Stack Exchange CEO: "Nobody Wants To Find Yahoo Answers In Their Search Results"

http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/12/founder-stories-stack-overflows-joel-spolsky-nobody-wants-to-find-yahoo-answers-in-their-search-results/

by thankuz • 15 years ago

66 46 15 years ago

techcrunch.com

Tycho• 15 years ago

I don't think that's true at all. Yahoo Answers has often proved useful for me. It also lacks the snootiness of SO. TechCrunch seems to have a serious vendetta against Yahoo. Or maybe Yahoo-bashing is just cool right now. But I remember when the Yahoo CEO mocked Arrington on stage during an interview. It seems personal.

pkteison• 15 years ago

I don't think this is just yahoo bashing, it succiently reflects user experience. If you see a yahoo answers link in your search results, do you think "aha, I will click on this first because it probably answers my question"? I get happy when I see stackoverflow in my google results, because I suspect that I will actually get my question answered by clicking that link. A yahoo answers page may or may not be informative, about as often as a geocities page may or may not have useful information on it. Nothing about the site actually really encourages quality, so you end up very hit or miss.

mirkules2• 15 years ago

For programming tasks, I am happy to see SO. But for other life inquiries, such as "why does my dog sleep at my feet", I get decent answers from Yahoo. In fact, I never viewed SO as a Yahoo! competitor, but a good complement - their audiences are different, and SO fills a nice niche that Yahoo's demographic is usually not capable of filling

kingsidharth• 15 years ago

I agree, I like having yahoo answers in my search result and I can't remember any-day when I was disappointed by answers. Even their answers is peer reviewed and voted for.

Teenage chat? Seriously?

Homunculiheaded• 15 years ago

My problem with Yahoo answers is the number of times I've come across answers that are out right wrong (sometimes to the point of being dangerous) and supported by a number other people, with no right answer in sight. For this reason I completely avoid Yahoo answer regarding any topic I'm ignorant of.

exch• 15 years ago

This is the reason why I occasionally do answer question on YA! If nobody comes in to fix the obvious errors, it will always be full of nonsense.

The real danger is that the site is used buy a lot of young people who will consistently walk away with a completely skewed and incorrect notion of the subject they are asking about.

As they say: "Be the change you want to see around you".

steve-howard• 15 years ago

I was looking around recently for some information on antidepressant medications. A lot of them have nasty side effects or leave people "happy but empty" and I was curious whether there was any advice regarding these things. One answer which had been left there for a year with no moderation included the following gem: "I recommend you stop all forms of antidepressants and if you get too depressed then just end it. suicide is an option for all people."

Suffice it to say I now avoid Yahoo answers as well.

jakegottlieb2• 15 years ago

Yahoo! answers does not guarantee the integrity of their information. Most of the time (in my experience), the answers are uninformed and not very applicable. Are you interested in finding people's opinions when actually you are looking for a fact/answer? I am sure some of them are useful and maybe they could secure this by a Hacker News type voting (of course this could be abused, but...).

mirkules2• 15 years ago

It's true that none of yahoo's answers are fact, but I would like to point out that almost everything on the internet should be taken with a grain of salt (ahem, wikipedia). That said, your skeptic meter should be higher with yahoo than with SO but that can also be attributed to the fact that SO deals with programming (either it works or it doesn't), so bad answers are going to be discriminated against much more quickly and more correctly.

jakegottlieb2• 15 years ago

I agree with that of course.

dirtyaura• 15 years ago

The headline is sensational, but the interview is good.

I've always liked Joel's observation of Usenet nit-picking culture and how it's likely related to easy quoting.

I haven't followed discussion about StackExchange site creation and user acquisition models, but I think that Joel's practical, organic approach is good. Although there isn't StackExchange for medical professionals yet, if the growth rates are what they claim, it might be that in the near future there are enough doctors participating in cooking, photography and all the other SE sites, that medical SE site will emerge.

rokhayakebe2• 15 years ago

CEOs should be careful about their public statements. I am going to bookmark this page because I am sure some day another high-rising CEO will say "Nobody wants to find SO answers in their search results".

db422• 15 years ago

What you are saying looks good for making an argument, but seriously, he is saying the truth to some extent.

nostrademons2• 15 years ago

The truth now. The problem is that words on the Internet live forever, and most people don't bother to pay attention to date stamps. At some point in the future, StackExchange will be the hulking behemoth that nobody likes, and then people will dig up this post and say "turnabout's fair play".

(It just occurred to me that someday I may come to regret all my HN comments. Gulp. Ah well, it's been fun so far.)

pg• 15 years ago

Just last night I used search to ask a question (where to go to watch planes take off and land at SFO) and found the answer on a Yahoo Answers page.

argv_empty• 15 years ago

I'll take StackExchange over Yahoo Answers for technical topics (where YA is mainly populated by kids posting their homework and spammers advertising tutorial sites unrelated to the question), but YA has been effective for getting information on popular opinion (e.g. what people think are good restaurants where I'm going), expectations in social situations I'm rarely in (e.g. how to properly tip a bartender), etc.

In both cases, it's nice that I'm never the first to want a particular question answered.

rokhayakebe2• 15 years ago

"Opinion" is the keyword here.

collision• 15 years ago

Wait, so what's the answer? Is there a mid-runway bench?

nostrademons2• 15 years ago

2nd result:

http://www.google.com/search?q=where+to+go+to+watch+planes+t...

Google maps:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&...

BTW, if you like to watch planes take off and land, the Palo Alto airport is another good spot. It's all small prop-driven private planes, so the noise level is quite a bit less than at SFO. And there're some great marsh trails at the end of Embarcadero with benches that are right under the flight path, so planes fly straight over you at an altitude of maybe 50-100 feet:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&...

dgallagher• 15 years ago

I've run into a few scenarios with Yahoo Answers via Google:

1) Question with answer. 2) Question with no answer. 3) Question with answer, but answer was poor/incomplete/wrong/lacking. 4) Different Question than what I was searching for (irrelevant if answered).

I'd argue the issue is with search results, not always Yahoo Answers. #1 should always appear in search results. #2-3-4 never should. #2 should be easy to filter out. #3 and #4, that's the tough part. Maybe they can appear in search results, but not page one.

Every time you run into #2-3-4, you waste the users time (scarce resource). The more you do this, the greater resentment users have towards Yahoo Answers/Google. If #2-3-4 are occurring ~50% of the time, that's a lot waste. If it's in the 10-20% range, annoying, but not terrible. Less than that and you're doing a "good" job.

The responsibility falls on the shoulders of Yahoo, but also Google:

- If Yahoo reduces #3, search results will be less polluted.

- Stack Exchange does a better job with #3. Their community/insentive-system works.

- Google needs algorithms to eliminate/reduce #2-3-4.

If Google can't do that, they should measure how much time Yahoo Answer's wastes of their users. If it's large, consider de-indexing YA, but that's a nuclear step.

I think it's safe to agree that, as a collective, Stack Exchange has "better" answers than Yahoo, but users don't feel the averages when searching via Google. An answer is an answer, regardless of where it comes from. Google's job should be to present #1 and filter out #2-3-4. YA's/SE's job should be to eliminate #3, and their reward for doing so will mean more satisfied traffic from Google.

tblueski• 15 years ago

I agree. I use it. Sometimes good, sometimes crap, but I use it. This is getting annoying though... Everyone lately has been just spouting what should and should not be in google's results based on what they consider good content. Come on.

hugh4life2• 15 years ago

I actually don't mind Yahoo Answers in my search results... I know when to click there based on what I search for.

CurrentB• 15 years ago

His comments on Yahoo Answers' traffic coming from users migrating from Myspace struck me as way off. No one "hangs out" on Yahoo Answers because their tired the lack of anonymity on Myspace. The masses didn't leave Myspace because of any form of stalking.

Interesting interview overall I guess but his comments on this subject really annoyed me for some reason.

iamgoat• 15 years ago

That seemed a bit strange to me too. For all I know, Yahoo Answer users are there because they are young, they know the Yahoo brand (maybe from their parents), and they like the cuteness of the site,

digamber_kamat• 15 years ago

Yahoo answers are useful in many cases. Ask a question about health, sex, travel and its awesome.

db422• 15 years ago

Though, a ceo should not make a comment like this, this is certainly true for me.

jschuur• 15 years ago

Anecdotally, it feels like Yahoo Answers has been more useful for me for non technical topics. Usually, when I'm googling for the name of a song from a commercial or trailer, I'll find a Yahoo Answers page with the info.

nhebb• 15 years ago

I'm usually happy to see Stack Overflow in my search results, but I was reminded of a flaw this morning when I searched for "Manhattan layout algorithm". I clicked the "Show more results from stackoverflow.com" option. It turned out that a number of the SO listings appeared only because they all had the same link in the "Related" sidebar. I don't know if this is a common problem with other sites that list internal links in sidebars, but I only seem to notice it in Stack Overflow results.

(Unfortunately, I never did find a good description of the algorithm.)

hugh4life2• 15 years ago

Exactly... that "related" sidebar is terrible for getting relevant search results from Stack Overflow.

dillon• 15 years ago

They both have there good reasons for existence. For example, when I was taking Biology and Calculus those specific questions could always be answered with Yahoo. As far as technical questions I think Yahoo has a poor community to answer them while Stack has a very technical community.

trotsky• 15 years ago

Tech Crunch (an AOL property) leading with yet another slam against Yahoo, a competitor? I'm shocked.

I think I'd probably add TC to a google site ban list if I used google search. The difference between the AOL way and a content farm seems to be about ~30 minutes of effort per piece.

Limes102• 15 years ago

I think Yahoo Answers are quite useful. I hate Experts Exchange, however.

drivebyacct2• 15 years ago

Someone posts my Chemistry homework on Yahoo Answers and the answers generally walk all the way through the problems and are very helpful.

jscore• 15 years ago

Disagreed, seems like Joel is being his usual self and claiming that competitors products are useless.

I have found a lot of useful answers on yahoo answers on a range and depth of topics that do not exist within SE sites.

jasonkilkner• 15 years ago

Joel's really vocal about Yahoo!Answers, which is not fair to Yahoo!Answers. It's a huge site that caters to a broad base of users: take this question from a user

Why do universities cost more than community colleges? http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AukI2XODG.mO_QE...

It's just a question, picked from the front page.

It's a legitimate inquiry. I don't see a "what do penguins eat?"

More important question is what is Joel Smoking? What are his investors smoking? To let him make such off the wall assumptions.

danmarrone• 15 years ago

No offense, but Joel Spolsky looks pretty worn out and exhausted. Having a startup is great, but I suggest to Joel he take some much needed time off. Your body needs it.

Tichy• 15 years ago

I just want to find an answer to my question, I don't care so much where. There are far, far worse places where answers pop up. Like what are these weird mailing list to web converters, where you can not even see the conversation thread properly. Or all those private simple machine forums about the weirdest topics.

I remember when Yahoo! Answers came out it was actually pretty cool. I participated for a while and had fun. Has it deteriorated so much since? And why should other answer services fare better?

Btw, there are a lot of really low quality answers on Stack Overflow, too.

efsavage• 15 years ago

The yahoo answers that come up in search results may not be as good as those on stackexchange, but they're generally pretty good if they've ranked high enough on a google search.

For non-tech questions, I encounter many of the other mee-too q&a sites, and they usually yield someone (probably scraped from other sites) asking the question, with no answer. This has been happening with alarming frequency which to me, puts the ball in google's court.

Fixya.com, for example came up as unanswered questions in enough car/DIY searches for me recently that as soon as I saw the google blacklist feature I added them from memory.

JasonMoy78• 15 years ago

What happened to Joel Spolsky? I saw him at a conference two years ago and he looks terrible in this video. Not sure if it's the stress or whatever, but I don't want to see him working himself into a hole... get some time off dude. It's more important than your startup.

cpeterso• 15 years ago

Yahoo Answers is regularly trolled and the source of some memes, such as "How is Babby Formed":

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/how-is-babby-formed

Stack Exchange CEO: "Nobody Wants To Find Yahoo Answers In Their Search Results"

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