia.org wiki Abraham_Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln - Wikipedia
So right there, less than 1 inch down the page is the link to what most people would want for such a generic search.
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Yup, same here.
Maybe the first guy has an adware infestation or two?
Re:You must be from Bing I guess (Score:4, Insightful)
That's not nonsense. That's actual stuff people want and use. I love that a lot of times I can get very simply answers from google without having to actually even click links. For instance, to use their example and if you assume one didn't already know: "Just what exactly is a myocardial infarction, anyway? [does google search] Dictionary: 'another term for heart attack'. Oh shit, I know what that is. Nevermind"
Or I just want some basic info. How many people died in the civil war, roughly? Was it like 100k or more like a million? [google civil war deaths]. Summary say offical is 600k, but the article title is "new estimate raises civil war death toll". Without even clicking the link, I can see it's much closer to a million (and said new estimates I assume bring it even closer). I do this sort of thing all the time. I just need some very basic rough answers without digging in to all the fine details.
And everything is cited and linked to its source so it's easy to get to if I do want more detail or want to make sure it's a source I think I can trust.
Re: You must be from Bing I guess (Score:2)
Something along the lines of "gdp per capita by country" will return a few rows in a column at the top of the page, a note "contains 200 more rows" with a link to the source. (Hypothetical example, I can't get it to work on my phone).
This is better for me than even if the first page was clean results with the top result being the table I wanted.
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The definition and pictures was Wikipedia and Harvard on my machine.
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My first result is WP (so, basically useless - if I wanted unemployed people's medical opinions I'd ask them), then a screen and a quarter of Google junk (People also ask) and then NHS.uk
These days, that's a really good result for Google. Quite often the site I would expect to be first is near or at the bottom of the first page.
If you want to search Wikipedia, Google is easily the best option. If you want to search the web, you're basically out of luck as regards out-of-the-box search engines.
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"My first result is WP (so, basically useless - if I wanted unemployed people's medical opinions I'd ask them)"
Ah, I see, you are a doctor and want more medical precision from Google because you were hung over, when the myocardial infarct was covered in med school?
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"first result is WP (so, basically useless - if I wanted unemployed people's medical opinions I'd ask them)"
Hardly basically useless, look at the reference list. Most of the time it's good for a general overview.
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Hardly basically useless, look at the reference list. Most of the time it's good for a general overview.
So Google should be returning those links, not some summary written by an AC who might be an anti-vaccer or flat-earther, confused, or just a plain troll trying to get distorted information through the system.
WP sells a fundamentally flawed view of the Internet. It is the Internet which is an encyclopaedia, a decent search-engine should be the index.
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"not some summary written by an AC who might be an anti-vaccer or flat-earther, confused, or just a plain troll trying to get distorted information through the system"
How do know that ?
For me WP in general is a good overview for the kind of stuff I search for it's ok, or a good start, mostly things related to science, philosophy, and some history..
"WP ... a fundamentally flawed view of the Internet. It is the Internet which is an encyclopaedia, a decent search-engine should be the index"
I don't see the need
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"You didn't even read the summary, did you? Nowhere did they talk about just search results."
Sorry, with uBlock, Ghostery etc, that's the only thing I see.
You mean the original poster is flabbergasted that an advertisement firm like Google shows Ads?
Call me shocked.
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"You didn't even read the summary, did you?"
You KNOW that I can't do that, your uid shows that you're no newbie here.:-)
Re: You must be from Bing I guess (Score:2)
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They're not just talking about search results. They're talking about what you actually see. When I just did this search for myocardial infarction [google.com] on a 1080p display, I only see 1.5 search results—the first one to WebMD plus the title of the second, which goes to Wikipedia—because the rest of the screen is dominated by the search bar/header, a dictionary entry, a "People Also Ask" box, and an instant answer column on the right with details from unknown sources. That's it.
DuckDuckGo isn't actually
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So if I understand you correctly: You're unhappy that when you search for something, Google is wasting the visible parts of the page showing you the answer, while you just wanted links to a bunch of sites which may or may not have the answer you want. If you want to search the pages (maybe you want scholarly articles rather than a definition), you have to hit the page down key first.
I guess that this is a problem for some Google users?
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So if I understand you correctly: You're unhappy
Nope. I was merely explaining the findings in the summary to someone who had misunderstood them. I couldn't care less what Google puts in their search results (I haven't regularly used Google Search in years), though I do find its current design to be incredibly bloated. Do you really need a dictionary entry that eats up a third of the vertical real estate when that same information is captured in literally the first line of the instant answer on the side? Do you really need a "People also ask" box that eat
Don't Be Evil (Score:3, Insightful)
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You are out by a few zeros. Billions were required.
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Google search went downhill (Score:3)
Instead of providing search results they provide an interpretation of search results.
Google is useful for complex searches with a large number of search terms and content that is extremely new (like a few hours). For everything else DuckDuckGo and Bing provide more reliable results in my experience, and you don't have to scroll down 1-2 pages to get to the search results.
What's the problem? (Score:3)
And you know what? I'm perfectly fine with that. I like having the dictionary definition, the info boxes, and whatever else is there. At least half the time they answer the question I was asking without me having to click *any* of them. Links to other Google properties? Sure, whatever, as long as they have the information I'm after.
If I go to Merriam-Webster to look up the definition of a word, I'm not upset that they didn't give me links to American Heritage and the OED for alternate definitions. If I go to Walmart to search for a product I'm not upset that they don't give me links to Target. I only *wish* Amazon had an option to say, "Seller must be amazon.com" to weed out all the flaky marketplace vendors that flood the results.
Don't like Google's results? Fine, don't use Google. Use Bing or Duck Duck Go. But Google's not abusing their position by ranking their own stuff first. They're a business, not a public utility.
Re: What's the problem? (Score:2)
I didn't know the term, it's trending, so it's been used somewhere recently I assume.
I can instantly see "oh, it's a heart attack", and not need to look in much further.
If I wanted to know about heart attacks in detail, I'd search heart attack, and it similarly gives useful overview information before links.
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The problem is when you have an ad-supported for profit website, not Wikipedia or similar, and Google pulls data out of your site and shows it as a result in theirs. You took the time to write this, expecting a return in ad revenue, but Google now completely hid your page. Scraped the data off and prevented visitors from reaching it.
Considering Google is the same company behind AdSense (the ones actually paying you for displaying ads on your website), it's a conflict of interest to steal data from your site
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If I go to Walmart to search for a product I'm not upset that they don't give me links to Target. I only *wish* Amazon had an option to say, "Seller must be amazon.com" to weed out all the flaky marketplace vendors that flood the results.
Walmart.com has been a marketplace for a while now. You find lots of results for products sold and fulfilled by someone else. So yeah, they're turning their site into another Amazon.
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Where do you go for linefeeds? Is it google?
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Or wrap in <p>
if you need literal greater/less than:
> = >
< = <
It has been this way at Slashdot since time immemorial. Also, unicode support is not really a thing (as much as the mobile site tries to pretend it is)
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You can always change your posting mode. Mine defaults to HTML with added para tags and line breaks.
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With one linefeed, it assumes you are in the same paragraph. Two linefeeds are a new paragraph. Or use <br>.
I have it on good authority (Score:1)
No Thanks, Google (Score:1)
Who cares? (Score:2)
When I'm searching the Internet, I'm not looking for an "organic result". I'm looking for information. If Google has the info, why would I want that hidden behind a link?
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Re: Who cares? (Score:2)
Data is not generally subject to copyright. You can't own facts. There's no rational reason Google should be paying them. This is analogous to me reading a website, then putting a summary of what I learned on my website. That's fair use. Volume or frequency of usage is not a consideration.
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I did not specify what was legal to get a way with. I specified what I think Google should be doing of its own accord. There are plenty of ethical reasons for Google to be paying them.
Re: Who cares? (Score:2)
Monetizing knowledge is the path to ignorance.
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Hardly. Rewarding researchers and inventors for taking the time to do it drives research and invention. China amply demonstrates what happens if the work someone does to get the first version built is immediately taken over by everyone else... the vultures just stand around the carcass and get fat because they don't have any R&D costs. If you cannot recoup R&D, you cannot afford to do R&D. That is true of big things like inventions, but it is also true of smaller ventures, like taking time to re
Why would you need anything else? Google rocks (Score:4)
SearX is Beautiful (Score:3)
I'm not affiliated with it, but the Searx project is fantastic:
https://searx.me/ [searx.me]
https://github.com/asciimoo/se... [github.com]
https://hub.docker.com/r/searx... [docker.com]
It goes through several search engines (including Google) and only gives organic results, loads really quick, and is very customizable. I run my own instance as a Docker container and it's really helpful when Google isn't.
Re:SearX is Beautiful ... I second this ... (Score:2)
FOSS, Hackable, No Tracking, Also available over Tor or I2P.
Try it.
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You need a docker container for what amounts to some perl or python scripts?
Never ever (Score:1)
Never ever type "google" into Google!
This CAN break the internet.
Sometimes "other searches" doesn't work (Score:2)
If I'm searching for a movie that's currently in theaters, it's reasonable to think I might be interested in other movies. Same if I'm looking for running shoes; I might also be interested in running shorts.
But when I'm searching for myocardial infarction, what are the odds I'm going to see a link for pulmonary edema and decide, "You know what? That sounds interesting. I think I'll read about that instead"? Why would I want a listing of other diseases?
Wouldn't that be nice (Score:1)