I like the idea of more “metrics” being used to help “weight” the search results. E.g. if you’re viewed heaps of content from “magazine A”, then content should be surfaced more from that magazine.
I think that is the way ‘best’ works on reddit and it is the way I preferred to use that site. I agree with you that using metrics would be awesome with the added filter ‘best’.
It’s complete shit right now. 5 or more years ago I could quickly find an answer to a very technical question with no problem. Now it is useless for anything. Just today I was looking for a shop near me that can perform a front end alignment on my RV, I searched for “Tractor Trailer front end alignment near me”. The entire first page is either tire shops that do not offer front end alignments, car tire shops that don’t even sell the correct size tires I would need for a tractor trailer, or shops 2000 miles away in various directions. It’s horrible and I think it would be faster to look in the yellow pages for what I need in this case. I never found a shop using google.
Also today I was searching for the tires I need in the shopping tab there were ads for tires that google had labeled as wal-mart but when I would click the link it would take me to a Chinese scam site.