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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

#171

Post by jasode »

dalbasal wrote: post #155
firasd wrote: 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 pa…

>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.

Can you clarify what you mean by this?

As an outside observer, it seems that Google recognizes that their search engine does have a "Heisenberg" effect akin to "measurements of certain systems cannot be made without affecting the system"

E.g. the Google search ranking causes the rise of content farms. Google then fights back with a new revision to the algorithm to downrank them. That constant arms race between various blackhat SEO and Google's new algorithms was commented on many times by Matt Cutts (Google former head of search quality): https://hn.algolia.com/?q=matt+cutts

Another example is the RapGenius punishment by Google to discourage content that tries to game the algorithm: https://www.google.com/search?q=rapgenius+penalty+google+ran...

Google often makes manual human intervention e.g. M Cutts team telling HN they're looking into RapGenius SEO hack: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6956658

Are those are not examples of Google understanding its effect on internet content that tries to game their algorithm?

I think the issue is that Google's algorithm isn't perfect -- and therefore it appears like they don't discourage bad content.

Re: More content by people, for people in Search

#172

Post by naijaboiler »

jiggywiggy wrote: post #98
meltedcapacitor wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the bootleg page could be a source of inspiration? It has a garbage/content ratio of 32 (the browser downloads 32 bytes for every byte of content) while the original page has a 400 ratio (the browser downloads 400 bytes for every byte of content). It's borderline denial of service attack against the visitor. The original also has a slow aggressive cookie box that is unnecessary as visitors can be spied on using…

To be fair, even though littered with ads the bootleg is indeed more pleasant. Bootleg the bootlegger.

I agree. The bootlegged version is more inviting to read.

Re: More content by people, for people in Search

#173

Post by nicbou »

null_object wrote: post #57
yrro wrote: 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.

Another poster has already suggested `uBlacklist` so I won't waste bandwidth by repeating the link, but I want to underline the utility of this extension, because it's transformed my experience of using Google search for code problems. Before using this, I was finding the first page of my search results were overwhelmed with StackOverflow-scrapers, which returned SO answers reformatted into some sort of garbage and u…

You can also use it to block paywalled and clickbait content. For example, you can safely ignore anything from cnet.com or digitaltrends.com. There's a few niche-specific sites in my blocklist.

Re: More content by people, for people in Search

#174

Post by seanwilson »

> Next week, we'll launch the “helpful content update” to tackle content that seems to have been primarily created for ranking well in search engines rather than to help or inform people. This ranking update will help make sure that unoriginal, low quality content doesn’t rank highly in Search, and our testing has found it will especially improve results related to online education, as well as arts and entertainment, shopping and tech-related content.

I know Google isn't going to reveal the exact secrets behind what changes they're making to do this to avoid black hat SEO, but haven't they been trying to do the above all along? What stops the SEO community from observing how rankings change, guessing what the new metrics are, and then optimising for these metrics as usual until the search spam is back where it started?

What about letting users give a vote/rating or leaving a comment on if a page was helpful? A big reason imo that Googling for "reddit " works is that spammy stuff on social sites (including Hacker News) gets punished quickly by spam filters, down-votes and negative comments - regular Google search lacks that because people can't down-vote or comment on a page. It feels inevitable to me they'll have to start doing something like this.

Re: More content by people, for people in Search

#175

Post by nicbou »

shortformblog wrote: post #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 h…

Mine dipped slightly, to the level of a year ago. It looks like it might have been bumped again this week. It's undeniably genuine, original, quality content. However I don't know how a machine reads and scores my content. Given the stuff YouTube thinks I like, I'm scared.

Re: More content by people, for people in Search

#176

Post by paxys »

I expect these changes will lead to a brief period where the quality of search results will get better, but then will be quickly reversed engineered and gamed by "SEO experts" bringing us right back to where we are. This is a fight Google simply cannot win.

Re: More content by people, for people in Search

#177

Post by headsoup »

Mordisquitos wrote: post #159
bluecalm wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not to mention anything even slightly political or divisive in nature will quickly become chaos.

Re: More content by people, for people in Search

#178

Post by danyork »

whage wrote: post #76
firasd wrote: 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…

This resonates with me so freaking much. I am disgusted by how every bit of information on webpages seem to be buried between paragraphs of empty EMPTY talk and even when they seem to get to the point, most of the time there is no real information there. Sorry, this had to come out. We really need better search engines.

My understanding from reading a number of articles about this "helpful content" update from Google is that they want to get rid of pages like what you describe and instead prioritize pages that get right to the point. So perhaps you'll get what you are asking for.

Re: More content by people, for people in Search

#179

Post by gambler »

This is just 2nd order gaslighting. For many, many years Google was denying obvious problems with how their search system worked. Denial and gaslighting was clearly their marketing strategy. It kind of worked too, at least in terms of public opinion in tech space. Now something has changed and they're suddenly pretending to care. Problem is, this effectively gaslights people about their prior gaslighting.

Why was the company blatantly denying obvious issues for so many years? What has changed? Why should I trust their judgment all of a sudden?

It's kind of like someone who is a pathologic liar having been caught in various lies for many years, swearing to tell you the truth, but not admitting to the past lies.

Re: More content by people, for people in Search

#180

Post by piva00 »

foota wrote: post #109
feanaro wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also if google starts ranking such pages up they may expose themselves to class action lawsuits as users could ask for a refund for the power, hardware and telecom bills incurred in being lead to load them? Sorry, but this is completely insane. Search engines should most certainly and definitely not ever be liable for linking to original sources for such a stupid reason. This American pro-litigious attitude has to…

Americans aren't the ones forcing crazy things on internet companies these days.

No, they are the ones allowing companies become such behemoths that other sovereign governments have to step in and rule over to keep some kind of data privacy for their citizens.
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