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Google Search Is Dying

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Re: Google Search Is Dying

#241

Post by NoboruWataya »

It's interesting, and quite concerning, that Reddit has cemented its position as a key repository of useful information on just about everything just as its drive towards monetisation really kicks into gear. It's concerning because, as part of that monetisation strategy, Reddit is becoming increasingly walled off and anti-user. I am sure I am only one of many long-time Redditors who have vowed to stop using the site completely once old.reddit.com goes, and it's only a matter of time.

It's probable that a huge amount of useful information will soon become much more difficult to access, and/or diluted by stealth advertising, as Reddit looks to aggressively monetise its position. I'm interested to see if a credible alternative emerges and if there is any effort to move some of the existing useful data off the platform.

Re: Google Search Is Dying

#242

Post by monocasa »

trdlts wrote: post #208
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.

Is there any place on the web with authentic reviews? The only thing that comes to mind is something like steam, where you have to at least purchase a copy of a game before leaving a review.

Amazon reviews with a picture inside a dirty living room with, like, a toddler only in their diaper in the background or something have been pretty reliable.

Re: Google Search Is Dying

#243

Post by johnyzee »

cjbgkagh wrote: post #75

All I want is a feature to black list certain domain names from search results. Similar to YouTube never show this channel again option. If google hosted such a feature then they would get a very strong signal on poor results and would go a long way to punishing bad behavior and cleaning up the net. It’s so easy to do that I have to assume they chose not to because they make a percentage of the revenue from the conte…

This would be awesome.

Re: Google Search Is Dying

#244

Post by cosmosgenius »

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…

The first review site I go to, to find if the product should be trusted or not is reddit only in the hope that not every comment is a paid ad.

Re: Google Search Is Dying

#246

Post by afiori »

qzx_pierri wrote: post #173

I'll re-post a comment I made about Google Search back in July 2020 because I believe it's still relevant: "Call me crazy, but I've been using Yandex a lot more recently. Political FUD aside, the results are pretty good, and completely unfiltered. It reminds me of how wild and unfiltered the internet was back in 2007. However, I wouldn't recommend it to "casual" users. Using Yandex requires a bit more common sense th…

A few months ago I found myself in need to install Telegram on a new PC and a quick google search (I still had not configured another search engine nor an adblocker) gave 4 ads for scammy websites.

I am sure that they try a lot, I am not convinced that their strategy is optimal.

Re: Google Search Is Dying

#247

Post by butterfi »

endisneigh wrote: post #123
BeFlatXIII wrote: post #51

Another reason why adding site:reddit.com is so popular: Reddit's search is even more broken than Google and is useless for searching its own site.

Seriously - has no one in this thread used Reddit search? It doesn’t even do spell checking or correction: https://www.reddit.com/search?q=Apple%20ophone

People are not using Reddit's search, they are using Google to search Reddit.

Re: Google Search Is Dying

#248

Post by phkahler »

trdlts wrote: post #208
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.

Is there any place on the web with authentic reviews? The only thing that comes to mind is something like steam, where you have to at least purchase a copy of a game before leaving a review.

>> Is there any place on the web with authentic reviews?

This is where a good social network is useful. I'd trust my friends more than any random web site. Unfortunately I don't have a huge network to call on, so it would be nice to trust my friends friends and so on, but the trust quickly drops. We need a way to improve a simple network with some user-controlled measure of authenticity and trust.

Re: Google Search Is Dying

#249

Post by tarkin2 »

Google promotes advertisers. Reddit promotes shills. Popular platforms will be bought.

The problem is trust vs the appeal of corruption—that is, some people will always want to deceive the masses for profit.

At scale, reliable human trust only exists in democratically-policed communities, where authentic users control corruptible owners—something few platforms want.

Re: Google Search Is Dying

#250

Post by locallost »

I have a slight contrarian viewpoint although there is some common ground. There is nothing technically wrong with Google's search, it's that the content online is not authentic anymore. And this is what people find on Reddit -- real opinions from real people. And the fact people append reddit to their google searches is a testament to the fact that Google will actually find it. And that Reddit's search won't, and I don't think it will be that easy for them to make a good search. If it's easy, I don't know why DDG gives me even worse results than Google. I tried, but for me it's borderline useless.
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