HACKER Q&A
📣 mcguire

Google search query for `scheme tutorial`?


I have always found Google search to be spectacularly good, especially compared with their predecessors or even things like Bing. But I recently ran a query that consistently gets a bad response and I'm wondering if its somehow due to my personal Google profile or if others see the same thing.

Now, I've noticed more advertising in the results, usually when searching for something that could be a commercial product, and a plethora of sponsored results. I'm not talking about that. The search I ran is for 'scheme tutorial'. The first result I get---even before YouTube videos---is Arun Muthu's Programming in Scheme — The Quick and Definitive Scheme Tutorial from 2020. It seems like a lovely tutorial, but it is only Part One, with no other parts.

The only reason I can see for its prominence is that it is posted on Medium. Of course, Part One is the only thing posted by Muthu.

Can anyone else reproduce this?

  👤 solardev Accepted Answer ✓
I get the same thing in an incognito window. Searching from my regular phone from Oregon.

For what it's worth, ChatGPT gives a few examples too. I use Google less and less these days because it's so spammy and useless. The LLMs seem a lot better for the time being, at least until they become ad ridden wastelands too.