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Google are removing URLs entirely from search results?

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Re: Google are removing URLs entirely from search results?

#101

Post by jordigh »

jsilence wrote: post #81
yyyk wrote: post #50

This is a purely anti-user move. No user gains anything by it, this actually helps phishing sites. Oh, and it happens to help Google's AMP effort, which can now pretend to be the original site even more effectively. Time to get everyone to use Duck Duck Go, and to get rid of those Google CAPTCHAs which are an even bigger data harvesting operation than search.

Would love to switch to DDG, but it consistently gives me search results that do not contain s search term at all, even when I wrap it in double quotes. So they give me thousands of non relevant search results.

Use +"quotes and a plus sign".

Re: Google are removing URLs entirely from search results?

#102

Post by mrpopo »

jsilence wrote: post #81
yyyk wrote: post #50

This is a purely anti-user move. No user gains anything by it, this actually helps phishing sites. Oh, and it happens to help Google's AMP effort, which can now pretend to be the original site even more effectively. Time to get everyone to use Duck Duck Go, and to get rid of those Google CAPTCHAs which are an even bigger data harvesting operation than search.

Would love to switch to DDG, but it consistently gives me search results that do not contain s search term at all, even when I wrap it in double quotes. So they give me thousands of non relevant search results.

I've seen this a lot more with Google search actually. Google tries to outsmart me and show me what they think I want instead of what I'm searching.

And I can't believe that you would get thousands of non relevant results. Please show an example.

Re: Google are removing URLs entirely from search results?

#103

Post by bsdubernerd »

filesystem wrote: post #97
bsdubernerd wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my tech circle, almost everyone has switched to another search engine (ddg mostly, startpage, bing), which is quite telling. I noticed as I spot them in a search result page while together, not because they told me. This was an eye opener. I initially _had_ to because the search itself became unreliable for me (finding technical terms is now a frustration in quoting and checking for "missing from the page: term"),…

I have tried to switch to DDG as my primary a few times now. It works great for basic searches, but I still go to google when I’m troubleshooting something and need answers fast. DDG just isn’t there yet in terms of time-to-answer.

I'm not 100% happy with DDG either, it just needs to be less frustrating than google on the average, which lowers the bar to competition a lot.

Re: Google are removing URLs entirely from search results?

#104

Post by stragies »

throwaway122378 wrote: post #3

They also do open most links in their own google.com wrapper. Time to break them up

Does anybody here know, what the currently recommended Firefox Addon for removing these redirects is?

The first few results from the searches all have recent "Doesn't work anymore"-ish comments.

Re: Google are removing URLs entirely from search results?

#105

Post by MeteorMarc »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #96
swebs wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Duckduckgo uses Bing search in the back end, which is dogshit. Alternatively, you can use Startpage, which uses Google results, but anonymized.

Is Startpage still anonymous? I thought they got bought by an adtech firm

Startpage.com is and always has been anonymous, according to Wikipedia and without any credible sources denying this.

Where did you get your suggestion?

Re: Google are removing URLs entirely from search results?

#106

Post by F00bart »

swebs wrote: post #89
jsilence wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would love to switch to DDG, but it consistently gives me search results that do not contain s search term at all, even when I wrap it in double quotes. So they give me thousands of non relevant search results.

Duckduckgo uses Bing search in the back end, which is dogshit. Alternatively, you can use Startpage, which uses Google results, but anonymized.

Duckduckgo claims to use 400 sources [0], so you’re probably not totally spot on.

Edit: However, that includes their Instant Answers feature, and the numbers are outdated, it’s 1600 sources, most of which are catering to an specific and tiny niche (like angular.js docs, or a dictionary of accounting terms). Main sources are Bing, Yahoo, Wolfram Alpha and their own crawler (according to Wikipedia).

[0] https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/so...

Re: Google are removing URLs entirely from search results?

#107

Post by gniv »

buboard wrote: post #25
RenRav wrote: post #21

This is how the mobile version of Google behaves, is it not?

I see an icon and address above the title on mobile

Are you sure? Sometimes the title of a page is the url (or they use the url when the title is missing?). I see titles mostly.

Re: Google are removing URLs entirely from search results?

#108

Post by judge2020 »

davidy123 wrote: post #61

First of all, I hope this is just an tiny experiment or better a hoax, and won't be widely adopted. Google deserves constant critique, but they also deserve credit as a company that often promotes the open way first (for example, schema.org as a way anyone can describe their information, which can be ready by anyone). But if it's not an experiment, I'd start putting my energy into moving away from Google. In the Alta…

I think it's more "test with users but keep programmers/power users happy". Old accounts (or maybe accounts they deem to be 'power users'?) still see the green http/s links, and my search for "mortgages" doesn't show the favicons like the reddit suggests.

https://i.judge.sh/rare/Spoon/chrome_EVGYE1pF7H.png

This happened with the little icons next to the "all/news/images" tabs at the top a few months ago, I didn't see them in my G search but incognito showed them.

Re: Google are removing URLs entirely from search results?

#109

Post by F00bart »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #96
swebs wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Duckduckgo uses Bing search in the back end, which is dogshit. Alternatively, you can use Startpage, which uses Google results, but anonymized.

Is Startpage still anonymous? I thought they got bought by an adtech firm

Link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21371577

Re: Google are removing URLs entirely from search results?

#110

Post by falcrist »

dessant wrote: post #84
yyyk wrote: post #50

This is a purely anti-user move. No user gains anything by it, this actually helps phishing sites. Oh, and it happens to help Google's AMP effort, which can now pretend to be the original site even more effectively. Time to get everyone to use Duck Duck Go, and to get rid of those Google CAPTCHAs which are an even bigger data harvesting operation than search.

Do we have any recourse against this monopoly, other than voicing our concerns repeatedly while they ignore us? Can we launch a class action lawsuit against Google if they harm people by limiting consumer choice, and force us to be tracked everywhere using reCAPTCHA v3 and various other methods? Keep in mind that not sending your data to Google is not a real option, there are several government services, health care…

Gentle reminder that Alphabet is now listed as one of the biggest lobbying firms in the US. They spend tens of millions telling lawmakers what laws to write.
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