2023-02-27

WTF Google?

332243680_2599889713484752_8802687058343301616_n In which I whinge at Google for getting their core business of search badly wrong.

I am (as so often) looking for my post "I dislike rights-based language". But I can't remember exactly what I called it (when I started this process...). If I search for site:mustelid.blogspot.com "I dislike rights-based language" I get a link to 2021/06 which is, to be fair, Rawls, continued and does (now) refer into the then-future post. But it fails to find the post with that title. And a search for site:mustelid.blogspot.com "language" doesn't pull up anything relevant; nor does site:mustelid.blogspot.com "rights". FFS.

Update 2024/02: Bing finds my posts. I have taken to using it by default for this kind of search.

Another: I wanted my "Malthus" post. It turns out to be Why did Malthus assume linear increase in food? But site:https://wmconnolley.wordpress.com/ malthus doesn't find it. Interestingly, Bing does find it. Has it really come to this? Should I dump my Google stock? Happily, Bing still screws up the "rights" search.

Incidentally, I have "solved" this problem by Google Takeout of all my posts, and using good old reliable grep.

Another: Godwin's law.

Refs

* Torpids 2023

Extreme Weather #2 – Trends in Frequency and Intensity of Tropical Cyclones out over the Ocean

Income and emotional well-being: A conflict resolved

On Jobs and Economic Dynamism

The Myth of American Inequality: How Government Biases Policy Debate

This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: Directionalists vs. Destinationists

Give Up Seventy Percent Of The Way Through The Hyperstitious Slur Cascade - ACX

* Mixed Feelings About My First Fieldwork Project - Aardvarchaeology


1 comment:

David Appell said...

I think Google is going downhill. Recently I was looking for something about Blogger, but almost all the returns were about WordPress. So I searched for "+blogger -Wordpress" but it didn't make any difference, I still got all the Wordpress items. I assume it's because WordPress pays them for search results. I've found similar searches recently too.