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More content by people, for people in Search

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Re: More content by people, for people in Search

#151
post #134
post #62

A little OT, but is there a name for that design style that Google is using here? I'm talking about the bearded dude at the top of the article, with glasses and a phone in his hand. I've seen it more and more during the last few years, from ads around the city I live in to hipsterish magazines. There's something about it that has started bugging me the wrong way, I find it kind of infantilising but at the same time t…

It's reminiscent of socialist realism -- with a modern, tech twist. The favored art-style of woke companies. It's their vision of utopia: a rainbow of skin tones, but everyone belonging to the same global monoculture.

Reminds me of the hyper capitalist predecessor to corporate memphis:

http://clipart-library.com/data_images/177477.png

Guys in baggy suits and ties running through fields. You probably remember it from things like manual covers of scanners and stuff.

Re: More content by people, for people in Search

#152
post #134
post #62

A little OT, but is there a name for that design style that Google is using here? I'm talking about the bearded dude at the top of the article, with glasses and a phone in his hand. I've seen it more and more during the last few years, from ads around the city I live in to hipsterish magazines. There's something about it that has started bugging me the wrong way, I find it kind of infantilising but at the same time t…

It's reminiscent of socialist realism -- with a modern, tech twist. The favored art-style of woke companies. It's their vision of utopia: a rainbow of skin tones, but everyone belonging to the same global monoculture.

I'd rather look at socialist realism. Soviet propaganda feels a lot more genuine than these weird corporate caricatures.

Re: More content by people, for people in Search

#153
post #31

Thanks Google. Now can we fix the recipes pages please. No one wants the back story for the "the best brownies", I want to know the ingredients, cooking temps (Celsius and Fahrenheit) and time.

And with the possibility of having the measures in metric. Otherwise, it is almost useless for most of the world.

I like how you said "possibility", as if 3/8th of a cup wasn't a good enough measurement.

Re: More content by people, for people in Search

#155
post #32

I'm not sure this whole drive towards 'original content' makes sense. It encourages people to make long rambling pages that don't get to the point In fact it seems like Google worked better when wikipedia was almost always the first result on various topics What I mean by rambling is if you type something like "types of oranges" and suddenly land on a page where some dude is clearly just filling up paragraphs for goo…

The dissonance is between Google's native perception and external reality:

reality 1: The www exists. Google indexes it, analyzes it and delivers it to users. Users like certain things, like original content.

reality 2: Google's ranking policies/algorithms influence the web. The "original content" that exists in a world without Google is different to the content that exists in a world where Google ranks such web pages more highly.

Google refuse to see or present themselves in the role that they actually occupy. They avoid thinking of the search algorithm as encouraging or discouraging anything. It's just analyzing.

On youtube, This mindset is even more loopy, because on youtube they actually own the platform. The recommendation engine or whatnot implements what is clearly a new policy, Youtube pretends that there was no policy to change in the first place.

Re: More content by people, for people in Search

#156
Anecdotally, my level of daily traffic from organic search (driven by evergreen history articles on esoteric topics) has roughly doubled from where it was a month ago and is at a significantly higher level than it’s been over the past year. Looking further back in history it seems there was a dip after the spring of 2020 that largely has defined my search-based traffic levels since then, and the traffic from search has largely bounced back in the past two weeks.

While it’s still early, I will say that I’m seeing better results from a variety of search results, whereas I had 2-3 consistent search performers that drove most of the traffic prior to the recent change.

Just the perspective from someone who runs a long-running tech-meets-history newsletter.

Re: More content by people, for people in Search

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I _think_ OP is referring to the fact that most sites are forced into writing really long form posts because the format is "encouraged" by Google. I don't know the ins and outs but my understanding is that if you don't follow the Google format then you recipe drops way down in Google search results.

No, they're forced into long form posts because recipes cannot be copyrighted . By adding a story you get something with copy rights.

IANAL but wouldn't you just get a copyright on the story and somebody could still extract all the necessary information for preparing the meal and publish it as a simple recipe?

Re: More content by people, for people in Search

#158
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Encourages people to make long rambling pages which don’t get to the point? Ever seen YouTube, it’s exactly the same. 10-11+ min videos saying almost nothing because it’s the most lucrative length. The internet of today is just everyone gaming everything for a dollar.

At least Youtube has a timeline (with sometimes even chapters) that let you jump ahead. The thumbnails are also a good indication on what type of content you can expect from a video.

Web pages have a timeline in the form of a scroll bar on the right

Re: More content by people, for people in Search

#159
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Google experience would be improved immeasurably if there was a way for me to block domains after I decide I never want to see them in my search results again.

Letting you blacklist a site is one thing. They could improve upon it by letting people downvote/upvote pages and then using their extensive information vault to decide who is somewhat reputable or just similar to you. I mean, I am 40 years old programmer/entrepreneur interested in sports and traditional board and card games. I like nice restaurants and hotels and even sometimes write Google reviews on them. I have m…

That may sound promising on paper, but I give it at most 6 months before an up/downvote manipulation SEO industry emerges and starts destroying any burgeoning improvements in the quality of search results.

Re: More content by people, for people in Search

#160
post #106
post #35

> Last year, we kicked off a series of updates to show more helpful, in-depth reviews based on first-hand expertise in search results. I find myself searching + "review reddit" to find real honest reviews. My anecdotal experience is that everything else is written by content creators who are given the product for free to use for a few days/weeks/months w/o going in depth.

Same here. For more niche stuff, + "site:news.ycombinator.com" is standard practice. Or Algolia's HN search. Another one is + "forum" or + . I train myself to use DDG, but, to my own dissapointment, I end up with "!g site:something-trustworthy.com" way too often. For regular Google searches, I've had the feeling of being "scammed" for years, though. The "fishing devil" on the no-results page also feels like buttering…

I use the "Search the current site" Chrome extension. You can just hop to a YC or Reddit page and click the search icon, but it works with all websites.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/search-the-current...

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