Comment by elondaits | Hacker News Reader

Comment by elondaits | Hacker News Reader

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When I search for "databricks series b valuation" in Google (from Argentina, using Google.com in English) result #6 is:

"Python get value from database - Büro Jorge Schmidt", which judging by title and preview seems to be a Python + MySQL tutorial. It returns a 403 error and might be a hacked site, since the home page is for a graphic design studio in Munich.

Result #8 is something similar:

"Intellij flatten packages - Músicos de Viaje". This is definitely a hacked site (from Spain, apparently) that redirects me somewhere else.

Result #10:

"How to calculate tax percentage in sql query". Another hacked site, this time for an evangelical church from Brazil.

Now... how can Google think that any of these sites are relevant? Even if it doesn't realize the pages are hacked... even its crawler has been fed content that included the keywords... :

A - The sites themselves don't match the query at all.

B - No legit site about the subject would link to these sites.

C - The results themselves (title, url, preview), as Google shows them, have nothing to do with the search!

I just tried that search, all of the results look relevant and I definitely don't get any of the results you are getting.

I wonder if you have some malware that is hijacking the results? I once had some malware (chrome extension) that was corrupting my search results. It was surprisingly difficult to remove (given that it was a chrome extension...).

No, I get the same results on Safari on iOS (iPhone) so I have to eliminate the possibility of malware.

Google results are personalized, based on location, search history, etc. The fact that I'm in Argentina has been adding a lot of noise to results on searches where my location is not relevant at all.

In this case, I suspect that Google thinks these hacked sites with developer target content are relevant to me, because of my regular search history.

It sounds like their location based targeting sucks. Spotify has the same problem for me - it spams my playlists & recommendations with songs that I have never, ever shown the slightest interest in purely based on location.

This seems to be a common theme in the industry. Recommenders heavily overweight location - an incredibly general factor, even in the presence of troves of specific, individual level data. Goes to show how little basic reasoning really goes into how these systems work.

All online tools should have a “pretend I’m in Silicon Valley” toggle so you can get the same results the engineers get.

Localized search is useful at times (restaurants for example, I like getting the local McDonald’s or China Wok rather than the biggest one in New York) but it’s completely useless for many terms. But maybe not the ones Google makes the most money on.

How about spamming me with artists I have taken the time to mark as 'Do not play'? The FIRST recommended album in Album Picks is such an artist. Good reminder that I should get rid of my premium subscription, thanks!

I too tried this (geolocated to Argentina) and cannot reproduce the behaviour. All the results I am seeing on the first couple of pages are relevant.

P.S. Chrome, incognito window.

If I use an incognito window I don't get the crappy results either.

My feeling is that since that query is SO unusual for me, based on my search history (I can't even say what it means) it raises the "likelyhood" that the hacked spam sites with programming terms that also include those keywords are good results for me.

If I search for something more typical, like "Spider-Man No Way Home" or "Ruby rails tutorial" the results don't include hacked sites.

I see some people are having trouble replicating the results, and I wonder if you some how got thrown into a really bad user test group--if they do that.

It's why I love the possibility of deliberately activating or de-activating localization in DuckDuckGo.

Could you try again from an incognito window?

Yes, I did. No trash. Safari on Mac (or iOS), once I log in, spews the same garbage results.

Copied from another answer:

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My feeling is that since that query is SO unusual for me, based on my search history (I can't even say what it means) it raises the "likelyhood" that the hacked spam sites with programming terms that also include those keywords are good results for me.

If I search for something more typical, like "Spider-Man No Way Home" or "Ruby rails tutorial" the results don't include hacked sites.

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Rule #1 of Google usage: turn off results based on search history. Think about it, how could that possibly improve your search results when you search for something you have never searched for before? I (sort of) remember the day that was announced, almost everyone turned it off immediately.

Almost nobody turned if off. And, to answer your question: If your history shows hundreds of queries for Java, PHP, and Ruby, odds are your query about Perl or Crystal or Go isn't about the species or stone or game.

adding another datapoint, I could only find the results the OP was returning in the 10th page (~100th result)

Good to know you see those too.

They're so obviously unrelated hacked sites that they shouldn't even be listed.

just to add another data point, I tried the same search too, and all results look normal and relevant.

Same here, all relevant results.

> I just tried that search, all of the results look relevant

Do you geolocate in Argentina?

Just tried that search in English. First result is "The data- and AI-focused company has secured a $1.6 billion round at a $38 billion". And if you click the search box you get the first search option as databricks valuation history where the first result is funding every round.

Google has been so much better for search for me than other search engines. Atleast for what I search for programming, news etc.

I start seeing trash from result #6 on. First are relevants.

Also, results are personalized. Not everyone sees the same.

If I do an incognito search (not logged in) I get results without trash.

Google thinks you like trash

For anyone interested, further info:

- I checked the cached (by Google) copies of the hacked pages and they include mentions of a "Databricks SQL Connector". So if I search for "Databricks" Google thinks "it must be a programming thing".

- If I now search for "databricks series a valuation" I don't get the spam results, for some reason. I think that if I repeat the search Google produces the exact same results... but internally, since I first searched, it might have realized that those sites were not good.

For me this only shows one spam result in the 20th position: https://imgur.com/a/s8ETiNl (tallish image)

That being said, I have issued queries in the past that I have just found absolute walls of malicious results. I haven't really invested much attention span in entertaining this sort of thing so I just move on and modify my query, but I'll keep an eye out for it going forward.

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