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This is the prime purpose of these gigantic companies. Of course it works like that.
The smartest software developers in the world dedicate their working lives to advertising.
As for the search in question: instead of "best commuter bikes for under $500", do yourself a favor and buy a beater bike for $100-200. The comfort is the same if not higher, but you stop thinking about your bike at all, and if someone steals it you buy another one next day without shedding a tear. My favorite ones are by fahrradmanufaktur, very solid, a new one will cost you a few thousand bucks, but after 5-7 years…
I really was clueless at the time and figured it would take at least $400-500 to get a decent starter bike. Thankfully I wound up coming across a used bicycle sale in Brooklyn shortly after and picked up an old Giant for $150. Have probably done a couple of thousand miles on it since!
I add “site:reddit.com” to consumer/product related Google searches. This usually gets me the quality information I’m looking for.
I guess many people do that, but it shows the review system failed miserably when you look for quality information on reddit. I mean, in theory, reddit would have all kinds of noise and fake opinions, whereas Amazon etc. should have only verified and curated reviews, including methodologies for spotting abuse and procedures for manual verification. Well, the economics of scale that drives them insane profits is also…
I would argue that google is being used incorrectly here. Google is specially being asked for a product list which meets a certain criteria. The user is asking Google to recommend the best bikes.. The user is actually looking for authoritative bicycle reviews to make a purchasing decision. Searching for “bicycle reviews” would give a far higher chance of finding what the user is after. They can then use the criteria…
Nope. Google will still give you dumb reviews pages full of “Check price on Amazon” affiliate links. What works for me is adding “site:reddit.com” or “forum” to search.
I could say that affiliate marketing in general... wirecutter - NYT has a whole site and twitter feed for their "deals" with affiliate links
The Wirecutter has been accused of changing their recommendations based on their ability to monetise product links as an affiliate: https://www.xdesk.com/wirecutter-standing-desk-review-pay-to...
There are plenty of very good new bikes at almost all price points and the guy in the local bike shop can show you three bikes suited to your size, your use case and your budget.
Docking about online doing your research is all very interesting but the guy in the bike shop will help you just fine without you being an armchair expert.
No point ranting on about Amazon you just have to get away from the screen and get to the bike shop.
I think search is broken full stop for any search in the form "Best X in/for/under Y" - there are too many low quality sites publishing 'list' articles, which just link to items for sale that offer them affiliate commission. For the example of "bikes under $500" it's often better to do a google news search to get magazine/newspaper articles where they are more likely to have done actual reviews.
I don't understand the logic here. Why exactly would Google want people to thoughlessly click on Amazon affiliate links from other sites? There's no short-term beneft, since they don't get a cut. And there's no long-term benefit, since it just risks teaching people to go straight to Amazon for commercial searches.
I add “site:reddit.com” to consumer/product related Google searches. This usually gets me the quality information I’m looking for.
I believe both search and affiliate programs have flaws... but I didn't see anything that convinced me this is some conspiracy between the companies. I also don't have a problem with affiliate programs. If someone posts links that are relevant to the topic at hand, there is little harm in them getting a few cents from a purchase I would have made anyway. If anything, it is funding content creation in a way that works…
Affiliate programs distort content, to the point of being useless, or justify making of outright fake content.