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Google Search Is Dying (2022)

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Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)

#71

Post by Doctor_Fegg »

danpalmer wrote: post #35

From the example image half way through this article... > "retool slack integration" I've just googled this and the top hit was literally the instructions to set up the slack integration. Not a link to it, the actual instructions, although the link to the source page in the Retool docs was there. The rest of the hits were all hits in the Retool docs, except for the last result, which was someone making an HN comment…

Here's what I get (with content blockers disabled) - similar to TFA. Three large ads, interestingly now labelled "Sponsored" rather than "Ad", and then the actual instructions.

https://imgur.com/a/2OKnAtb

Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)

#72

Post by ClumsyPilot »

tzhenghao wrote: post #2

> The long answer is that most of the web has become too inauthentic to trust. Reddit was also partly successful in that regard because it catered to niche communities who ask the most interesting questions and, trolls aside, responses from the community that's generally trustworthy. There are literally subreddits with discussions on solutions that are deemed better than what you get from customer support. Reddit als…

Google held control of who they reward using AdWords, they decided who lives and who dies, who goes bancrupt and who prosper It is their system that rewards SEO spam

If you are a creator, you can put up a website, pat for deiagn and hosting fees, and hopw google finds you amongst SEO spam.

Or you cam put a oage on instagram, for free, and deal with none of that shit

Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)

#73

Post by owisd »

Gigachad wrote: post #47
kstenerud wrote: post #7

The worst is the SEO pages, especially for popular how-to topics. Every single first page result will be a page that has expanded what used to be said in bullet point form, into a 1500 word essay that you must now slog through in order to get the information you need. And this is by necessity, because Google values prose over bullet points. The majority of things that come up on search nowadays consist of computer-ge…

Literally anything google values will be abused and ruin the internet. If they valued shortness then everything would be trimmed to bullet points removing useful info. The problem is really not that google is doing a bad job, it’s that the incentives to get views on pages ruins the internet.

I disagree that whatever ranking system google uses will just be gamed to the same extent. If google downgraded the rank of pages with lots of ads and trackers it would substantially reduce the incentive to game the system, the reason it won’t is because most of those pages are running Adsense so there’s every incentive for google to keep the status quo.

Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)

#74

Post by arnaudsm »

kstenerud wrote: post #7

The worst is the SEO pages, especially for popular how-to topics. Every single first page result will be a page that has expanded what used to be said in bullet point form, into a 1500 word essay that you must now slog through in order to get the information you need. And this is by necessity, because Google values prose over bullet points. The majority of things that come up on search nowadays consist of computer-ge…

Since word heuristics and pagerank are useless nowadays, which signals should Google prioritize instead? Bounce rate ? Engagement ?

Which metrics can proxy user satisfaction without turning into clickbait-land?

Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)

#75

Post by throwaway1851 »

I have often wished that there were a search engine that would let me filter out pages with monetization (affiliate links, calls to action, ads, etc.).

However, every time I consider this idea, I wonder how much of the web would be left. Besides social media sites, government pages, and technology blogs, is there a lot of authentic content out there on arbitrary topics? Perhaps even if Google were motivated to deliver a good search experience, they couldn’t do it.

Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)

#76

Post by chimprich »

tokinonagare wrote: post #8
tzhenghao wrote: post #2

> The long answer is that most of the web has become too inauthentic to trust. Reddit was also partly successful in that regard because it catered to niche communities who ask the most interesting questions and, trolls aside, responses from the community that's generally trustworthy. There are literally subreddits with discussions on solutions that are deemed better than what you get from customer support. Reddit als…

> Reddit was Yes, it was somewhat good in the past but an alternative is sorely needed. Most popular subs (at least the one I frequent) are moderated to the point that censored would be the more appropriate word to describe the situation. Then there are whole subs banned (including non political) for wrongthink.

> Then there are whole subs banned (including non political) for wrongthink

I don't really like defending Reddit, because I don't like them as a company, but I don't think this is correct. There's a financial incentive for them to not ban subreddits, so groups have to behave quite obnoxiously or blatantly break Reddit's rules to get banned. Just having a certain political disagreement is not nearly enough.

And if you disagree, please post some examples.

As an aside, I was curious about the use of the word "wrongthink". It sounds like something Orwell would have come up with, but a search suggests that it's actually a neologism that is used mainly by the alt-right.

Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)

#78

Post by greyman »

echelon wrote: post #61
kstenerud wrote: post #7

The worst is the SEO pages, especially for popular how-to topics. Every single first page result will be a page that has expanded what used to be said in bullet point form, into a 1500 word essay that you must now slog through in order to get the information you need. And this is by necessity, because Google values prose over bullet points. The majority of things that come up on search nowadays consist of computer-ge…

Even if Google had been good stewards, they failed to diversify. AI AdBlock is going to kill whatever is left of Google within the year. AI content spam is absolutely going to kill social media and search results, but AI adblock will be worse to Google's bottom line. It's coming, and it's going to be brutal.

In what sense will it kill social media?

Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)

#79

Post by senttoschool »

JCM9 wrote: post #17

The two biggest problems I’ve seen develop with Google are that: 1. The quality of the search algorithm’s ability to sift through nonsense to find “the good stuff” seems to have gotten progressively worse, and that’s largely fueled by: 2. Google is only really searching the “public” Internet but that’s increasingly a wasteland full of garbage where all the “good stuff” is now behind walled off gardens that Goggle doe…

Part of this is because of tools like Discord which is not indexable by Google.

We need something better than Discord for community discussions and support.

Reddit is indexable.

Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)

#80

Post by iLoveOncall »

CJefferson wrote: post #20
kajaktum wrote: post #4

It's only a matter of time until companies start posting in Reddit to fake good user experience. For example, who the hell knows who mr fart32snap is on this reddit discussion thread talking about good cheap microphone? I don't doubt there's already some of these out there. IMO, the only way this can ever be truly fixed is to have a 1 to 1 mapping between a person and their online personality. An account and their po…

I've had friends at companies ask me to make positive posts to both reddit and news.ycombinator -- there are definately news.ycombinator upvote/post groups, who help push articles to the front page (I'm not sure how successful they are, but I know they exist).

There are definitely Rust and SQLite astroturfing mafias on HN, and they are very powerful :)
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