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Google Search Is Dying

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Re: Google Search Is Dying

#221

Post by jonathankoren »

monkeynotes wrote: post #196
eloeffler wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About the "dead internet conspiracy" - I've worked in writing how-to articles for a fairly large "help" website. They paid very little attention to the quality of the articles. I was paid for each piece and thus had about 30 minutes to write an article and later integrate feedback from internal review. Otherwise the payment became too low. The most important factor was cramming SEO terms and links to keep people on t…

Speaking of bots, I'd be interested to know the percentage of articles on major traffic content sites are authored or co-authored by AI. My suspicion is this is rife given how many articles read poorly and are almost entirely fluff. If this is true it would appear we are doomed to algorithms shaping our online experiences, which is worrying given the existing shrinking diversity of opinion and content. It's like a en…

Probably zero. People are really cheap.

Re: Google Search Is Dying

#222

Post by sbate1987 »

slightwinder wrote: post #197
softwarebeware wrote: post #6

Some really good thoughts here. I'll summarize the ones that hit me: - "Why are people searching Reddit specifically? The short answer is that Google search results are clearly dying. The long answer is that most of the web has become too inauthentic to trust." This is it for me exactly. I search for the following kinds of things on Reddit exactly because results on other sites aren't trustworthy: Reviews are secretl…

> This is it for me exactly. I search for the following kinds of things on Reddit exactly because results on other sites aren't trustworthy: Reviews are secretly paid ads. So are reddit-comments and entries. There it's even worse, because most people don't connect the content with manipulation. > The "best" recipe for pancakes is only what's trending on instagram right now. So, like reddit? I mean every platform has…

No post body was provided.

Re: Google Search Is Dying

#223

Post by iainmerrick »

narag wrote: post #67
judge2020 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is the most annoying behavior because I really mean what I write. Tons of people don't, though. They type whatever unprocessed half-second thought they have into Google and expect Google to lead them to the water, even if they're tugging and trying to go in the completely wrong direction. Google has optimized for working 'most of the time' for 'the most people', and that means striving for fixing the complete…

That's like speaking to little children, that are learning to talk, reproducing their errors. Some adults believe that it's cute, but it's idiotic, confuses the babies and make their progress more difficult and slow.

I don’t think this means anything for the point you wanted to make about search results, but please note you’re exactly wrong about baby talk! It’s not a good analogy.

Baby talk (or CDS, child-directed speech) helps engage their attention and provides valuable feedback. Kids who experience less CDS develop language more slowly.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_talk

(I heard about this research a number of years ago. Although I must admit, now I wonder if it’s affected by the science reproducibility crisis!)

Re: Google Search Is Dying

#224

Post by pictur »

I think what kills google searches is seo bullshit. Even the worst sites with seo are now on the first page. In the past, SEO really forced quality, but now it's enough to make your website compatible with bullshit like amp.

Re: Google Search Is Dying

#225

Post by bbulkow »

Google maps results are on their way to death. I was recently doing a search having gone down to a three block area, did not show the result - Google pulled out a few blocks and showed a category result there. There was a higher ranking category result in the block i remembered, i had to remove my search term and zoom in!

The problem is not ads, it is not even capitalism, is the requirement of our western capitalism to require constant growth. Doing what Google did 5 years ago, with the profits of 5 of years ago, should have been fine - but the markets demand growth, so companies have to pull into unsustainable territory and that wrecks the company.

Boeing is a great modern example.

No one ever really expected much of reddit. It could just do its thing. But now, spun off, it will have to relentlessly seek growth, and the counter is ticking for its destruction.

Re: Google Search Is Dying

#226

Post by devit »

I think Google should just remove all pages with affiliate links from its index (which of course includes detecting all the ways to defeat that like URL shorteners, redirect pages, JavaScript hackery, giving a different version to the crawler, etc.)

Every time you search for "best X" you'll find a page with low-effort copied or write-for-hire content design to get you to click on Amazon affiliate links as opposed to what you are looking for, which is an actual review by someone who is an X enthusiast, personally bought and tested all the options and is eager to share their findings.

Re: Google Search Is Dying

#227

Post by gear_envy »

My uBlacklist filter list has grown rather large.

I’ve (finally) come to the realization that most websites are trying to sell me something. It’s usually affiliate link spam, or the articles provide just enough info and then ask you to sign up for their newsletter or buy their ebook or subscribe to their service or whatever other predatory monetization bullshit they’ve implemented.

I get it, websites cost money to run and providing useful information for free is a bad business model. My issue here is that Google search rewards this spammy behavior in order to maximize cash flow. And this type of thing works very well on normal non-tech-inclined people so it won’t ever go away.

I dislike Reddit’s current browsing experience, but the value of the platform has always been its smaller interest-focused communities and the ability to access the opinions of actual real humans instead of content marketers.

Re: Google Search Is Dying

#228

Post by criley2 »

profstasiak wrote: post #148

Just a heads up if someone is searching reddit for product reviews. I believe most of them are inauthentic. I worked in marketing for several companies and we always had some budget for whisper marketing aka shilling. There are third party agency specialized in shilling on reddit and making it all look authentic.

I mean, it's not hard to tell shilling, and truly authentic, quality shilling falls along a border of marginally still useful content.

Like, I'm hoping to find a specialized community discussing products relevant to that hobby or interest, often posting images or discussions of data gathered.

For example I am starting a container garden on my patio using fabric pots and have searched reddit for a wide variety of gardening products. Perhaps I fell for shills but I looked for people posting images of their gardens and discussing opinions and results, so if companies reselling chinese factory sourced fabric grow containers are hiring people to literally make home gardens and shill online about products, then so be it, thank you for the content? And even then, I don't think I saw anyone specifically pushing any brand at all, and even calling the top brand (SmartPot) overpriced . Everyone seems to use a different brand and they all seem to do fine.

I think that's a strength on reddit. It's harder to shill in a specialist community than it is in an Amazon review or personal blog.

Another reddit community I would look at often for opinions and brands is chef knives and knife sharpening tools. I really don't think there's a lot of shilling there that gets upvoted and promoted.

Re: Google Search Is Dying

#229

Post by danso »

softwarebeware wrote: post #6

Some really good thoughts here. I'll summarize the ones that hit me: - "Why are people searching Reddit specifically? The short answer is that Google search results are clearly dying. The long answer is that most of the web has become too inauthentic to trust." This is it for me exactly. I search for the following kinds of things on Reddit exactly because results on other sites aren't trustworthy: Reviews are secretl…

I agree that Reddit remains a good source for info, but I’ve found that Google usually does a good job surfacing Reddit results — usually in the top half. Though this is most notable when I’m googling for esoteric info about TV shows and video games (e.g. “best build mass effect 3”)

Re: Google Search Is Dying

#230

Post by pkamb »

CodeGlitch wrote: post #140
brimble wrote: post #5

The other day I was searching for a specific kind of jewelry and realized I don't know of a search engine that can do what I needed, which is to just find good results for my search. Searches for jewelry-related keywords triggered Google to go 90+% ads, and their results (and other search engines' results) were so junked up with spam and the same couple sites over and over that they were useless. We're back to the We…

Am I the only one who just skips the search engines and go straight to the source? If I want factual information, I just go to Wikipedia and use their search. If I want to shop I'll go to respected online stores and again use their inbuilt search feature. Obviously I've just built up a list of good sites in my head which I trust... Google search is good for discoverability if you're new to the web I guess? Although i…

It's much easier to type "searchterm" or "searchterm wiki" in your web browser address bar and then click through to the Wikipedia result than it is to first navigate to every individual site and use their non-standard search bar.
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