times they are a-changin’

I don’t know why, but it feels lately that Google’s searches are less relevant.

I used to be a whizz at finding things online; I’d go to Google and type in a phrase related to what I was looking for, and voila! I’d have an extremely specific, accurate answer in a matter of moments.

Now, however, I find myself typing in multiple phrases and synonyms of words that I’m looking for, and coming up with practically nothing that is relevant or even close to what I was looking for. It feels as though the phrase search (typing a phrase enclosed in quotes) just doesn’t work anymore. Or perhaps I’m just searching for more complicated subjects, due to the nature of my work. Or perhaps, further, there is simply a higher signal-to-noise ratio on the interweb than there ever was before (probably caused by the same thing that caused the exponential boom of blogs I’ve noticed over the past year).

I don’t know. But it feels like I’ve lost my magic Googling skills and that in turn makes me feel as though I’m lagging behind; as if that ever-encroaching, inevitable drop out of the race, that everyone involved with technology must experience, is just around the corner. No; I won’t let it happen yet!


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  1. bunnyhero Avatar
    bunnyhero

    i’ve noticed the drop in search result quality, too, over the last couple of years. and i find that when google comes up with pages of not-relevant results, almost all the not-relevant results are about the same nonrelevant thing. not only do i have to try multiple searches, but too often what i’m looking for is on like page 4 of the results.

  2. Mum Avatar
    Mum

    I have the same problem, but it might be because I just use one word – sometimes a phrase. Could it be because there are a lot more users, hence a lot more “stuff” that seems irrelevent to us?

    I don’t think you are getting out of the “loop” yet (technology) Christina, I think maybe we need a different forum for “them” and “us”?

  3. John S. Rhodes Avatar

    I agree!

    I was just thinking this the other day. The search experience is still pretty good but the search results don’t seem to satisfy directly. There hasn’t been a breakthrough in quality in the last couple of years. I expect more from them.

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