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Google “Pepper”: When a Brand Becomes More Popular Than the Meaning of the Word

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Re: Google “Pepper”: When a Brand Becomes More Popular Than the Meaning of the Word

#21

Post by w1nk »

This thread is exposing one of the dirty realities of modern SEO. Most of the time, SEO folks will measure their success based on having some way of determining their ranking for a given search query.

The problem is that in 2022, google personalizes (aka re-ranks) the SERPs on enough dimensions (device type, location, user, etc) that a single mapping of search query -> ranking fails to capture any of the nuance that google is applying to their user understanding. I'm not sure how or when the SEO space will actually reckon with this, or if they'll keep just pushing poor 'visibility' metrics that can't actually be reduced to a single dimension.

Re: Google “Pepper”: When a Brand Becomes More Popular Than the Meaning of the Word

#24

Post by numpad0 »

xnorswap wrote: post #9
rpep wrote: post #4

This must be regional, because it certainly doesn't show that for me in the UK, top two results are the wikipedia articles for the vegetable (capsicum) and black pepper.

It's not even just a region thing, it's a more individual history based customisation. Google quickly adapts based on things you search. For example I know if I google some keywords right now I'll likely get information about a detail in a computer game I play even without specifying. At other times when I'm more into other hobbies it would be more likely to show more general results.

I'm getting a ton of what appears to be malvertising fake sites recently in Google Search, hosted in what appears to be compromised government websites in emerging markets. Google Search isn't just adapting, something is broken about it.

Re: Google “Pepper”: When a Brand Becomes More Popular Than the Meaning of the Word

#27

Post by russellbeattie »

Google hasn't seemed to realize that until its able to literally read our minds, it will incorrectly guess the context of our search as often as not. As a result, we all have to suffer the tyranny of the masses: Whatever is going to appeal to the broadest possible audience will appear at the top of the search results.

Google of course wants to customize the results for us, but the only way it can really know our personal preferences is through unprecedented invasion of our privacy or haphazard guesses based on recent activity. [Insert the meme about YouTube suddenly suggesting a hundred videos about some random thing you happened to watch once.]

This technological ochlocracy is a black hole which sucks in every medium that survives on the mass market and especially those that rely on advertising dollars. Whatever is the most popular brings in the most money - so the History Channel goes from broadcasting historical biographies to 24/7 Pawn Stars and other reality TV crap. If a company hasn't found some profitable niche - e.g. Mercedes Benz or Gucci - then they will inevitably decline in quality as time goes by. In tech, this is always most apparent when the second or third generation leadership comes in and has lost touch with the original ideals and goals of the founders. They need to keep the revenues ever increasing, so they inevitably dilute the core values of their products in order to expand the market. This rarely turns out well.

So, I hope you enjoy scrolling through promoted links, movie summaries, video clips, shopping links, maps of local businesses and more before you get to the Wikipedia page you were hoping to find, because it's not changing any time soon.

Re: Google “Pepper”: When a Brand Becomes More Popular Than the Meaning of the Word

#28

Post by daneel_w »

This is another reality of search results and digital entropy to reckon with. Across different search terms, this is a problem caused by targeted SEO as much as it is simply self-optimizing/biasing results and indirect consequence. Some time ago I went hunting on YouTube for 1980s synthesizer stock music, and not entirely surprising over 95% of the search results were modern "synthwave" tracks from the past few years, riding on the trend of labeling itself as "1980s". Because of the explosive popularity of the "synthwave" genre it was next to impossible to find what I really wanted. Just 6-7 years ago the search results were quite accurate.

Re: Google “Pepper”: When a Brand Becomes More Popular Than the Meaning of the Word

#29

Post by neur4lnet »

There's something fundamentally concerning with this response:

"Things like this can change over time, brands can become stronger than the original meaning of a word even."

The implication being that in that region, US, more people think of bras than condiments/fruit when they think of pepper. That Google is just reflecting the state of the world. That seems like bullshit to me.

Made worse by the fact that enough people use Google that the opposite is more likely to be true.

Google's search got gamed by Pepper SEO, the US is not suddenly more more interested in a underwear brand than the food.

Re: Google “Pepper”: When a Brand Becomes More Popular Than the Meaning of the Word

#30

Post by hnbad »

atemerev wrote: post #26

googling “pepper” gives me results about black pepper, everything seems to work fine (Switzerland).

Doing it in Germany gives me, oddly enough, an infobox about the Foxconn robot and a series of related questions in German (e.g. "what can Pepper do?").
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