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For some searches the whole screen on Google is now ads

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Re: For some searches the whole screen on Google is now ads

#201

Post by tomatofrank »

Last night I watched a YouTube video that had a song in the background that I hadn't heard but really liked. I pulled up Shazam but it didn't recognize the song, so I took to Google. I entered the lyric and added the search terms "lyrics" and "r&b" at the end. Google returned 4 YouTube videos to songs that didn't contain the lyric, a link to a Boyz II Men song on Genius that didn't contain the lyric (good job Google, you know an R&B band), a link to peterbe.com to find a song by lyrics, and a bunch of other useless links. I clicked on to page 2, which hilariously presented 3 of the 4 YouTube videos that were on page 1.

I was immediately turned off, so I pulled up DuckDuckGo and Bing, entered the same exact query, and both engines returned the song I was looking for in the first result. I laughed out loud.

I then thought to myself, "I wonder how many pages I would have had to flip through in Google to find this result." Eventually, I found it. It was the 68th result on page 7.

Re: For some searches the whole screen on Google is now ads

#202

Post by heavyset_go »

lolinder wrote: post #198
ssss11 wrote: post #2

Yeah I’ve noticed this too. But also the rest of the front page is often either seo spam (like those Pinterest links which catch whatever search term you’ve used) or shopping sites. I’ve found google search to be increasingly hostile to its customers. I guess we’re not the customers. Use duckduckgo or something else.

> Use duckduckgo or something else. Duckduckgo hasn't been any better for me lately. It seems like search as a whole is failing to respond to the latest round of SEO tricks. It takes a lot more work to find what I'm actually looking for, regardless of which engine I use.

DDG uses Bing as its search provider, and Bing isn't any better than Google right now when it comes to prioritizing ads and dark patterns[1].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28517187

Re: For some searches the whole screen on Google is now ads

#203

Post by sp332 »

heavyset_go wrote: post #202
lolinder wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Use duckduckgo or something else. Duckduckgo hasn't been any better for me lately. It seems like search as a whole is failing to respond to the latest round of SEO tricks. It takes a lot more work to find what I'm actually looking for, regardless of which engine I use.

DDG uses Bing as its search provider, and Bing isn't any better than Google right now when it comes to prioritizing ads and dark patterns[1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28517187

Bing is one source among many. https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/so...

Re: For some searches the whole screen on Google is now ads

#204

Post by mv4 »

tomatofrank wrote: post #201

Last night I watched a YouTube video that had a song in the background that I hadn't heard but really liked. I pulled up Shazam but it didn't recognize the song, so I took to Google. I entered the lyric and added the search terms "lyrics" and "r&b" at the end. Google returned 4 YouTube videos to songs that didn't contain the lyric, a link to a Boyz II Men song on Genius that didn't contain the lyric (good job Google,…

but they reported great financial results.

Re: For some searches the whole screen on Google is now ads

#205

Post by echelon »

Closi wrote: post #188
hutzlibu wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I hope they penalize websites with heavy tracking or advertising." I hope they give me a easy way, to set my own priorities (but I would choose that option).

I'm on the beta and it has both of these things. You can choose to boost particular sites, or to down-rank sites with trackers.

That's amazing. I can't wait!

Re: For some searches the whole screen on Google is now ads

#206

Post by Tenoke »

tomatofrank wrote: post #201

Last night I watched a YouTube video that had a song in the background that I hadn't heard but really liked. I pulled up Shazam but it didn't recognize the song, so I took to Google. I entered the lyric and added the search terms "lyrics" and "r&b" at the end. Google returned 4 YouTube videos to songs that didn't contain the lyric, a link to a Boyz II Men song on Genius that didn't contain the lyric (good job Google,…

For what is worth, DDG's main provider is Bing so it's nor surprising they returned similar results.

Re: For some searches the whole screen on Google is now ads

#207

Post by Closi »

echelon wrote: post #205
Closi wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on the beta and it has both of these things. You can choose to boost particular sites, or to down-rank sites with trackers.

That's amazing. I can't wait!

I've personally gone back to using Google from being on the Beta, but i'm sure other people will have more success.

Re: For some searches the whole screen on Google is now ads

#208

Post by tomatofrank »

Tenoke wrote: post #206
tomatofrank wrote: post #201

Last night I watched a YouTube video that had a song in the background that I hadn't heard but really liked. I pulled up Shazam but it didn't recognize the song, so I took to Google. I entered the lyric and added the search terms "lyrics" and "r&b" at the end. Google returned 4 YouTube videos to songs that didn't contain the lyric, a link to a Boyz II Men song on Genius that didn't contain the lyric (good job Google,…

For what is worth, DDG's main provider is Bing so it's nor surprising they returned similar results.

Oh that's interesting, TIL.

Re: For some searches the whole screen on Google is now ads

#209

Post by tomatofrank »

mv4 wrote: post #204
tomatofrank wrote: post #201

Last night I watched a YouTube video that had a song in the background that I hadn't heard but really liked. I pulled up Shazam but it didn't recognize the song, so I took to Google. I entered the lyric and added the search terms "lyrics" and "r&b" at the end. Google returned 4 YouTube videos to songs that didn't contain the lyric, a link to a Boyz II Men song on Genius that didn't contain the lyric (good job Google,…

but they reported great financial results.

fuck yeah they did :P

Re: For some searches the whole screen on Google is now ads

#210

Post by gundmc »

tomatofrank wrote: post #201

Last night I watched a YouTube video that had a song in the background that I hadn't heard but really liked. I pulled up Shazam but it didn't recognize the song, so I took to Google. I entered the lyric and added the search terms "lyrics" and "r&b" at the end. Google returned 4 YouTube videos to songs that didn't contain the lyric, a link to a Boyz II Men song on Genius that didn't contain the lyric (good job Google,…

What was the lyric?
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