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How SEO Ruined the Internet

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Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#231

Post by DeathArrow »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #149
taberiand wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like we've flipped APIs on their heads - humans use tools to obtain the minimal data (just the recipe), while the bots make requests and receive the whole dump of pointless, extraneous fluff in return.

And here comes the business trick: API access is paid and restricted and requires you to enter a relationship with the data provider. Websites are purposefully made machine-unreadable, because otherwise a lot of people would use third-party scripts to avoid viewing ads and filler content. The Internet is the exact opposite of what it was meant to be. Instead of giving efficient access to high-quality information, it…

That is because the ad revenue model. Not many people would pay for subscription and I don't know of other working revenue models.

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#232

Post by DeathArrow »

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…

The smarter Google has become, the less relevant it is.

It was a lot easier finding things in 2004 than today.

That's because it tries to be clever and use synonims and search for terms it deems as related instead of actual search terms.

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#233

Post by DeathArrow »

userbinator wrote: post #186
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…

The "AI" that Google's search engine seems to have is definitely feeling more "human" over time, but not in a good way --- it's like a stupid salesperson who has trouble understanding what you're trying to find. An analogy I have is that you go into a pet shop and ask for a black cat, and instead the salesperson shows you black dogs, white cats, and green gerbils (because they're absolutely cool these days and you wo…

They should have a checkbox to disable AI. :)

Something as simple as Apache Lucene would beat Google's algorithm any day for relevance.

But I guess Google doesn't care for relevance, they just care to show you ads.

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#234

Post by TeMPOraL »

DeathArrow wrote: post #231
TeMPOraL wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And here comes the business trick: API access is paid and restricted and requires you to enter a relationship with the data provider. Websites are purposefully made machine-unreadable, because otherwise a lot of people would use third-party scripts to avoid viewing ads and filler content. The Internet is the exact opposite of what it was meant to be. Instead of giving efficient access to high-quality information, it…

That is because the ad revenue model. Not many people would pay for subscription and I don't know of other working revenue models.

More people would be willing to pay for subscription, directly or indirectly, if ad revenue model didn't exist. Otherwise, "free with ads" outcompetes all. That's why I'm in favor of banning "free with ads" wholesale.

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#235

Post by tincholio »

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 reads a lot like Webb and Mitchell's gift shop skit. https://youtu.be/7MFtl2XXnUc

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#236

Post by DeathArrow »

sub7 wrote: post #15

Wasn't SEO, it was a Google's "Suggest over Search" strategy, followed by the completely predictable bastardization of organic results by internal groups. Biz ops says increasing revenue for [random Google bs] by ranking Y over Z in the results, so it happens. M&A says Rotten Tomatoes won't give us all their data, their users and their firstborns so they won't show up, even on page 2. This is literally what antitrust…

>By us I mean the US govt so we're basically fucked.

I'd imagine Mr Trump tweeting: "Google is broken. I am the only one that can fix it."

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#237

Post by DeathArrow »

Nextgrid wrote: post #97
inshadows wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does Google determine bounce rate? That I click on another search result after I click on the first one?

Google search result links don’t link to the site directly but go through a Google-provided redirect that presumably has a reference to the original search query. If you were to go back to the same search result page and click on another result within a short timeframe they will assume you “bounced”. They also have Google Analytics littering the majority of the web, so I’m assuming that gives them a signal as well.

But website began splitting small articles in 20 pages you have to click trough instead of scroll and they disable back button.

I rather open a new tab from search results and close it instead of clicking the link and going back. I imagine many people do that.

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#238

Post by DeathArrow »

alexmingoia wrote: post #194

I really dislike posts like this on HN. It’s essentially whining. The author does not suggest any alternative, does not offer any ideas of their own, and just laments the state of the world. Instead let’s upvote articles on how to build search engines, how search indexing could be improved, how Google’s search works, etc.

So if my car breaks I am not supposed to say it is broken unless I provide detailed instructions on how to fix it and on how a car should be engineered to avoid being broken?

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#240

Post by DeathArrow »

FiatLuxDave wrote: post #101
durnygbur wrote: post #57

Google with default settings is useless and using more sophisticated queries quickly walls off the user with increasingly annoying captcha. The "world's knowledge under you fingertips" motto is still valid and brilliant though. My personal solution is library of OCR-ed PDFs with most established books from various domains, git repository for each domain. Greppable in miliseconds, locally. Hijack this, SEO experts!

Your personal solution sounds interesting. I'd be interested to know more details about it, and how it works for you. If it is how I imagine it, it could also be one of those things that could be built into a tool that could rival Wikipedia or search engines. Based on your reply to handsomechad, you may think that it's easiest for people to just build one themselves. But there may be a business opportunity in providi…

There's b-ok.org
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