Google getting smarter -- have you noticed?
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alex.barylski
- DevNet Evangelist
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Google getting smarter -- have you noticed?
I swear by it (and actually it makes sense) that Google search is getting more and more accurate for me.
More and more when I search for "programming" or anything software development...I get PHP pages listed first. Like Google is aware of my heavy depenendence on PHP and LAMP. I rarely get C/C++ or Java articles popping up on the first pages...
Same goes other things I search..."shopping" I get amazon and UFC stores cause I google for books a lot and UFC stuff...
Anyone else notice their results getting better with ol' Google?
More and more when I search for "programming" or anything software development...I get PHP pages listed first. Like Google is aware of my heavy depenendence on PHP and LAMP. I rarely get C/C++ or Java articles popping up on the first pages...
Same goes other things I search..."shopping" I get amazon and UFC stores cause I google for books a lot and UFC stuff...
Anyone else notice their results getting better with ol' Google?
Re: Google getting smarter -- have you noticed?
Quite the opposite. They are getting worse. Getting more and more of these useless scraper type kind of sites.
Maybe I search for different things then you are. Anything very specific and non-commercial is returning good results. Anything commercial returns add-filled scraper sites.
Maybe I search for different things then you are. Anything very specific and non-commercial is returning good results. Anything commercial returns add-filled scraper sites.
- JAB Creations
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Re: Google getting smarter -- have you noticed?
Subjective. Though if you pay attention they use JavaScript to try to hide the fact that the links you click on are pointing to Google redirects. Just click and hold the mouse button down and look at the status bar. It's not for all searches though if a result for my site comes up while I'm doing research I sure as heck click on it. 
Re: Google getting smarter -- have you noticed?
they're prolly using all forms of neural networking to score the accuracy of searches based on all kinds of parameters, to detect patterns within different demographics. I've read that they at least use different ranking systems for different languages, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that they target it to your "interests"
Keep in mind google has probably thousands of experimental projects / algorithms being tried out behind the scenes. I've even come across weird beta search results pages in the past, sometimes they run tests for random subsets of users and such as well, ( so I've read ) and it would make sense to run tests for users that have a high history of searching computer related stuff, less likely to freak out when the page looks / works slightly different
and JAB is correct they've tracked clicks for a while, they supposedly augment their "did you mean" functionality based on what people actually meant, that would explain how its so accurate, and always seems to know what I mean, no matter how un-sobre I was when I typed the search query
Keep in mind google has probably thousands of experimental projects / algorithms being tried out behind the scenes. I've even come across weird beta search results pages in the past, sometimes they run tests for random subsets of users and such as well, ( so I've read ) and it would make sense to run tests for users that have a high history of searching computer related stuff, less likely to freak out when the page looks / works slightly different
and JAB is correct they've tracked clicks for a while, they supposedly augment their "did you mean" functionality based on what people actually meant, that would explain how its so accurate, and always seems to know what I mean, no matter how un-sobre I was when I typed the search query
Re: Google getting smarter -- have you noticed?
That's how Google has always worked, it's the only sure fire way to know a link is related to a keyword.JAB Creations wrote:Subjective. Though if you pay attention they use JavaScript to try to hide the fact that the links you click on are pointing to Google redirects. Just click and hold the mouse button down and look at the status bar. It's not for all searches though if a result for my site comes up while I'm doing research I sure as heck click on it.
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alex.barylski
- DevNet Evangelist
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Re: Google getting smarter -- have you noticed?
Meh. I don't really care what Google watches me do...as long as they don't tell my mommy and daddy. 
Re: Google getting smarter -- have you noticed?
Yeah I'm thinkin I prolly shouldn't use google to lookup how to get rid of these dead bodies that have been piling up
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alex.barylski
- DevNet Evangelist
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- Joined: Tue Dec 21, 2004 5:00 pm
- Location: Winnipeg
Re: Google getting smarter -- have you noticed?
Ummm...OK I was refering 'dirty' but like 'legal' adult movies at the most...not dead bodies. 
Re: Google getting smarter -- have you noticed?
Hey, whatever floats your boat.
jk