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How SEO Ruined the Internet

superhighway98.com

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Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#41

Post by greggman3 »

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…

There are definitely sites who's results I wish I could ban from my results. I won't visit them so they are just a waste of space. My short list, thillist, collider, vulture.

Also related to SEO I think is every cooking recipe seems to be 6 to 8 large images and a bunch of unneeded text followed by the recipe 8 to 12 screens down. AFAICT it's entirely not related to me getting to the recipe and instead either a pattern for SEO or ads.

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#42

Post by krapp »

netsharc wrote: post #39
krapp wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yes, you said it was happening currently, so I tried it. The problem you're complaining about doesn't actually appear to exist, at least not objectively.

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#43

Post by mcv »

midef wrote: post #8
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 like playing around with "Million Short" - https://millionshort.com . It's a search engine that lets you logarithmically filter-out the top websites. It isn't perfect, of course, but its a fun way to discover things.

That is a fantastic idea.

Of course some of those top sites, especially the blogging and self-hosting platforms, can still contain obscure stuff that might be just what I'm looking for.

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#44

Post by greggman3 »

blunte wrote: post #38
netsharc wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...?

Why? He's an academy award winning actor who is hugely popular or else he'd be out of a job.

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#45

Post by eitland »

capableweb wrote: post #27
eitland wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Yes, on average it works Maybe we frequent vastly different websites, but this has absolutely not been true for me, even for companies who are supposed to be experts at using their data. I don't think I've ever seen an ad that has actually been relevant, and I'm not even trying to hide my habits or behaviors. For example, take Amazon. Their ads all over the web frequently recommends me stuff I've already bought jus…

> > Yes, on average it works

> Maybe we frequent vastly different websites...

I think we agree. What I mean is on average it works for Google, not that it works for us. They still makes boatloads of cash.

For what I know the targeting is equally bad for you and me and everyone and they are just convincing advertisers that is worth paying for despite this.

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#46

Post by msl »

CameronBanga wrote: post #26
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…

This is correct. DuckDuckGo is finally better.

My experience is the opposite: while there certainly was a time when I felt DDG actually respected my queries [1] that time is now gone. The results I get often have very little to do with what I typed in the search box. I find myself resorting to !g more often than ever before.

[1] I seem to have thought so in last December: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18665232

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#47

Post by laichzeit0 »

Just use a different search engine. Right now DDG is the only viable alternative. Just force yourself to use it, regardless of all the edge cases that suck. When DDG becomes as crap as Google, we can use whatever alternative exists at that time to replace it. The same goes for Instagram, it's slowly but surely turned into an ad infested cesspit (Three consecutive ads between user stories? seriously?). This is how the cycle goes I'm afraid.

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#49

Post by eitland »

msl wrote: post #46
CameronBanga wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is correct. DuckDuckGo is finally better.

My experience is the opposite: while there certainly was a time when I felt DDG actually respected my queries [1] that time is now gone. The results I get often have very little to do with what I typed in the search box. I find myself resorting to !g more often than ever before. [1] I seem to have thought so in last December: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18665232

> while there certainly was a time when I felt DDG actually respected my queries [1] that time is now gone.

I sometimes wonder if they've hired some ex-googlers lately because yes, this is my experience as well ;-)

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#50

Post by krapp »

blunte wrote: post #37

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).

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

That's hardly dismal. That not even mildly inconvenient.

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