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Comment by creato | Hacker News Reader

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...).

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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.

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!

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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?

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