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How SEO Ruined the Internet

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Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#251

Post by tonyedgecombe »

ip26 wrote: post #215
cookiengineer wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time I land on websites that have such content I am wondering why anybody would want that kind of traffic. I mean, don't they have server costs? It's like they own an infinite amount of money bucket that constantly gets refilled somehow. Why are advertisers even paying them for such impressions? Are they so ridiculously retarded in their business model? Can we all hurt advertisers by setting up a website like t…

I know little about the ad business but the insinuation I've heard is that the advertisers don't want those impressions, but struggle to block these sites for one reason or another. In other words, it's basically a scam.

I think most advertisers aren't even aware, the ad platforms are so full of dark patterns it's hard to avoid this stuff.

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#252

Post by fingerlocks »

DoubleGlazing wrote: post #78
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…

That's why I miss pre-Google search engines such as AltaVista and alltheweb. "If you searched for "some obscure string of words" you would only get results that matches that exact string. I really don't like how Google just chooses to vary the spelling of your query when a match isn't found. I often search for electronics components using their part number. I'll type in something like "P204PPX" (a random code I just…

If a match isn’t found with your verbatim query, then it falls back to something similar. At least that’s my experience.

Random string of text still matches exact in quotes: https://www.google.com/search?q=%E2%80%9CI%20really%20don%27...

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#253

Post by arpa »

stevekemp wrote: post #244
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Say I want a recipe. A tried and true delicious recipe. Can I search and just find a recipe? Nope. Through the magic of SEO, I now have to scroll through 15 paragraphs of somebody's life story before being able to examine the time and ingredients. How much time and energy was wasted on building "tag" systems? All those fun little term link clouds that sites used to have. I know I wasted time on it. I had somethi…

Even worse when you do find the recipe it uses some crazy measuring system! What is one "cup" of flour? It obviously depends on how fine the flour is. Use grams! Use ounces! But above all use some kind of real measurement!

Psst, dude, i recently found out there are conversion tables for Freedom Units!

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#254

Post by nicbou »

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 is especially prevalent for simple questions that would normally have simple answers.

I'd like to know when to water my mint plant without reading about the whole history of mint.

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#255

Post by type0 »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #118
Tomte wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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,…

> People will rebuy good products,

The big reason advertisers show the ads for products you already purchased is also to reinforce their brand. If you buy some stupid cable, you wont remember the name of the company that made it, but you will if they show you the add couple of times in a row and will likely to buy the things there again even if it not the same product.

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#256

Post by type0 »

eitland wrote: post #79
BostonFern wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meme? If hearing this uttered bothers you this much, then maybe complaining about poor relevance in Google ads isn't such a good idea. I'm sorry that I seem to have offended you.

I'll try to explain: My post may contain a meme but it was directly relevant to the post above. Mentioning that I'm not Googles customer is significantly less relevant (I think irrelevant) when it is obvious that it should have been in the actual customers best interest to avoid spamming me with expensive and utterly irrelevant ads.

A meme, you say. Searching, you're doing it wrong.

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#257

Post by type0 »

josephjrobison wrote: post #180
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…

Google is of course going to return the most popular results to please the largest amount of people. If you're looking for more technical results, it'll take a more technical approach. You should learn search operators - https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2466433?hl=en - that allow you to control the results for specific sites or very detailed requests. Even better, set up a custom search engine - https://su…

Even better, don't use google

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#258

Post by umvi »

stevekemp wrote: post #244
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Say I want a recipe. A tried and true delicious recipe. Can I search and just find a recipe? Nope. Through the magic of SEO, I now have to scroll through 15 paragraphs of somebody's life story before being able to examine the time and ingredients. How much time and energy was wasted on building "tag" systems? All those fun little term link clouds that sites used to have. I know I wasted time on it. I had somethi…

Even worse when you do find the recipe it uses some crazy measuring system! What is one "cup" of flour? It obviously depends on how fine the flour is. Use grams! Use ounces! But above all use some kind of real measurement!

Most Americans don't have a kitchen scale

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#259

Post by kasbah »

Qub3d wrote: post #221
kasbah wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most Chrome extensions can now be run on Firefox without alterations. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/recipe-filter...

I tried loading the source as a temporary add-on, it looks like this is not one of them.

Did you see that I linked to the Firefox version of this extension?

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#260

Post by pixelrevision »

cookiengineer wrote: post #208
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…

Every time I land on websites that have such content I am wondering why anybody would want that kind of traffic. I mean, don't they have server costs? It's like they own an infinite amount of money bucket that constantly gets refilled somehow. Why are advertisers even paying them for such impressions? Are they so ridiculously retarded in their business model? Can we all hurt advertisers by setting up a website like t…

It’s all very parasitic and relies on a lot of disconnect. The advertisers often don’t even know what they are buying as these things go through “exchanges” that are basically computers buying and selling as real estate. The smaller the business the more likely they are to end up scammed by this because they will have less tools to monitor things.
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