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How SEO Ruined the Internet

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Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#111

Post by ckolkey »

Kye wrote: post #90
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…

Recent example: I wanted to find out why the directions on those Banquet pot pies say to let it stand for five minutes. The words on the box say it finishes cooking in those five minutes. I want to find out more about that: why didn't it finish in the oven? Is it cover for liability, so people don't get burned? All Google returns is page after page of recipes and posts about Banquet pot pies that have no connection t…

This could perhaps be illustrated well with a hard boiled egg. If you remove an egg at the 7 minute mark, the internal temperature is still around 100c, and it will continue to cook. To stop it cooking, dunk it in cold water.

Similarly with the pot pie, the filling retains a ton of heat, so it still is cooking for those few minutes, as the heat dissipates. If you left it in the oven five minutes longer (to 'finish') then put it in cold water (like the egg), you would have a pie in a similar, though wetter, condition.

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#112

Post by calibas »

SEO effectively means catering to whatever metrics Google happens to be focusing on at the moment. It's supposed to reward "good" content, but there's really no way of automatically judging what's "good" content so Google relies on all these other methods that are open to abuse.

Whatever way Google rates websites has a direct effect on the web itself. In a way they're a victim of their own success.

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#113

Post by owlninja »

meesterdude wrote: post #69
RobertoG wrote: post #20

It kind of ruined content too. Why it ruined content? You are not the only one that is searching for the answer to that question. Keep reading to know why SEO ruined content. Many people think that SEO ruined content, in this post, we are goin to explain why SEO ruined content. When you finish reading this post, you will know why SEO ruined content. In the last years we have observed a grown in the quantity of conten…

this x1000! By pandering to the algorithm of google, a lot of great content has become watered down, softened, or impacted in other ways. Titles have to be worded a certain way, article length has to be a certain length... hoping someone else chimes in with other thoughts because I used to know more about this, and SEO cheapening quality content was one of the key takeaways I had.

Recipe blogs are the worst! Just get to the goods already!

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#114

Post by [deleted] »

eitland wrote: post #80
scollet wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They aren't being rude, just increasing the sample size and reporting back. Perhaps we're witnessing SEO for different regions, regulations, and aggregate history of the two.

Again, I'm not a native speaker, here are the exact words that krapp used: - "Don't know what to tell you." - "The problem you're complaining about doesn't actually appear to exist, at least not objectively." In my limited experience I don't see any reasons to use these exact words in this context except to belittle..? Anyone care to explain? My seatbelt is fastened and I'm ready to learn (and apologize if necessary…

[deleted]

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#115

Post by calibas »

leejoramo wrote: post #110

Anybody else remember when you could search for a phone number and find legitimate web pages that contained the phone number? We lost that a long time ago.

I just tried this out, and it works fine for at least one of the local organizations here, both in Google and DuckDuckGo (530-926-4698).

I just tried it with my own number, and my site comes up with both search engines as well.

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#116

Post by graeme »

scollet wrote: post #71
eitland wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are using a different query it seems. Also as a non native speaker you appear to be rude.

They aren't being rude, just increasing the sample size and reporting back. Perhaps we're witnessing SEO for different regions, regulations, and aggregate history of the two.

Found the point of confusion. “Lord of war” returns the movie. “ Lord of War director's commentary” returns the game.

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#117

Post by tone »

I'm actually really glad to have seen this and the comments. This has something I've been prattling on about to anyone who will listen for the last couple of years now. Glad to be somewhat vindicated!

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#118

Post by pbhjpbhj »

Tomte wrote: post #61
mcv wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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…

> They have a tendency to show you ads for exactly the thing you don't need anymore because you already found it Say you searched for a TV a month ago. Now you're seeing lots of ads about TVs. Stupid Google. But is it? A substantial fraction of those people are returning their TV because something is wrong with it. Now they are looking for another TV set. Sure, the majority keeps their TV. But it is still profitable…

Agreeing: This thread of thought comes up semi-regularly here, I've argued similarly to you.

People will rebuy good products, or be stimulated to replace other similar products (bought a new TV for the kitchen, now the lounge TV seems dated, new boots feel awesome get another pair for when they wear out, new $thing is fun buy one for friends birthday.).

There's also a big place for brand enforcement. Show Sony stuff, to remind someone ['s subconscious!] they bought Sony.

A tertiary effect is what I call the "Starbucks Purposeful Bad Naming effect" - you get ads for the exact TV you bought -- beyond the brand reinforcement, etc., you also get to tell everyone you meet a weird story about how "internet advertising is broken ..." and "yes, my new Sony TV is great thanks, you should get one".

Those ad agencies aren't stupid; they have metrics for their metrics and have tracking that can tell you to the second when your gut bacteria burps ...

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#120

Post by koyote »

mattowen_uk wrote: post #56

A MAJOR problem with google is it's assumption that if you search in English you don't care if the top results are American. I've noticed that on google.co.uk, unless you add 'uk' at the end of your search query you'll always get US sites first [1]. Google clearly lump all English based queries into the same geo-graphical bucket - they never used to do this. --- [1] Yes, I am logged in, and Google knows where in the…

It's even worse when you are trying to search in a language that is not English from a region that is English speaking.

I often look for recipes in French or German and it's impossible to find anything. I try to browse to google.de/fr, I try adding site:.fr but it will still try and give me the most English results. My Google search settings indicate I am happy with German and French results but it seems to have no affect...

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