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Every Google result now looks like an ad

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Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#891

Post by mlang23 »

pyrale wrote: post #561
dheera wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess sites with real, useful content (e.g. Wikipedia) don't need strong SEO since they have a ton of back-links from other sites that validate their high ranking, so "strong SEO" is really about making a less useful site look more useful, which makes sense for them to hate. SEO really translates to "How to fool Google into boosting your ranking artifically".

In my experience, Wikipedia has been relegated lower and lower in search results. So much so that I now specifically use their search tool rather than go through google just in case some interesting thing pops up.

I noticed that as well over the years. Also, one thing that really drives me crazy is that Google is trying to steer me into using the german wikipedia, even though I am already explicitly searching for the english article name. I really prefer reading the english version for techie topics, no matter if there might be an article in my native language. This is the sort of "smart" behaviour that really feels dumb.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#892

Post by tripzilch »

tjoff wrote: post #822
nikofeyn wrote: post #800

Earlier quoted context omitted.

google amp is a plague on the internet and should have been shutdown by regulators. it is definitely anti-competitive. i am sick and tired of our government completely slaving to the big tech companies when it comes to regulations and anti-competitive behavior. google amp on mobile overrides behavior on mobile, even on android, so instead of web links opening up in the respective and selected default app, it opens up…

Unless I misunderstood, that is something you disable in each (google)app that has that "feature". In Gmail for instance: settings: General settings: Open links in gmail. Turn on for "faster" browsing. Default is on. Tip: Use firefox focus instead as the default browser to open all links. If the link warrants further look copy the url to your main browser. The above has nothing to do with amp. But to not detract, amp…

> Unless I misunderstood, that is something you disable in each (google)app that has that "feature".

> In Gmail for instance: settings: General settings:

> Open links in gmail. Turn on for "faster" browsing.

I changed this setting, but now I clicked a link in gmail and indeed it opens via Firefox, but it still gets redirected through a google-URL before getting to the real page. I want to disable that behaviour most of all.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#893

Post by SkyBelow »

DeusExMachina wrote: post #206
SkyBelow wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Morals are also subjective. Take something pretty far on the other end of the spectrum, killing kids. Now compare to abortion. Lots of different people with lots of different views. What one sees as evil another would see the ban of it as evil.

While I sort of agree with your point, I don't agree with your example. Almost everyone agrees that killing children is immoral. People in favor of abortion stick to a definition in which abortion is not killing children. Whether that definition is right or wrong is what is at the center of the debate.

>Almost everyone agrees that killing children is immoral.

Almost isn't everyone, meaning it is still subjective for some.

>People in favor of abortion stick to a definition in which abortion is not killing children.

That shows that even the notion of 'children' is subjective.

>Whether that definition is right or wrong is what is at the center of the debate.

For some, not for others. There are many arguments on both sides and some depend upon this while others do not care about the distinction.

But we can use other examples. Take murder. There is subjective disagreement on what counts as murder and when certain forms of murder are wrong. Laws concretely differ between what is acceptable self defense and what is considered murder, and these differences mirror the moral differences people have that gave rise to these laws.

Many times you'll find people who will agree some word is wrong, but then disagree on what is covered under that word. If we both agree X is wrong, but then have totally different views on what constitute X, do we really both agree that X is wrong or do we have fundamental disagreement?

Swapping to something more technical, if we both agree commenting code is good, but you think comments are those blobs of text with syntax telling the compiler to ignore it while I think comments are super long method and variable names and don't count those blobs of text with syntax telling the compiler to ignore them as comments, then do we really agree that commenting code is important?

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#894

Post by auiya »

cytzol wrote: post #26

I've been in this A/B test for a couple of months now, so I've had time to adjust, and I still hate it. I've just become so used to seeing the complete URL in green. The complete URL! If you hover over the results, you'll see that they like to take bits like numeric components or the query string out. This is part of Google's attempt to de-prioritise the URL. Their destructive AMP service confusingly shows you Google…

> This is part of Google's attempt to de-prioritise the URL

And people wonder why phishing is a thing?

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#896

Post by presiozo »

So interestingly, depending on what you're looking for, Google is actually not the best search engine to use.

At this point DuckDuckGo is best for keyword searches, Google is good if your searching for concepts and links sorted by popularity and similar subjects.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#897

Post by zimbatm »

Remember when Google was good?

One of the main selling point when they introduced ads was that they would be clearly marked as such. The ads were on the side so that they couldn't be confused with the search results.

This was sold in contrast to all the other "bad" search engines who would first show a page of ads that looked like search results.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#898

Post by techslave »

tristador wrote: post #889
Huntro wrote: post #878

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They intentionally show a broken UI if your user agent is Vivaldi. [1] In my opinion this is really concerning. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkayN3xiRDc

Crazy. User agent strings are such a broken concept where every browser pretends to be another. How anyone is still attempting to use them to do anything useful is beyond me. If you a building a webapp, use feature detection not user agent strings.

UA is advertisement (heh) of features. Why shouldn’t you use what the browser tells you?

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#899

Post by techslave »

JohnFen wrote: post #143
extropy wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO Google is doing the best they can to serve you relevant results, just that everyone and their uncle is spamming internet to get up in the ranking game. Think of modern google as a question answering machine not a serch engine. And do "Show me Pioneer 10 subwoofer manufacturer specs" instead of just jamming keywords and hoping for the best.

> IMO Google is doing the best they can to serve you relevant results Maybe, but if so then they're singularly bad at it. Google consistently gives me worse results than DDG and Bing, anyway. I really think it's because Google is trying to figure out what I "really mean" by my search queries, and it's really terrible at guessing.

because you are being swamped by the order of magnitude more people that want to find a price or buy it.
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