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Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it

mdolon.com

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Re: Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it

#71

Post by zwaps »

Hm, this is not really news, but perhaps it's the first time I consciously think about it.

The article is right. I used to search Google for what the best X is. At some point. Indeed, I also used to search amazon and read the reviews.

Now, and for what feels like a while, I am not doing that anymore. Like, at all. And this is not a decision I consciously made.

If I want to know what the best dishwasher is, I am not going to amazon. I am not putting it into Google, simply because it's all affiliate links all the way down. I either read professional reviews (like non-profit and established test companies, like Warentest here in Germany) or I ask the community somewhere.

Google and Amazon have conditioned me to subconsciously not use them anymore for that purpose.

Very interesting.

Re: Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it

#72

Post by city41 »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #66
iamben wrote: post #63

We're going to end up going back to community sites. Reddit is obviously the good example here, but you can guarantee if you find a 'racing bike' forum (or whatever), take the time to join up, search, ask - someone with a passion for it will give you a great, well researched list because they love it and take pride from knowing . Exactly the same as when I ask my friend who's passionate about wine for his recommendat…

I want you to be right but the GME and AMC nonsense doesn’t instill a lot of confidence that Reddit isn’t being gamed already by automated accounts. I’ve had my own comment altered a little and regurgitated by a bot before, which was extremely creepy. But you are right that the signal to noise is at least better on Reddit.

I do think it is slowly deteriorating though. I've noticed it on indie gaming subreddits. A dev will announce a new game and I suspect a lot of the comments are fake. Maybe not bots just yet, probably more likely the dev gathered a large group of friends to help out. But it wouldn't surprise me if this type of promotion became more and more bot driven as time goes on.

Re: Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it

#73

Post by mandmandam »

willj wrote: post #39
scwoodal wrote: post #7

I add “site:reddit.com” to consumer/product related Google searches. This usually gets me the quality information I’m looking for.

I do the same, but I think there are an increasing number of astroturf campaigns taking advantage of that, too.

There certainly are, and they are growing more sophisticated.

Still better than print media though.

Re: Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it

#74

Post by blisterpeanuts »

mustacheemperor wrote: post #62
flenserboy wrote: post #49

Google broke itself over a decade ago when they began giving you results either that their algorithms assumed you wanted or that they wanted you to have , period. Verbatim search hardly produces anything useful anymore, either. Search has been coopted, making the prime thing (past general connectivity) that made the internet so useful now all but worthless.

I’ve found DuckDuckGo can be better at some searches, and at others far worse. I was recently trying to search up how to do something in Excel and every result from DDG was some “excel-help” website that was actually just parroting common search terms as the headers on non-articles full of ads. The entire search space has apparently been hijacked by what is essentially a fake help site. I see results like that on goo…

Isn't the phenomenon you're describing (and I agree it's a real trend) more due to SEO efforts than to any defects in the search engine itself?

It seems like there are millions of how-to informational articles now that are inherently designed to be clickbait. It's not that they don't have useful information, but they make you dig through a lot more verbiage than is necessary, because apparently some search engines think longer = more informative.

Re: Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it

#75

Post by makecheck »

scwoodal wrote: post #7

I add “site:reddit.com” to consumer/product related Google searches. This usually gets me the quality information I’m looking for.

Yes but unfortunately it still creates links using the “new” Reddit interface. Installing an add-on like Old Reddit Redirect helps to restore sanity when searching by site.

Re: Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it

#76

Post by RandomLensman »

zwaps wrote: post #71

Hm, this is not really news, but perhaps it's the first time I consciously think about it. The article is right. I used to search Google for what the best X is. At some point. Indeed, I also used to search amazon and read the reviews. Now, and for what feels like a while, I am not doing that anymore. Like, at all. And this is not a decision I consciously made. If I want to know what the best dishwasher is, I am not g…

Buried in there is also the fact that getting good and reliable information might indeed not be cheap (could be paid for by the public/donors if it is a non-profit, but still costs).

In the earlier days of the web and search that was not so much the case, I reckon. For example, a lot more paywalls than 10 years ago.

Re: Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it

#77

Post by gumby »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #43
scwoodal wrote: post #7

I add “site:reddit.com” to consumer/product related Google searches. This usually gets me the quality information I’m looking for.

Are there any nice Chrome extensions to expand on Google that anyone can recommend? Would be nice to have a default Reddit setting, or a 'search reddit' button on Google. There's a couple other ones as well besides Reddit, particularly around key forums. Shouldn't be too hard to allow custom-buttons. In general now that people are here, I'd be pretty interested to know what people's top 5 extensions are outside of th…

> Are there any nice Chrome extensions to expand on Google that anyone can recommend?

Just have to point out the irony of patching google’s spyware browser to get around google’s poor results

Re: Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it

#78

Post by eddieh »

dageshi wrote: post #33
hdjjhhvvhga wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Reddit is always going to be better. Niche subs are where actual experts who've tried entire ranges of products hang out, amazon is where one random guy bought their first crappy product and left a 5 star review because they don't actually know whether what they bought is good or not.

If consumers start relying on niche subs en masse, then it is only a matter of time until Reddit is overrun with shills and sock puppets.

Re: Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it

#79

Post by alistairSH »

hesk wrote: post #27

I think a bike is one of those items that you have to try out before you buy it, so I would not buy it online and I also would not go to Google to research it (at least initially). When I was in the market for a new bike a few years ago, I looked at Yelp to find the 5-6 bicycle shops with the best rating in my city. Then I went to each shop and told them what I wanted from my bike and my budget. This process went ver…

I agree with try-before-you-buy for bicycles - size, style, etc make a massive difference in utility and comfort.

But, how would somebody who only had a bike as a child know this? Google isn't telling them - it sends them to Amazon via listicles. If they happen to search "how to buy a bicycle" there are some potentially useful results. But, even if they do end up a bicycle shop, their likely to run into inventory problems - many bike shops simply don't have any bikes right now. So, it's back to Amazon, or Craigslist/FB Marketplace, or worse.

Re: Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it

#80

Post by thrower123 »

tmccrary55 wrote: post #68
iamben wrote: post #63

We're going to end up going back to community sites. Reddit is obviously the good example here, but you can guarantee if you find a 'racing bike' forum (or whatever), take the time to join up, search, ask - someone with a passion for it will give you a great, well researched list because they love it and take pride from knowing . Exactly the same as when I ask my friend who's passionate about wine for his recommendat…

I bet Reddit could take a big chunk of Stack Overflow's market share.

Reddit would need to fix their UI so that it isn't actively hostile to people trying to read content on their site.
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