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Google Search Is Dying

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Re: Google Search Is Dying

#601

Post by dmix »

UweSchmidt wrote: post #269
whywhywhywhy wrote: post #59

Still in shock that they killed reverse image search and replaced it with some useless AI tech demo. It used to use the actual image and be able to provide context from where that image was found elsewhere. Now it seems to throw the image at AI and the AI will go "Oh that's a street" then they will just show you streets with similar colors as the image you put in. Completely useless for trying to locate what movie a…

Another alternative: https://tineye.com

Tineye has always been superior to Google reverse image search

(Assuming that's what they were going for, not sure Google really put effort into it)

Re: Google Search Is Dying

#602

Post by salt-thrower »

oldstrangers wrote: post #45
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…

Working at a marketing agency, I can promise you the Dead Internet Theory really isn't even a conspiracy. It's depressing.

I did software dev at a marketing firm for about a year, and it was pretty soul sucking, so I know what you mean. I won't work at one again unless it's literally my only option.

Re: Google Search Is Dying

#603

Post by sgslo »

evilduck wrote: post #472
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.

Generally speaking I search Reddit for genuine looking negative reviews not the glowing ones. I'm looking at Reddit to steer me away from obviously bad choices. Basically, shilling has become so pervasive that positive reviews are automatically untrustworthy regardless of source or apparent trustworthiness. It wouldn't even surprise me to find that companies are generating fake negative review content without ever en…

I suspect shills are aware that people like yourself are looking for negative reviews.

Example: https://old.reddit.com/r/eero/comments/mk0l1w/eero_vs_orbi/

This entire thread dumps on Orbi Wifi devices and praises Eero. Maybe Orbi is inferior to Eeero, but the one-sidedness of the discussion is a bit unsettling.

The top comment was created by a poster who almost exclusively posts on the /r/eero subreddit over the span of one year. Many of their comments are specifically in praise of Eero devices.

Re: Google Search Is Dying

#604

Post by Lascaille »

bloaf wrote: post #278
valdiorn wrote: post #38

Google used to be really, really good at finding exactly what I told it to find. Nowadays, it's turned into the yellow pages; sponsored content from businesses trying to sell me goods and services. Can people suggest good alternatives or search patterns for certain categories of information or search types? Some of the search patterns I currently I use: * Youtube for product reviews and demos, entertainment, music an…

As a bit of a weird hobby, I like to read up on right wing conspiracy theories. That means I do a fair number of searches for specific terms and people mentioned in fake-news facebook/forum posts. Google seems to slowly oscillate between thinking that I am a right wing loon, and thinking I am Joe Public who must not be shown misinformation. That is, sometimes google is perfectly willing to vomit forth results from th…

This sounds like filter-bubbling. From what I can tell, Google doesn't have user specific filter bubble but user-category filter bubbles, and it's constantly updating the category of users it thinks you're in.

Re: Google Search Is Dying

#605

Post by dennis_moore »

brundolf wrote: post #527
bnralt wrote: post #308

An important thing to realize, too, is that this is a problem that keeps getting worse. The article talks about product reviews and recipes, but it's been spreading a lot further than that. Recently I was trying to look up a technical error, and found a lot of web pages that seemed to be auto-generated with "How to solve [error_scraped_from_the_web]", complete with a list of generic things unrelated to the error (IE,…

Free project idea for someone with more time on their hands than me: Classical search engines determine trust automatically, based on various factors including "link neighborhoods" where trustworthy sites link to other trustworthy sites. These automated strategies are clearly breaking down; the spammers are winning the arms-race. So maybe we need to go back to human-based trust. People used to curate lists of website…

I like this idea of incorporating trust and reputation. As for the curation of websites not scaling, some time ago I thought about the possibility of a search engine where the user supplies a list of trusted websites (for example, university websites, blogs of people they admire), and the search engine ranks pages based on link distance to these websites.

Re: Google Search Is Dying

#606

Post by machiaweliczny »

niccl wrote: post #592
bradgessler wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too have found myself searching more in Reddit. Not to throw shade on Reddit, but even if I find exactly what I’m looking for in there, it’s depressing that it’s all bound up inside of another walled garden who will eventually have the same incentive as Google: squeeze every last advertising dollar out of the produc… I mean users. Like Google, it’s just a matter of time before they too lose their balance. A questio…

A factor in there has got to be 'who pays?' If it's hostile to advertisers, then there's got to be money to pay for the infrastructure from somewhere. Maybe a tax on ISPs? I think I'd happily pay $10 extra per month for access to an ad-free interrnet. Maybe $20. But how many of the people that are already happy with the ads and poor google results would do so? Would it be sustainable?

Ads will always exist because they work. Only way is to ban them explicitly but you can do that with AdBlock for example but you still get SEO spam, placed content, inauthentic "recommendations".

Re: Google Search Is Dying

#607

Post by adamc »

dkonofalski wrote: post #181
winternett wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another factor that isn't being fully accounted for is a new SEO/marketing technique where many people are asking scripted questions publicly on sites like reddit and then stealthily providing answers that market a product or service. This leads to reddit results not being exactly authentic as well. Pretty much most online reviews cannot be trusted as we are begged to do positive reviews of companies (and when compan…

Is Google unique in that, though? Amazon reviews are worthless now because companies pay customers to leave positive reviews or pay review farms to leave positive reviews. Even if someone reports them to Amazon, though, the companies just close their accounts and open new ones with different names and sell the same product. It's so trivial for them to pivot when they get caught that I'm not sure there is a solution t…

There is a perfectly good solution, and some people use it: don't buy from unknown vendors. If you buy a product from one of a few well-known companies in that space, they have a big investment in their brand, and are much less likely to engage in behaviors that might diminish the value of that brand.

The price is that you pay more -- effectively, you are paying for that branding.

I've had so many bad experiences on Amazon that I am increasingly doing just that. It doesn't apply to everything, but it is a useful strategy.

Re: Google Search Is Dying

#608

Post by eternauta3k »

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…

Thanks, I hadn't realized I can use site:reddit.com also for recipes!

Re: Google Search Is Dying

#610

Post by Spooky23 »

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.

Good point.

Reddit is great for a specialized user. Not only is there shilling, but you also find hyper-specialized people who go too deep.

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