Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

RIP Google, a ‘Search Engine’ from 1998-2018

webmarketingschool.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 33 posts

Re: RIP Google, a ‘Search Engine’ from 1998-2018

#11

Post by kazinator »

> Right now, example queries that no longer return real results include (but may not be limited to): [...]

> [...] km to miles [...]

> while these searches don’t trigger third party organic results, they DO trigger ads:

Whaaaat? I just tried "km to miles". While the built-in km to miles converter gadget does appear at the top, there are actual search results below that. Pages and pages of non-ad results. The first bunch of results are various unit converter pages.

These SEO scoundrels are such pathological liars that they no longer even care when they are lying in a way that is instantly falsifiable.

Re: RIP Google, a ‘Search Engine’ from 1998-2018

#13

Post by mempko »

tthayer wrote: post #3

This looks like a "user first" approach which I, as a user, really dig. Don't forget that Google is likely losing out on adwords revenue as a result of this change.

Wolfram alpha tells the user how they interpreted your question, google doesn't. So how do you know google is giving you the right answer? Without search results, alternative answers are harder to get. Remember the 'how far is the sun' query ?

Re: RIP Google, a ‘Search Engine’ from 1998-2018

#14

Post by matthewmacleod »

gus_massa wrote: post #7
matthewmacleod wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure it is clickbait. Previously, typing things into Google would result in a list of webpages that matched the phrase you typed in, with various ambiguity around that to allow for flexibility. Now it doesn't do that, by default. Yeah, there's button to do it, so it's not like anybody can't access the results anymore. But certainly from the perspective of the first experience, this is a huge change . Assuming…

They show whatever they want to show. For example see https://www.google.com/search?q=matemathica If you search for "matemathica" they will show the results of "mathematica" instead, and offer to search for the original word. Sometimes they mix the results of the original word and the autocorrected version. Sometimes they show the results of the original and offer to show the results of the autocorrection.

I know, and I did explicitly point out that there was ambiguity in there. But there’s a bit of a difference, I feel.

Re: RIP Google, a ‘Search Engine’ from 1998-2018

#15

Post by matthewmacleod »

kazinator wrote: post #11

> Right now, example queries that no longer return real results include (but may not be limited to): [...] > [...] km to miles [...] > while these searches don’t trigger third party organic results, they DO trigger ads: Whaaaat? I just tried "km to miles". While the built-in km to miles converter gadget does appear at the top, there are actual search results below that. Pages and pages of non-ad results. The first bu…

I would point out that I do see the thing that they are describing, which I incidentally noticed, and it’s more likely that Google are A/B testing than that everybody is a liar :)

Re: RIP Google, a ‘Search Engine’ from 1998-2018

#16

Post by darshanrampatel »

gtirloni wrote: post #2

This seems to be about a change where, if you search for "time toronto", it'll show you the time in Toronto in a mostly blank page and a button labeled "Show all results". Very clicky-batey title.

Where is this button? It's not shown in the screenshots in the article or on my mobile: https://s18.postimg.org/rjhqgav4p/wp_ss_20180315_0001.png

Re: RIP Google, a ‘Search Engine’ from 1998-2018

#17

Post by iamben »

starshadowx2 wrote: post #5

I don't understand the issue with this. "Oh no, Google is giving me what I just asked for, what will the people running websites that do this exact thing ever do? I really wish I had to click extra times and load other websites to get this info instead of it just being presented to me when I ask."

I suppose it's not really an issue unless Google moves into your market? Then I'd imagine it's a massive issue. If the bulk of your traffic is Google, and they stop showing you for certain queries, it's going to hurt.

Re: RIP Google, a ‘Search Engine’ from 1998-2018

#18

Post by ocdtrekkie »

iamben wrote: post #17
starshadowx2 wrote: post #5

I don't understand the issue with this. "Oh no, Google is giving me what I just asked for, what will the people running websites that do this exact thing ever do? I really wish I had to click extra times and load other websites to get this info instead of it just being presented to me when I ask."

I suppose it's not really an issue unless Google moves into your market? Then I'd imagine it's a massive issue. If the bulk of your traffic is Google, and they stop showing you for certain queries, it's going to hurt.

And a big part of this is: Where did Google get their data in the first place. Celebrity Net Worth has been torched by Google, for example, because Google scrapes their data without permission and offers it up without compensating them in any way.

This ends up hurting users, because now the company that's actually getting the data isn't getting compensated, if they go out of business, you get worse data. This is the same problem with blogspam sites getting ranked above the real journalists who uncovered the news.

Source: https://theoutline.com/post/1399/how-google-ate-celebritynet...

Re: RIP Google, a ‘Search Engine’ from 1998-2018

#19

Post by pnloyd »

The way Google has been sculpting it's products is consistent with their statement of "organizing information". Now it's almost like web is just becoming a fall back for when Google didn't happen to have the answers to a particular question on hand. But like other commenters are saying, the users love it!

SEO should just addapt there business to not being about gaming the search engines but instead consulting site owners to deliver quality content on well optimize d sites. Let's be honest here though, SEO as it was in the past is a dying discipline in light of the growing safistication of these "knowledge engines"

Re: RIP Google, a ‘Search Engine’ from 1998-2018

#20

Post by gregknicholson »

Google hasn't been primarily a web search company for ages — it's an advertising company. Either way, their ultimate goal is to make more money and evidently they think this helps that.

If you don't like their search service, you can use an alternative. The network effect fortunately doesn't apply to search engines.

I hope (but doubt) that Google will make their search service sufficiently awful that they will erode their own monopoly.

Post reply on HN