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How SEO Ruined the Internet

superhighway98.com

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Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#31

Post by krapp »

netsharc wrote: post #10
mcv wrote: post #5

I totally agree. Google has become useless for about half my searches. It gives me only the biggest, most commercial or most popular results. Anything obscure is impossible to find. I'd like to have a search engine where you get only the most obscure, hard-to-find content. One where you can tweak the kind of content you're looking for, or even switch between different modes: am I just looking for the definition of a…

I have another "Google is shit now" anecdote: a few months ago I wanted to look up some trivia for the movie "Lord of War". I entered this term in Google, and since there was a game that was just released, it responded with "Showing you results for 'God of War'". No results on the front page had anything related to the Nic Cage movie.

Google usually shows a link to "search for x instead" when that happens. And let's be fair, most people searching for "Lord of War" are probably really searching for "God of War."

Having to click an extra link or maybe scroll beyond the front page doesn't make Google a shit show.

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#33

Post by krapp »

netsharc wrote: post #23
mda wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you find the exact search term from your search history?

It was "lord of war director's commentary". I thought it was because many more people were googling for the game, but I just tried and Google is still doing this!

I just searched "Lord of War" and the front page is entirely about the movie. Don't know what to tell you.

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#34

Post by fasicle »

mda wrote: post #14
mcv wrote: post #5

I totally agree. Google has become useless for about half my searches. It gives me only the biggest, most commercial or most popular results. Anything obscure is impossible to find. I'd like to have a search engine where you get only the most obscure, hard-to-find content. One where you can tweak the kind of content you're looking for, or even switch between different modes: am I just looking for the definition of a…

Half your searches? Isn't it a bit dramatic? You can always check your search history, but I seriously doubt 50% of your searches Google can not find anything - assuming data is somewhere accessible-. Tell us a few of the obscure things that you know exist openly and google could not find for you. I see these claims all the time, but usually with zero examples.

Agreed, I almost always find what I am looking for on my first search. It might be a few search results down the page, but usually what I'm looking for is found on the first search.

Maybe I've just adapted to typing in words and phrases into Google in a way that brings up the results I'm looking for.

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#35

Post by mcv »

mda wrote: post #14
mcv wrote: post #5

I totally agree. Google has become useless for about half my searches. It gives me only the biggest, most commercial or most popular results. Anything obscure is impossible to find. I'd like to have a search engine where you get only the most obscure, hard-to-find content. One where you can tweak the kind of content you're looking for, or even switch between different modes: am I just looking for the definition of a…

Half your searches? Isn't it a bit dramatic? You can always check your search history, but I seriously doubt 50% of your searches Google can not find anything - assuming data is somewhere accessible-. Tell us a few of the obscure things that you know exist openly and google could not find for you. I see these claims all the time, but usually with zero examples.

It's a very rough estimate. I'm not going to check every search in my history. But it feels like the chances I'll find what I need are comparable to the chances I won't.

One example: this weekend I was looking for lyrics from the British folk band Why?. I know they exist; my brother has a bunch of their albums. I have quoted lyrics at Google, I've searched for it on Youtube, I've searched for the band name combined with song titles or names of band members, and I found tons other bands and other random crap, but not the band I was looking for. Eventually I searched for a very specific phrase that was also the title of one of their live albums: "Jig at a Why? Gig", and that finally turned up results.

It's an obscure band, and their name being a common word certainly doesn't help, but certainly combined with song titles, lyrics and band members, it should be pretty clear what I'm looking for? But with Google giving strong preference to the most popular results, Google becomes primarily good at finding things you don't need a search engine for to find them. I want a search engine that's good at finding things that are lost, rather than in plain sight.

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#36

Post by fingerlocks »

netsharc wrote: post #23
mda wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you find the exact search term from your search history?

It was "lord of war director's commentary". I thought it was because many more people were googling for the game, but I just tried and Google is still doing this!

If you click the “search instead for...” then the non-video result was exactly what I believe you wanted.

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#37

Post by blunte »

The situation has gotten so dismal that I often have to look past page 1, and sometimes page 2 of search results.

Especially when looking for technical things or reviews on practically anything, the top 5 results are garbage sites (with content written or modified by people with names suggesting an SEO "content" factory in a particular region of the world).

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#38

Post by blunte »

netsharc wrote: post #10
mcv wrote: post #5

I totally agree. Google has become useless for about half my searches. It gives me only the biggest, most commercial or most popular results. Anything obscure is impossible to find. I'd like to have a search engine where you get only the most obscure, hard-to-find content. One where you can tweak the kind of content you're looking for, or even switch between different modes: am I just looking for the definition of a…

I have another "Google is shit now" anecdote: a few months ago I wanted to look up some trivia for the movie "Lord of War". I entered this term in Google, and since there was a game that was just released, it responded with "Showing you results for 'God of War'". No results on the front page had anything related to the Nic Cage movie.

Perhaps Google believed that nobody would intentionally look for a Nicolas Cage movie...?

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#39

Post by netsharc »

krapp wrote: post #33
netsharc wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was "lord of war director's commentary". I thought it was because many more people were googling for the game, but I just tried and Google is still doing this!

I just searched "Lord of War" and the front page is entirely about the movie. Don't know what to tell you.

So you replied to my response about the exact search term I used by telling me... this?

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#40

Post by mcv »

eitland wrote: post #22
mcv wrote: post #5

I totally agree. Google has become useless for about half my searches. It gives me only the biggest, most commercial or most popular results. Anything obscure is impossible to find. I'd like to have a search engine where you get only the most obscure, hard-to-find content. One where you can tweak the kind of content you're looking for, or even switch between different modes: am I just looking for the definition of a…

To me it seems the problem with Google goes far deeper than struggling with bad SEO. - For years it has been next to impossible to get a result that is faithful to the search you actually typed in. This is not dependent on SEO spammers at all, only on Googles unwillingness to accept that not every user is equal and some of us mean exactly what we write, especially when we take the time to enclose our queries in doubl…

> "For years it has been next to impossible to get a result that is faithful to the search you actually typed in."

Good lord, yes. If I type two words, I want preference for sites that contain both of them, yet the first results all have either one or the other, because surely I must be more interested in a popular site that uses only one of these, right? Google is sometimes too smart, trying to interpret exact words I type as vaguely related words. Sometimes that's relevant, but often it's not.

> "For ten years after I met my wife the most relevant ads Google could think of was dating sites. Not toys, not family holidays,"

They have a tendency to show you ads for exactly the thing you don't need anymore because you already found it. I don't think AI is in any danger of taking over the world just yet. Except with bad advertising, apparently.

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