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Google Turns On User-Tweakable Search Wiki 161

Posted by timothy from the enhance-enhance dept.
Barence writes "Google has launched a new service that allows users to tailor to their own search results. Called SearchWiki, the service allows Google account holders to move results up or off the rankings, or even add their own choice of site to the top of the search results. Google claims that any changes a user makes will only affect their results, and not those of fellow surfers, although it's difficult to believe that some of the feedback generated from the SearchWiki won't be used to fine tune the Google search algorithm. Is this a cunning way to encourage people to sign in while they search, thus providing Google with a richer set of data that can be mapped to specific user accounts?"
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Google Turns On User-Tweakable Search Wiki More

Google Turns On User-Tweakable Search Wiki

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  • Google bombing (Score:5, Interesting)

    by xx_chris ( 524347 ) on Sunday November 23, 2008 @07:56AM (#25863829)
    If they didn't limit this to the single user, then Google bombing would be even more effective. I suppose they can still use negative votes for spam research.

    • Re:Google bombing (Score:5, Interesting)

      by SanityInAnarchy ( 655584 ) <ninja@slaphack.com> on Sunday November 23, 2008 @10:48AM (#25864395) Journal

      That would allow a different kind of Google bombing. Remember the anti-DRM campaign which gave Spore all those low ratings? Seems likely that they could just kill EA from search results...

      But even if it's just limited to a single user, it would be helpful to not have to put -site:expertsexchange.com in every search.

      • Re:Google bombing (Score:5, Funny)

        by Svippy ( 876087 ) on Sunday November 23, 2008 @11:06AM (#25864487) Homepage

        But even if it's just limited to a single user, it would be helpful to not have to put -site:expertsexchange.com in every search.

        Tell me about it, I went to their site, and there was no sex change at all! Lousy service. And they call themselves "expert"?

      • >it would be helpful to not have to put -site:expertsexchange.com in every search.

        Well, if you're using Firefox, there's always the Customise Google add-on, which features search filters.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by hh10k ( 725277 )

        I was also once annoyed that the expertsexchange appeared in the results, until I realised that all the real replies are down the bottom of the page. If they weren't there, then Google couldn't have indexed them.

      • The CustomizeGoogle Firefox addon allows you to filter search results like experts-exchange.com with wildcard expressions. Besides that, the addon can rewrite some of Google's pages to achieve, for example:

        - Rewrite image search results to point directly to the images
        - Remove ads
        - Permanently set search preferences without having to log into your Google account. The addon stores the settings on the client's side and rewrites all HTTP GET requests to Google with the proper parameters.

        https://addons.mozilla.o [mozilla.org]

        • Permanently set search preferences without having to log into your Google account.

          This part is covered already -- they get set in your cookie. No need to even have a Google account to permanently turn on 100 results per page, and turn off SafeSearch.

          • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

            by xororand ( 860319 )

            This part is covered already -- they get set in your cookie. No need to even have a Google account to permanently turn on 100 results per page, and turn off SafeSearch.

            Keeping the cookie allows Google to track your searches. You can avoid that with CustomizeGoogle.

    • It depends on how it's implemented.

      Groups could be done this way:

      You are allowed to choose arbitrary groups to view results. So if you join the "I love pink ponies" group you will get rather different search rankings from "I'm a Hell's Angel biker".

      Google will generate and name some groups by itself.

      Users can also create their own groups by weighting a number of other user's POVs on search results.

      e.g. Crystal's "Fluffy Bunnies" group could be (3 * ILoveTwilight) + (2 x GirlzRule) + (-1 * GirlsAreGross).

      Th

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mrmeval ( 662166 )

      I want the negative results especially to mark a site as spam. I will make great use of this. I've not tried it yet but will and hope I can blanket block domains.

  • So what? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Threni ( 635302 ) on Sunday November 23, 2008 @08:02AM (#25863851)

    > Is this a cunning way to encourage people to sign in while they search, thus providing Google
    > with a richer set of data that can be mapped to specific user accounts?"

    Sounds like one of those people who surf with cookies disabled.

    • Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by u38cg ( 607297 ) <calum@callingthetune.co.uk> on Sunday November 23, 2008 @08:36AM (#25863961) Homepage
      Try blanking all your cookies, then spend a few weeks surfing with them set to prompt. It is genuinely scary how many organisations are tracking your behaviour.

      I don't get the point of this service. When I use Google, I don't hang around to admire my search results, I'm just glad I managed to craft a query that landed what I wanted on the first page. I am certainly not going to sit around to review my search results on their behalf.

      • Re:So what? (Score:5, Informative)

        by adamofgreyskull ( 640712 ) on Sunday November 23, 2008 @08:48AM (#25864005)
        I would happily spend *all* my time downgrading each and every result pointing to experts(-)exchange.com

        • Re:So what? (Score:5, Informative)

          by sveard ( 1076275 ) * on Sunday November 23, 2008 @09:03AM (#25864057) Homepage

          http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/1898 [userscripts.org] removes experts-exchange.com results from Google searches :)

          • I'm totally using that, those types of things piss me off. I think the worst ones though are the link farms which typo-squat and then just display a list of "relevant" links. If I wanted the links I wouldn't be using a search engine.

        • Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Naughty Bob ( 1004174 ) * on Sunday November 23, 2008 @09:03AM (#25864059)
          User Agent Switcher, Google Bot.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by maxume ( 22995 )

            You mean "scroll down to where the comments are shown".

            Google doesn't take kindly to people that show them different results than the rest of the world.

            • Which is still antisocial enough that I would much rather kill experts-exchange from every search. Those results are almost never useful for the questions I'm asking, anyway.

              • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

                by Anonymous Coward

                Which is still antisocial enough that I would much rather kill experts-exchange from every search.

                You are exactly right about wanting to kill certain search polluters.

                Weirdly, I often search for fragments of lyrics trying to find the entire song and who sang it. Recently the top several lyrics sites don't provide the lyrics in text, but in some sort of crapstastic flash thingy. And way too many ads.

                What use is having a googlebot AND an army of street view vehicles if you can't sic the googlebot to killing

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by bziman ( 223162 )

          I would happily spend *all* my time downgrading each and every result pointing to experts(-)exchange.com

          I used to feel that way too, except that when you click on one of their links and scroll all the way to the bottom, you actually get the real answer -- otherwise google wouldn't bother to index the page. It is annoying though.

        • Re:So what? (Score:5, Informative)

          by AtomicJake ( 795218 ) on Sunday November 23, 2008 @09:51AM (#25864183)
          Don't spend your time, if you can have it automated in your Firefox (and you can stay anonymous towards Google).  Here is the how-to:

          1) Bookmark google (www.google.com)
          [Optional: Bookmark search.yahoo.com, www.live.com, etc.]
          2) In Firefox, right-click on the bookmark and choose properties.
          3) Enter "g" as keyword for Google ("y" for Yahoo, etc.)
          4) In the location field enter: http://www.google.com/search?q=%s -site:experts-exchange.com

          Done.  Now you can easily search by typing in the address bar:
          g <keywords>

          The %s in the location will be substituted by the keywords, and you get your Google research without expert-exchange.com entries.

          [Nice side effect: since it is now as easy to type in "g" for Google, "y" for Yahoo and "m" for Microsoft, switching search engines is so easy that you actually do it from time to time.]

          • And then, a week later, I find a new site that's just as obnoxious.

            Contrast this to Google's one-click next to a site, which gives me a cool animation, and adds the results to the bottom of the page anyway, so if they really contain something useful, I can find them.

            Probably doesn't help anyway, unless I'm clearing my cookies frequently, and/or randomizing these keywords somewhat -- and even here, I'm still on a mostly-static IP at home. The only safe way to stay anonymous towards Google is to not use Googl

        • I've already added a line in my named.conf to map expertsexchange to 10.1.1.2 and a line in my apache conf to quietly accept the 404s.

          I'm also going to vote down every result that Google returns that points to that crappy site.

          It gets my vote for "most useless waste of ones and zeros".

        • AGREED!

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by g2devi ( 898503 )

        Cookies don't necessarily mean that they're tracking information. Cookies are an essential part of sessions (at least in PHP).

        • Cookies don't necessarily mean that they're tracking information. Cookies are an essential part of sessions (at least in PHP).

          Not true. If the user doesn't have cookies enabled, the session data is appended to the url. [php.net]

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by jsoderba ( 105512 )

            Many sites turn that off due to the obvious security implications of people passing around links containing credentials.

            • It's no more insecure than passing it in a cookie. The only advantage is that it doesn't show up in server logs, but if the server is h4x0red, or you've succumbed to a man-in-the-middle or phishing or spoofing attack, cookie, post, or get variables ... they're all available.

              • It's no more insecure than passing it in a cookie.

                Because people paste cookie contents to each other over IM all the time?

                URLs are designed to be shared - that's one of the things that users are expected do to with them. Putting identification information there violates the design assumptions of the system, and is therefore innately insecure.

                • Because people paste cookie contents to each other over IM all the time?

                  URLs are designed to be shared - that's one of the things that users are expected do to with them. Putting identification information there violates the design assumptions of the system, and is therefore innately insecure.

                  No, its when people make assumptions like you did that systems are innately insecure. You don't pass the login credentials every page - you pass a key/value, which should be tied to both a time and an ip. You shou

                  • Sure, it makes the back button useless, but if you're going to make it so that even if the data is stolen, it can't be used, it's a nice trade-off.

                    No. No it's not. Cookies exist. There's no reason to break people's browser UI in an incompetent attempt to avoid using them.

                    • Sure, it makes the back button useless, but if you're going to make it so that even if the data is stolen, it can't be used, it's a nice trade-off.

                      No. No it's not. Cookies exist. There's no reason to break people's browser UI in an incompetent attempt to avoid using them.

                      Again, depends on the situation ... if you're not dealing with a web app that needs to ensure, for the sake of consistency, that users don't hit the back button, then "breaking" the back button is a "Good Thing".

                      Even for stuff tha

                    • Again, depends on the situation ... if you're not dealing with a web app that needs to ensure, for the sake of consistency, that users don't hit the back button, then "breaking" the back button is a "Good Thing".

                      If your application breaks when the user uses the basic interface functionality in their browsers (back button is the most obvious, but multiple windows/tabs is the other main example) then it's been built wrong - not unlike the way a Windows application that uses "right click and drag" to select te

                    • If your application breaks when the user uses the basic interface functionality in their browsers (back button is the most obvious, but multiple windows/tabs is the other main example) then it's been built wrong - not unlike the way a Windows application that uses "right click and drag" to select text and "hold down enter and left click" to pop up a context menu is built wrong.

                      Proper session and form handling probably isn't built into your web framework. But that doesn't mean that doing it right is especi

              • So you are saying that cookies are "no more secure than a cookie" other than having advantages that narrow the vulnerability field? Isn't that another word for more secure?

                • If you're depending on an unchanging cookie for security, you're not nearly as secure as you can be, and a false sense of security is a bad thing. Your last cookie value should be valid for one request, and only for a limited time frame, preferably tied to one ip. The response should then return a new cookie value. Doing the same with a get parameter will also ensure that if someone cut-n-pastes the url, it won't work.

                  You're still vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks, but some malware stealing your coo

  • annoying "feature" (Score:5, Interesting)

    by a302b ( 585285 ) on Sunday November 23, 2008 @08:05AM (#25863869)
    This seems to just be a way to refine search results and collect more specified data. This is great for Google's aims of collecting all the data in the universe, but an annoying "feature" for me.

    I really dislike the "refined" searches, especially as Google's memory lasts for a long time. If I am doing a project on something, or am really interested in a topic (lets say travelling to Timbuktu), I will search it to death. However, a week later, when I am trying to search for something else (say used cars), I have to slog through a bunch of pages about car sales in Timbuktu!

    Sigh.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by bsDaemon ( 87307 )

      This is great for Google's aims of collecting all the data in the universe

      good thing I don't have the delta brainwave [wikipedia.org] and am therefor immune to their evil!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Jay L ( 74152 ) *

      You know you can turn off the personalized search results by logging out of Google (or launching another browser without that cookie), right? Although, if you still want Web History to work, that'd be annoying.

  • Three things come to mind...

    1)Finally, a way to nuke useless results off my search results.
    2)How long before Google uses the info for search rankings?
    3)How long before asshats start fucking with us?

  • Bye bye Expert sexchange (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Why do they rank so high anyway?

    • Re:Bye bye Expert sexchange (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Spliffster ( 755587 ) on Sunday November 23, 2008 @08:51AM (#25864017) Homepage Journal

      This was exactly my first thought -- Expert-sexchange is pretty annoying! I don't think it would invade my privacy if I have a way to tell google what I don't like to see ... after all am I using Google because they deliver more or less relevant results.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by klingens ( 147173 )

        There is no new Google-feature needed which they can datamine. All you need is the GooglePreview addon: https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/189 [mozilla.org]

        It allows you to filter out unwanted domains from your search results among very nice other features.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by pavon ( 30274 )

        Telling them that I don't want expertsexchange included in my searches isn't the part I'm worried about - it's the fact that now all my searches are tied to an account which I don't think they anonymize like they do with IP addresses. The firefox plugin works great for simple things like blacklisting, so unless they have some really usefull keyword clustering and search adjustment that can't be done client side, I don't see myself using this.

    • There have been a dozen comments saying this, so I have to ask: Why do people dislike experts-exchange? Am I missing something?

  • What is the point? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Catil ( 1063380 ) * on Sunday November 23, 2008 @08:29AM (#25863939)
    Why would users put results to the top if there is no way of sharing those? It's not like users search for the same stuff every time in order to visit the same site that always happens to be on page 2 or something. ou could just bookmark that page.
    Will people really use this at the slight chance that Google might one day use the information to improve their engine, even so they say that they won't?
    User-tweakable SearchWiki... one might as well just use Wikipedia. I guess for 95% of all common searchterms, there is an informative Wiki-article anyway and those already have related peer-reviewed links at the bottom, excluding scam and parking sites. There is a good reason that most queries on Google provide Wikipedia as the first result.

    Edit: sounds a bit more "flamebatish" than I wanted it to be but whatever.
    Edit2: Yes, I can edit my comments, don't you?

    • Re:What is the point? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Yetihehe ( 971185 ) on Sunday November 23, 2008 @08:51AM (#25864015)
      Make edit 3 or you're lying!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by karstux ( 681641 )

      I don't get it either. When I search for something, I want to discover new sites. So why would I search, then add a site that's already known to me to the results? Why would I change the results order if I can just scroll through until I find the link that I sought?

      Unless you use a google search instead of bookmarks. Which would be stupid.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tepples ( 727027 )

        When I search for something, I want to discover new sites. So why would I search, then add a site that's already known to me to the results?

        Because you've looked at the new site and pressed the back button, or because you've looked at the new site in another window or tab, and now you're back at the search result page.

    • Because even with a single site, it's useful -- I could promote Wikipedia, and demote expert-exchange, for example.

      And even if it's not shared, Google could still use this to tailor my own search results -- give me more things like Wikipedia, and less things like experts-exchange.

    • Re:What is the point? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Viceroy Potatohead ( 954845 ) on Sunday November 23, 2008 @12:16PM (#25864931) Homepage

      I guess for 95% of all common searchterms, there is an informative Wiki-article

      My initial thought to that was:

      "Maybe common for everyone else, but I must make a lot more uncommon searches. I mean, Wikipedia doesn't have a 'disney ass sluts' category, while Google returned 119 results."

      But then I realized it does have an article on Britney Spears, so you may have a point.

  • Wikia (Score:5, Interesting)

    by saibot834 ( 1061528 ) on Sunday November 23, 2008 @08:30AM (#25863943)

    They adopted (or will be adopting) a core principle of Wikia Search, and that is user generated content (and ranking search results is some kind of content). On Wikia, everyone can change search results, insert new links and delete them.
    However, user generated content needs a community (in this case mainly to prevent or revert spamming) - and google had many unsuccessful community projects in the past... I wonder if they are foolish enough to try it again.
    When it comes to community projects many people object to the idea of working for free towards another one's gain. That's why nonprofits like the Free Software Foundation (GNU project) and the Wikimedia Foundation (Wikipedia) are so successful at building high quality producing communities. I don't think that google has a chance here.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by saibot834 ( 1061528 )

      Uh... seems I forgot to include the actual link: Wikia Search [wikia.com] (alternatively you can google for "Wikia Search" :P)
      Note how you can instantly and anonymously change almost everything. (needs Javascript however)

    • Re:Wikia (Score:4, Informative)

      by Mike1024 ( 184871 ) on Sunday November 23, 2008 @10:30AM (#25864323)

      They adopted (or will be adopting) a core principle of Wikia Search, and that is user generated content [...] However, user generated content needs a community (in this case mainly to prevent or revert spamming) - and google had many unsuccessful community projects in the past... I wonder if they are foolish enough to try it again.

      Well, a community is one way to prevent spamming, but is it the only way?

      I mean, Wikipedia goes for a very transparent structure. If Wikipedia added secret algorithms to selectively display only certain users' contributions, they would probably be criticised by people on Slashdot, and elements of the Wikipedia community.

      On the other hand, Google already uses secret automated moderation techniques for search results, and they are also pretty good at filtering spam in gmail. Both with no need for a community of volunteers doing filtering manually.

      Furthermore, Google has not committed to using this user-generated data at all, let alone in an unmoderated form.

      Now, I agree with you that Google hasn't got a track record of building user communities like Wikipedia. However, I think they could make user-moderated search work without one.

    • I suspect that Google's failed community attempts have more actual users than most other places successful communities.

      When you have a unique daily visitor count that measures in the 10s or 100s of millions, having a community of only 50 thousand users of project 'foo' may seem like a failure.

  • Is there anyway to turn it on?

  • How to turn the dang thing off: (Score:4, Informative)

    by 6350' ( 936630 ) on Sunday November 23, 2008 @08:43AM (#25863987)
    I found a post on this blog [saadkamal.com] that notes a greasemonkey script to hide the searchwikified results, as well as a link to a google groups thread that shows a url tweak that will skip the feature in your searches (and can be used to make your iGoogle homepage searchwiki free).

  • I know Google's coverage is excellent... (Score:5, Funny)

    by 6Yankee ( 597075 ) on Sunday November 23, 2008 @09:10AM (#25864083)
    ...but who tagged this "itsatarp"?

  • The internets have been full of this topic in the past few days, but I don't see anything different on Google. I've been logged in all this time, *and* I opted for the experimental "Searchwiki with Sounds" stuff.

    Doesn't seem to be on the official services list either, and http://google.com/searchwiki [google.com] doesn't work at all. Where is it?

  • "Is this a cunning way to encourage people to sign in while they search, thus providing Google with a richer set of data that can be mapped to specific user accounts?"

    Yep. You got a problem with that?

  • Personal hate - "experts exchange" - it fails me to understand why these are included in the search results - they are fucking ads.

    • Personal hate: price comparison sites. If I'm interested in buying something I want the names of sellers, not spiders.

    • Agreed. First thing I did when I read up on this yesterday was search for "experts" and killed it.

  • Privacy issues aside, there may be real value here (Score:5, Informative)

    by hedronist ( 233240 ) * on Sunday November 23, 2008 @12:42PM (#25865115)

    Three words: User Relevance Feedback.

    In 1986 I started work on the first commercial search engine that supported "similarity searching." This was based on the Cosine Coefficient of weighted attribute vectors. As we got deeper and deeper into what made one search successful and another a flop, it became obvious that there were two prime enemies of successful searching.

    1. Very short queries.
    2. Words with multiple, unrelated meanings. E.g., "bank" has more than a dozen meanings as both a noun and a verb.

    For example, a query of "man versus machine" (actually run by Esther Dyson in our offices), produced an apparently random mix of articles about chess-playing computers, labor strikes over factory automation, and some guy towing a locomotive with his teeth (it's been over 20 years, so I don't remember the exact results). She hesitated for a moment, then said, "Oh! They really are all about people and machines, but how do I narrow it down to what I meant, which was more along the lines of the labor articles?"

    We already had an answer to this by the time she visited us. Our solution (based on the work of Salton and Buckley) was to allow the user to say, "Results 1 and 3 are irrelevant, but result 2 is highly relevant." We would then take the attribute vectors for the articles and raise or lower the importance of those terms in the new query vector. After the first round of relevance feedback, the results often got downright spooky. Why? Because a) we now had a lot more terms to work with, and b) the additional terms helped to disambiguate terms like "bank." E.g., mention of levee construction probably meant this was a "river bank" and not a financial institution.

    What does this have to do with what Google is doing? By reordering your results you are, in effect, giving user relevance feedback. I don't know what they are going to do with this information, but just getting your hands on it is a very important first step. And having you bring things to the top is doubly important, because positive relevance feedback is several times more important than negative. E.g. Tell me to drive towards San Francisco, rather than just saying I should leave Chicago.

    On the downside, as mentioned by several previous posters, this opens the door to deep understanding of the user and what s/he is interest in. (Of course, they already get some of this when you click on items in a result list. They have a little JavaScript goody that records each and every click. Fortunately, there are GreaseMonkey scripts to disable this "feature.") One of my (few) customers back in the 80's and 90's said, "If you know only the questions I ask, you know too much." The customer? The NSA.

  • The trouble with "search personalization" (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Sunday November 23, 2008 @01:31PM (#25865491) Homepage

    I tend to think of individual search personalization as a pain. It's another piece of state the user has to manage. But it's harmless, and some people might like it.

    The trouble with sharing information about search results is that the most interested parties are, inevitably, going to be in the "search engine optimization" business. Unless Google figures out some way to prevent people from establishing huge numbers of accounts, something they've dramatically failed to do with GMail, any shared information from users will be gamed and spammed.

    Does anybody use Wikia search? Unfortunately, because it's folded into Wikia.com, (the fan site wiki hosting service), Alexa doesn't produce useful stats. Wikia in total has about 10% of the traffic of "ask.com", and under 1% of Google.com. Wikia's trend is downward.

  • I'd be a lot less worried about Google keeping my search history as my online identity, if I could just make Google delete my history records by requesting it. I can clear my browser cache at will, but my server-stored Google records are totally out of reach.

    Google can keep the aggregate statistics. But I should be able to click and delete their raw records of me. And that procedure should be periodically randomly audited, with severe penalties for contract violation if they don't actually delete my records

  • Such a bad thing? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by strawberryutopia ( 1301435 ) on Sunday November 23, 2008 @03:38PM (#25866471) Homepage

    "Is this a cunning way to encourage people to sign in while they search, thus providing Google with a richer set of data that can be mapped to specific user accounts?"

    Of course it is. But as a Google fangirl with no sense of privacy, I have to say, is this really a bad thing? Greater knowledge about their users will lead to more accurately targeted adverts. Is it such a bad thing that Google are increasing their potential earnings?

    Google get more money, advertisers get more potential customers, and publishers get more money from adverts, and the customers get pointed to more sites they're likely to be interested in. Who loses?

    • Re:Such a bad thing? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Inda ( 580031 ) <slash.20.inda@spamgourmet.com> on Monday November 24, 2008 @09:06AM (#25871883) Journal
      I used it twice yesterday and I liked it.

      I was searching for reviews on a TV. "[MODEL NUMBER] review" (no quotes) was my search term and, as you can probably guess, all the results on the first page were trying to sell me the TV.

      On the second page was the perfect review complete with geeky stats and figures. I bumped it to the top.

      Later on I repeated the search and the proper results were at the top.

      If Google don't use my preference, they're a little silly.

  • I noticed this feature last night while using Chrome to look for drivers for an old eMachines desktop. I think that anyone who's ever fixed one of those old machines knows what comes up when you search for Windows drivers -- a bunch of links pimping something called "Driver Genius" and similar payware of dubious merit. I was using Chrome at the time and I noticed these little "promote" and "remove" icons next to the links. I have to admit that I felt a little bit of schadenfreude at being able to nuke all t

  • When Google arrived on the scene, they used an original idea to build a really great search algorithm, which I could trust to get me to the best results quickly without a lot of cruft at the top of the list.

    Well, that hasn't happened in a while. It's now quite laborious to find what I need quickly.

    So let's assume that a) the folks at Google are smart, and b) they gave me a chance and some sort of small but reasonably anonymous incentive to sort of rate their search engine results.

    Multiply me by a million G

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