> With this update, you’ll see more results with unique, authentic information, so you’re more likely to read something you haven't seen before.
This phrasing sets off a little alarm in the back of my brain. Overall, I agree with the intent of the update and I think Google is maybe internally realizing that their questionable search quality combined with legitimate and privacy-focused competitors (DDG, Neeva [1]) could turn into a serious and existential threat to them.
That said, this is not quite the issue a lot of people have with Google search results. For me, when I search a movie for reviews, it’s not that I want new reviews to show up from smaller sites. It’s that I don’t want the whole screen filled with Google’s own little special sideshow for movie reviews. I can easily see this becoming even more frustrating actually if I search for “x reviews” and rather than get the usual Rotten Tomatoes, IMDB, newspaper reviews, I get RandomGuy.com. If I want RandomGuy.com, that is actually what a social media-esque site like Rotten Tomatoes or Letterboxd is for, not a search engine.
Hopefully this will be what we want it to be and not, for example, the TikTok-ization of Google search results, constantly and algorithmically showing you something “new.”
[1]: That said, the game is still very much for the taking and no one is still able to easily answer one of my most common queries for work: “python regex.” Seriously, it feels like a battle to get a simple example showing how to use groups/named groups to extract specific information. I don’t want a reference guide to common RegEx wildcards, I already know about \d and +! I don’t want a toy example showing how to use RegEx for seeing if “rain” is in “The cat is in the rain” (that’s using a hammer to kill a fly - you would just use “if rain in string” for example). I want a helpful and succinct guide on the specifics of Python’s RegEx so I can stop fiddling with it ASAP!
