I did not realize how bad Google has become

[Paul Keith]

http://focusontheuser.org/

How It Works

When you search for "cooking" today, Google decides that renowned chef Jamie Oliver is a relevant social result. That makes sense. But rather than linking to Jamie's Twitter profile, which is updated daily, Google links to his Google+ profile, which was last updated nearly two months ago. Is Google's relevance algorithm simply misguided?

No. If you search Google for Jamie Oliver directly, his Twitter profile is the first social result that appears. His abandoned Google+ profile doesn't even appear on the first page of results. When Google's engineers are allowed to focus purely on relevancy, they get it right.

So that's what our "bookmarklet" does. It looks at the three places where Google only shows Google+ results and then automatically googles Google to see if Google finds a result more relevant than Google+.

Talk about a tongue twister of a bookmarklet.  

Unfortunately I don't use Google+ so I don't know what I'm missing.

[Tinman57]

  I haven't used any Google products since they became public back in 2004, when their bread and butter was spying and selling your information to marketers and the government....

[TaoPhoenix]

It still is Tinman, I almost never use Google anymore except sometimes through Startpage (or occasional bits of Pr0n.)

[4wd]

 I haven't used any Google products since they became public back in 2004, when their bread and butter was spying and selling your information to marketers and the government....

-Tinman57 (January 29, 2013, 04:12 PM)

How is that different from your Government who you pay for the privilege of doing it?

[Tinman57]

  I haven't used any Google products since they became public back in 2004, when their bread and butter was spying and selling your information to marketers and the government....

-Tinman57 (January 29, 2013, 04:12 PM)

How is that different from your Government who you pay for the privilege of doing it?

-4wd (January 29, 2013, 06:06 PM)

  Unfortunately, I can't control the government or this shit wouldn't be happening.  I can, however, control GoOgle, or at least refuse them into my home.

[Fred Nerd]

I know google has a lot of haters (with good reason) BUT I still respect them.

I they make no secret that we are a product, and are (reasonably) open about the ads that they are always trying to sell us etc.
The fact that they haven't tried to fight against ad blockers is pretty impressive. I'm sure they could get around them if they tried (random, changing ad servers to start with).

And compare Gmail to Facebook. Gmail uses standard protocols to allow you to change at will if you are dissatisfied. One has no problem migrating to and from a Gmail account. And Facebook locks you in, and once you have no options, it force feeds you ads, and it gets them past ad blockers by putting them in the newsfeed. "Your friend likes 'dodgy deals dogfood'" When it was only once, 2 years ago but its still in my newsfeed....

So I don't mind Google trying to get people to discover G+. Come on, if there worst offence is to use their position to gently push one of their products then I will forgive them for that. Besides, I wish more people did use G+, then I could ditch my Facebook and have a much more elegant, effective, and open social network.

[J-Mac]

Yeah, I hate Google in so many ways and for so many things... yet I use it regularly.   

Though I do use all the measures I can find to minimize their damage. Still they manage to get in one way or another.

Jim

[Jibz]

This proof of concept was built by some engineers at Facebook, Twitter and Myspace

Well, at least they're honest about it .

Plus, who googles overly general terms like "cooking" or "movies" in the first place.

[f0dder]

I haven't used any Google products since they became public back in 2004, when their bread and butter was spying and selling your information to marketers and the government....

-Tinman57 (January 29, 2013, 04:12 PM)

What do you use instead, then? And do you delude yourself that <whoever> aren't doing even more nefarious things?

[Tinman57]

I haven't used any Google products since they became public back in 2004, when their bread and butter was spying and selling your information to marketers and the government....

-Tinman57 (January 29, 2013, 04:12 PM)

What do you use instead, then? And do you delude yourself that <whoever> aren't doing even more nefarious things?

-f0dder (January 30, 2013, 10:04 AM)

  There are all kinds of alternatives, really good ones too.  I don't "delude" myself to anything, I do my homework about the products I use.  For the occasional new stuff I come across that I may want to try, I run it in a sandbox along with port sniffers and process hackers to see what they're trying to do.  I also check out several sites that are "Badware Busters".
  I also don't use social sites like FaceCrooks.  I don't like putting my life out there for everyone to see.

[Fred Nerd]

Do you also use Web Of Trust?
The really nice site that tells you what is safe, THEN 'accidentally' blacklists a site and charges a lot to try to get reviewed and off the list.

I hate it when I see it recommended

[Tinman57]

Do you also use Web Of Trust?
The really nice site that tells you what is safe, THEN 'accidentally' blacklists a site and charges a lot to try to get reviewed and off the list.

I hate it when I see it recommended

-Fred Nerd (January 30, 2013, 07:11 PM)

  Can't say I've ever used that one, but I have heard about it long ago.

[IainB]

Re Google's reported "Do no evil" slogan.
I happened to be watching some old episodes of The Outer Limits. There is one episode - The Inheritors (Parts I and II) - where some alien-genetically modified humans with super-power brains have built themselves a spaceship to return to "their" planet, along with a selection of rejected, unwanted, unloved and disabled human children who face prospects of a short/unhappy life on earth. These "human-aliens" have good intentions and repeatedly you hear the phrase "We must do no harm", and indeed they haven't done any harm, nor committed any crime.

I wonder whether the Google Executive really consider themselves so bound, or indeed whether they consider themselves to be - or actually are - similarly motivated "human-aliens".     

[zridling]

G+'s "social search" results only appear among your ordinary search page results if you check that option in your account settings. It's not turned on by default, and even though I follow thousands of people, it's still rare to see anyone appear there.

[J-Mac]

I don’t see any such setting for G+ in Google Search Settings. Are you talking about G+ settings? Or Google Account settings?

Unless you are looking at the Google Instant check off; that's not to control G+ - just the Google Instant crap.

Either way I don’t see the G+ results because I use the GM script GoogleMonkeyR, which removes all that I don’t wish to see, as well as disables the Google tracking.

Thanks!

Jim