What is Digg?Sponsored by Dragon Age: Origins
Join the Dragon Age: Origins development team on Facebook view!
facebook.com/DragonAgeOrigins - EA presents BioWare's new dark fantasy epic Dragon Age: Origins. '9/10' from Game Informer.
150 Comments
- dannysullivan, on 10/12/2007, -8/+40Hey prh99, the short blurbs lead back to much longer discussions. Read those discussions, some of them going in to great depth, then decide if you still think I'm such an idiot.
These points don't come out of a vacuum. They come from having watched Google and reported on some of these issues for years. I can share your frustration with short bullet point complaints. That exactly why I backed up many of these with longer explanations.
I certainly don't have an axe to grind. If you really had read "these guys stuff before," you'd know that. I'm one of Google's biggest defenders on issues where I think they are in the right. That's also why I did the corresponding 25 things I love piece that went with this (and was linked from it).
Copyright law does not require Google to follow any DMCA complaint they get. Go back and read carefully what I wrote. Many of the copyright infringements on Blogger are self-evident. You can look at a site and see that it is crap, just pulling the work from many sources. Google could decide itself that such actions are a violation of its own terms and conditions (as I explained). Google is not required to publish anything. But the DMCA route could also remain for cases where the initial terms and condition review decided against removing material.
RM999, as for counts, who cares. Sure. If no one cares, stop reporting them. I'm simply sick of having to explain to people why the counts don't add up. I've had to do that for years. You do that for years, it would be one of your pet hates, too :)
Use filters for Gmail? Again, if you'd read what I posted (the extended material -- that's I put in the time for the links), you CANNOT use filters to setup blacklists if you POP download. I do. Many other do. But you have no ability to filter if you do so.
I actually almost added the endless beta as another point, but I've covered that in depth in the past, and they're actually getting better at it.
As for your search results getting worse, part of that is due to bad clustering which was on the list.
In the end, these are MY 25 pet hates. Doesn't mean I hate all of Google. I made a point of saying that from the very beginning, as well as the fact that I don't expect everyone to agree with them. But many of them were indeed documented in depth for anyone who wanted to read up on the issues more. - pksynths, on 10/12/2007, -3/+26You should look up who the author of the article is and than let's see if you can call him an idiot. Danny Sullivan is probably the most influential person in search engine marketing today and knows the ins and outs of almost all things related to search engines.
If you actually heard one of his lectures you'd understand the "sarcasm" in the article and the articles are short because they tend to be discussed in more detail in the forums.
And if you think he has an axe to grind why don't you look at his "25 Things He Loves about Google" (http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060313-161501)
I'd wish the person that submitted this article would have also included the other part of it instead of making this a one sided battle. - kingkong118, on 10/12/2007, -9/+31I have to admit, as much as i like Google, that article has a fair few true points to it.
- rm999, on 10/12/2007, -13/+27-Web search counts that make no sense - honestly, who cares?
-RSS feed for web search - useless
-Give us paid web search support - evil
-Let Gmail have customized blacklists - use filters
-Stop opening products to everyone, then getting overwhelmed - what's the point of offering a service if you only let some people use it? They already use invitations to slow the growth down a little. And how do you determine who can use it?
-Charge for things - stfu
My main complaint about google is they way they keep things in beta (ever used yahoo or msn local/maps? they are better than google local/maps now.) My other major complaint is that IMO they haven't come out with a really great product in a long time. gMail is the last thing they came out with that excited me. Everything else that I have seen them release in the last two years is crap.
Also, is it just me, or have their search results gotten worse in the last few years? Any time I search for a commercial computer product I get 5 pages of price aggregation websites and stores before I get the manufacturer's website. - fitzdingus, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15you...must be retarded....
I'm so sorry. - pksynths, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11This isn't the complete article. "25 Things I Love about Google" should have also been submitted to Digg.
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060313-161501 - digitalgopher, on 10/12/2007, -5/+13so you discount this story because it has short blurbs? he made several VALID points in a succinct way. He's not bashing google, just pointing out a few issues.
- zimm, on 10/12/2007, -11/+19Solution to all 25 "problems".
Dont use google. - MaxD, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8@pksynths
If he's influential in search engines, then why doesn't he have a FREAKIN' Clue. I mean seriously I lost _ALL_ respect for his opinion in his first gripe. He has NO CLUE whatsoever what he is talking about. Allow me to demonstrate:
Search on google for: Mars Landing Site - returns about 7,510,000 Sites, matching sites that contain the words Mars OR Landing OR Site with sites that have Mars AND Landing AND Site ranked higher.
Search on google for: Mars Landing Site Earth - returns about 13,900,000 Sites, matching sites that contain the words Mars OR Landing OR Site OR Earth with site that have Mars AND Landing AND Site And Earth ranked higher... I may be missing something here, but isn't the second search a subset of the first search?! Moron.
What I think he MEANT to say was:
Search on google for: "Mars Landing Site" - returns about 987 Sites, matching sites that contain the PHRASE "Mars Landing Site" as opposed to searching for
"Mars Landing Site" + Earth - which returns about 660 Sites, matching sites that contain the phrase "Mars Landing Site" AND the word Earth. Which _IS_ a subset of the first query and does give less results.
OH MY DEITY OF CHOICE! Google actually works like it says it does?
Oh, and google is irritating because it allows people to put pointless junk on the web? He's living proof that you don't need google to be able to do that.
Sheeesh. - noelsusman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6"Charge for things!"
Why? I would rather have to look at a few text ads that can actually be relevant sometimes than pay for some of the amazing services that google offers.
This guy does not back anything up and most of his gripes are just lame and dumb. I have to agree with him on a few things though. Google is getting in way over their head. They don't seem to have any organization or plan. They just keep releasing half ass attempts at random crap. It never seems like they put all of their resources into one thing and bring a well developed, usable service. The last time they did that was with gmail, and it turned out to be one of the best (if not THE best) email services of all time. Ever since then it seems like they assign a few guys to a billion different projects and they figure "hey it might work, but it might not. Who cares?" That is going to be the downfall of google. They need to slow down and actually put all of their resources into one quality project - rustybrick, on 10/12/2007, -8/+14You guys have no clue what you are saying.
(1) These are his personal thoughts.
(2) He has more experience with search then anyone living today. Look up the name Danny Sullivan before you comment. - lerch, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7jkfan87, I feel Matrix is right...
This guy is just ranting because he cant fix a simple problem. Really, there is a way to fix every single thing on his list. - shockingbird, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8Articles like this are great because it's pointing out some shortcomings of something that's growing bigger every day. If they're ignored, they'll grow as well. Good list Danny and very cool of you to post here.
In Danny's list of things he likes about Google is number 10:Giving things away for free
Picasa. Such a great image sorting and editing piece of software. It's really fast too. Photoshop's built-in photo thingy is slow and cumbersome. - Kazrog, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8Google is messing up lately. They need this kind of criticism. I wish them the best, but they seem more like Microsoft than Apple to me in terms of their actions as of late.
- tetro, on 10/12/2007, -7/+11Just because he has as good background in web searching, it doesn't mean he can't have unpopular opinions.
- DaveMN, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Umm, no. Google ANDs terms together by default:
http://www.google.com/help/basics.html#and - ch1ckster, on 03/04/2009, -20/+24Agreed. The blurbs are so short, there's barely any justification for him publishing that. Also, I find a few of his points to be completely made up or blown out of proportion.
- CaughtThinking, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Finally. All the stuff I've been yelling about for while now. I love how a site I know to have 10K pages comes up as 420K.
- Emperor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4His points are terrible. Just Bad. Like yes, it is a negative review; except it comes from such a slanted angle. Most of the "reasons" involve solutions worse than the answers.
The one I particularly hated was the enitre Mars landing bit where the addition of "earth" created more such results.
This makes complete sense if you think about what Google is about, and the reasons they have been successful. They give you what you were actually looking for rather than what the words dictate. If for instance, people were searching for mars landing earth; and the most people really wanted a site where the best search parameters were mars earth. Then the best results aren't exclusive but inclusive is an idea that uses extra information to make a better search which cannot be a bad thing. It should make sense why a larger set of hits were found. Also arguments like charge for their software due to a lack of support is simply a bussiness decision. They think it is in their best interest to not charge; rely on popularity and advertising to try and squash the competition. They have succeeded in making many great products which have stole massive amounts of bussiness from "pay" sites which now have increased their offerings to try to compete with Googles. If that isn't capitalism and increase of return on technology I've never seen it. It has created better products from people who will service their customers.
May the best Idea win. If Google does in fact need to change, they will. They have proven to live on the cusp of customer feedback and its correlation to their services. I have no doubt that if it comes to the point where they have to change because their services are prooving unprofitable then they will change.
Most of the reasons listed; are in my opinion a reason to love Google. Sure, the guy who lost his gmail account is pissed, but seriously, they don't make any strange claims on their software, just provide great services. Custom service in ideas, not relationships is their game. Let them see if it works. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+49. Stop caching pages: I was all for opt-out with cached pages until a court gave you far more right to reprint anything than anyone could have expected. Now you've got to make it opt-in. You helped create the caching mess by just assuming it was legal to reprint web pages online without asking, using opt-out as your cover. Now you've had that backed up legally, but that doesn't make it less evil.
---robots.txt, anyone? - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -33/+3725 reasons why the author of the blog is an idiot...
1. your an idiot, you obviusly have NO idea how search engines work... try quoting your search terms.... idiot
2.Your an idiot, try using + and - in your searches..
3. So innovation testing is bad? Yes you are right... who needs a gas engine, when a horse n buggy work just fine!
4. Your an idiot, related searches would be a bad idea.... a lot of people use google to search stuff like SS numbers, names, address's, etc.... privacy issues would have google shut down in an hour.
5. your an idiot... thats why every web browser has a 'favorites' option... personally I FAR prefer a simple interface as they home page. fast loading, and low bandwidth.
6. Yes your sooooo right, everyone one of us speaks every language known in the world, and therefore should have universal search results.
7. google api, idiot... they ahve that feature.
8. WTF are u yappin bout?
9. Your an idiot... cached pages are great, because if i run a search for example "Sugar gliders in NV" and i see 15 pages of results. Theres a pretty good chacne that half the results wont be available anymore. due to server downtime, deletion, moving sites, etc.... by clicking 'cached link' i can clearly see exactly what I was looking for.
10. Your an idiot... all the tools and info you need are readily available on the site. perfect example... google sitemap
11. Google recieves BILLIONS of search hits per month... do you really wanna invest your time picking 12 million search terms? or jsut a few categories?
12. Pay per click is flawed in general, its nearly impossible to prove/disprove... you can only assume. I sure would loooove to see you even attempt to do any better.
13. Just because its confusing to you, doesnt mean anything but the fact that your an idiot.
14. arent you just as guilty with your diareah of the fingers typing away at this blog?
15. people that make crap sites, get crap hits.... its that simple.... if you tricked a user into going to your crap site, they wont click, and therefore u wont get paid.... if you have a real site.. for esxample a pet site, and ads for pet supplies popped up, and you have not pissed off your visitor yet... they are likely to click, and maybe even buy.
16. Go after myspace.com first, and then nearly any free site for people... they are all full of crap.... when there are idiots like you on the net... then of coarse, there will be crap... just look at your blog!
17. so your complaining that google is helping you to find PEOPLE that steal content (and based on your wirrttings, i cant possibly see a reason to steal YOUR content...) ?? Without google.. would you ever find that bad content?
18. again, your an idiot... learn how to configure things properly... replytoaddress buddy...
19. Labels, and filters.. learn them, use them... love them.
20. refer to the previuse one idiot.... there ARE fitlers... you just dont know how to use them.
21. google sitemap, try it out
22. I would love to see you setup a server that can handle billions of hits as quickly as they do, no matter what they release it gets overwhelmed, because they make good products.
23. So your saying google should be like every other company out there and rape its customers, just for the sake of charging them??
24. So blame google for the greeding recording people? k gotchta...
25. theres is better than 'im an idiot... let me post my comments on blogs everywhere'
Over all... i would say 99% of your issues with google is cause your an idiot, and didnt take the time to learn to use anything properly. - jonnyeh, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5I agree the most strongly with the gmail 'From:' field complaint
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4jkfan87:: the reason this guy 'ircked' me isnt cause im a google supporter, or anything like that. I get ircked by people that bitch and moan about non-existant problems. He is arrogantly screaming how bad something is, without even attempting to fix the issues, or exploring them. Yeah, granted... I could have worded my post better, hell, maybe even ran spell check... lol... But he is being a complete idiot and screaming to the world about his issues, when all he has to do is spend 10 seconds reading a help file or faq, and 24 out of 25 of his 'problems' would be solved.
- zbeast, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4The key whimper of his rant is marketing. I go to google for information, I don't go there to be marketed to. if you want that, use yahoo, or msn.
Google cache is a life saver without it lots of information that you would be lost from the net.
Microsoft knows marketing and as far as i can tell has put most of what this person suggests into practice. That's why there number 3 in Internet search. - crash331, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4That is exactly what I was going to point out. Seems like a grade-A dumbass to me.
- scotus, on 10/12/2007, -5/+8good for him being well-respected. i still think he's wrong on a lot of stuff, and he sounds like a litigious copyright maximalist that doesn't get the internet.
opt-in for caching? That is total crap. Caching is a great service to users and promotes the free flow of information. you can opt-out or you can deal. the internet has evolved its own norms that work pretty well. don't break the internet because you are greedy.
stop giving away blogger for free? cry more noob. splogs are a problem, but people are always going to find ways to do bad things with new technology. free blogger also enables a lot more people to blog and participate in the community. i'll take more speech over less speech any day.
act faster on copyright infringement? You already have the DMCA, which is a damn powerful piece of legislation that gives copyright holders a lot more power than i think they deserve. if you don't have time to fill out a DMCA takedown then your content must not be worth protecting. It really shouldn't be google's job to do your policing, and everyone elses. that's why we have laws, not vigilante justice. again, i'd rather err on the side of more speech than less speech.
charge for things? oh noes, google is actually giving users things they want with a different business model that is upsetting the traditional command and control concepts of yesterday. consumers like free stuff, and it's up to them whether to accept less support for free services. there are plenty of players competing with google, and when google stumbles there will be people to take advantage.
while some of his comments are reasonable, most seem like sour grapes that google helps people get the most out of the power of the internet, while he'd like a nice, tidy, boring controlled, monetized internet where you are charged for everything and content is locked-down. - ekso, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3yeah, from being a "search engine guru" this guy is pretty dumb. robots.txt is quite basic search engine lore.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Seriusly Danny, look up google help.. and for the love of christ... GET OFF AOL!!! its not a real isp!!!
- maddog, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Google cache, has saved over 3000 hrs of work.
so when he says "Stop caching pages",
he doesn't know what he's talking about.
It is a lifesaver for some people. - kramer3d, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"Be more responsive to click fraud complaints"
easier said than done. why the hell should I digg something where it complains about the bad aspects of a company. seriosuly you can make a list for any company. this is stupid. no digg - lerch, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4What the heck?! All of his 'problems' are solve-able. He is to busy ranting about his problems than accually fixing them. Plus, if you dont like something STOP USEING IT!
No Digg. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I don't understand, when google was a small company everyone and their mothers loved them, now that they are getting powerful everyone is talking *****. What is it with you people? Once a company gets big do we have talk ***** about them? Must a company stay in the underground to be "cool?" No company is perfect and no company ever will, but I think google is doing a very good job.
NO DIGG!! (LAME!!)
~mario - phpkerouac, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3stop bitching about gmail until you start paying for it.
- stesun, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2If Danny is such an expert why does he not know why you get more results with "mars landing sites earth" then "mars landing sites". This is not a binary AND/OR search engine, it will only give you the best results of that set of words. In the sens that it has something to do with each other. To get what he wants he would need to put plus signs in front of all words. like "+Mars +landing +sites" gives me 1960000 hits. and "+Mars +landing +sites +earth" gives me 977000 hits.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2True, three words => Firefox, Adblock, Customizegoogle
- babelfishi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2You know what's funny? On the left bar, there is a lovely bar that saids "Add to Google".
- Soccrmastr, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Google is drifting to a next-gen Microsoft. They better realize their faults now.
- brutalentropy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Please keep in mind i use Linux (at home and work), XP (at home and work), and OS X (at home).
Do you have a link to back up the claim you make that Linux has more desktop market share than OS X?
Because I really don't believe it. It may be true, and if you could provide a link from a reasonably valid source I'd be appreciative. - vanik, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3how about gmail's uptime? (which as i write this, the server is down.. grr)
that's my major gripe - LKBM, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Google does AND, not OR. Try it: http://www.google.com/search?q=google%20and%20microsoft
- black|math, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5 There are plenty of great reasons to complain about google. This seems like a very finicky list, most of these are unimportant and just plain demanding.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I hate getting fake results. Those keyword whoring sites that appear on the first page of results. Kinda like the ones domain registrars set up for you until you change the host. Like a full page listing of ads that are related to what you searched for. For example. Search for "osmap". The .com result is a fake one with nothing but ads. Thieves.
- dannysullivan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Yep, now do this:
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22max+downey%22&start=90
So you had about 160 results, but then you can only see 99, since the rest are duplicates. Use the link, go further and see if you really think they are duplicates.
Now do this:
http://www.google.com/search?q=max+downey
That's a non quoted search, should bring back pages that say max and downey on them, and I'm told there are about 752,000
Now do this
http://www.google.com/search?q=max+downey+max
that's all pages with the words max and downey and max. adding max shouldn't change the count. but now I get about 754,000 matches, MORE pages. Yes, slightly more. But it should NOT go up.
And back to a search for [max downey]
http://www.google.com/search?q=max+downey&start=750
Now we find that despite there being about 752,000 reported matches, apparently only around 750 of them are considered unique. C'mon!
These counts are largely unnoticed by anyone, I totally agree. They make no difference to the quality of results. But the inconsistency leave Google open to attack. And actually, they are noticed by some important people, such as US Supreme Court justices. See http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060119-060352#11, where the US Attorney General used counts on Google to "prove" his point. Even if the Google counts were accurate, they wouldn't have proved what he thought, as I explain in that write-up. But it's more than a few tech heads who are looking at those figures, too. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2"so you discount this story because it has short blurbs? he made several VALID points in a succinct way. He's not bashing google, just pointing out a few issues."
I discount this story because I believe it's mostly worthless. Succinct points often means the author has to ignore valid reasons for doing something a certain way.
"You should look up who the author of the article is and than let's see if you can call him an idiot.
Danny Sullivan is probably the most influential person in search engine marketing today and knows the ins and outs of almost all things related to search engines."
I have little respect for anyone who makes a living telling others how they should do things when they've never done it themselves. I had a professor in college who would say when people can't hack it in real life they go into consulting. According to his own resume the closest Danny Sullivan has ever been to the back end of a search engine was a year and a half as a general manager of the web design team at Maximized Online. Indeed most of his experience is as a journalist and a speaker. His degree is in english with an emphasis in writing and a minor in political science. Now that I've looked into him I am even more convince of my original opinion.
"If you actually heard one of his lectures you'd understand the "sarcasm" in the article and the articles are short because they tend to be discussed in more detail in the forums."
Text isn't a medium that lends it's self well to sarcasm.
"And if you think he has an axe to grind why don't you look at his "25 Things He Loves about Google" (http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060313-161501)"
I think that article could possibly be just as bad as this one, perhaps worse.
- bbqribs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1yeah, web searches are becoming useless because ***** are turning the internet into a big ***** strip mall. To get useful results, you have to add -buy -sale and a whole bunch of other stuff.
- MaxD, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@Danny
Whilst I disagree with - hell, lets be honest here, most of your points. I would like you to run me through what ever point you were trying to make when you made your first (and therefore not a throwaway complaint) the one about google lying about the number of results.
As has been demonstrated in previous comments, google works just fine when you're doing strict Boolean searches (if we define working fine as in Mars and Landing and Site and Earth produces less results than Mars and Landing and Site) and whilst I'll admit that google says that the "AND" operator is unnecessary, they don't claim that it's because all words are ANDed just that 'we include all search terms by default'.
By the way, I thought it was cute how you referred to this as 'search engine maths', that's kind of like calling typing 'alphanumeric engineering', but I digress.
Claiming that they're including all the terms isn't the same as claiming that it's a strict Boolean AND (this is obvious if you do a search for Mars landing site and then search for Mars AND landing AND site where the number of results is different by 100k).
So my point is this. If they're not ANDing the key words, then claiming that Mars Landing Site Earth should be a subset of Mars Landing Site is also wrong, thus rendering your point moot.
I doubt that we're going to find out anytime soon what they're actually doing - but I would bet my meager savings that what they _ARE_ doing, they are doing in an effort to produce more relevant results as opposed to just lying...
So if they're not doing something that you say they are doing in an effort to better serve the people that they make their money from, why is this a problem? - TheShrike, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2bitch bitch bitch, moan moan moan...
He has a few salient points, but most of it is unreasonable, and hasn't been solved by any other service anywhere. - dannysullivan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Thanks, dog. Several people who know Digg have passed along the same to me privately. Don't worry. I ain't sweatin' it. It's actually been kind of fun to read the comments, plus I try to to prejudge a community. Besides, how often do I get to have a conversation where someone pokes fun at my name as not being grown up enough. The irony in that point alone is worth spending a little time here.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Remember folks, if it were up to Danny, the first 5000 pages of search results would be paid results, aka... crap ads. We goto google to find info, find sites, etc.. not to see your damned ads. Seriusly what is wrong with this guy? He is supposedly a respected and credited person in the search engine biz, but all I hear are complaints, that really end up being him not understanding how to use the service.
Hey Danny, I pose this one to you, If you are so god like about search engines.... where is yours? seriusly, if you know so much about them you should be able to make one, or at bare minimum hire a programmer or 10 to do it for you. - spacebar14, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2ya its down now :(
first i've ever seen that and i've been using them for months. -
Show 51 - 100 of 150 discussions
The Digg Toolbar for Firefox lets you Digg, submit content, and keep track of Digg even when you're not on the Digg site. Download the official 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is