Comment by Liquix
4 years ago
Does anyone have insight into _why_ google search has deteriorated so rapidly over the last ~6-12 months? Optimizing for NLP or websites learning SEO don't seem like they would have this big of an impact. Everyone seems to agree [0] [1] [2] that this is a problem yet it keeps getting worse
The voice recognition has gone to shit as well, to the point where it may as well be editorializing. Apparently I'm not allowed to begin a sentence with the word "our" because no matter what pronunciation I use it becomes "how". I just don't get it. I learned my "computer voice" talking to garbage voice command systems in the early 2000s that insisted on crystal-clear speech and had absolutely no issues with Apple or Google voice typing until probably 2018. Since then it's a been a steady decline into near-unusability. I dare anyone to successfully get Google to voice-type the word "o'clock".
The best explanation I’ve seen is that Google only cares about the quality of the results when using completely natural language sentences (which I guess is how most non-technical people try to use it?) rather than the specialized search engine syntax with keywords, quotes, +/-, etc. we learned to use in 90s/00s.
It may optimize for the common case, but unlike the old system, leaves you completely helpless when it fails to “Just Work.”
My guess is bad regression testing based on subjective qualifiers at best or incentivize poor results that promote as revenue at worst.
It's probably become more profitable for them to have the search be shit now that their monopoly is so secure