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Google Search Is Dying (2022)

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Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)

#101

Post by luckylion »

franze wrote: post #48

In the German market for any product related query where you want a product comparison or test, you get results from 2 companies, which are in the business to place multiple very well SEO optimized pages on popular high quality websites (mostly newspapers). i.e.: https://www.welt.de/vergleich/stabstaubsauger/ https://www.krone.at/vergleich/staubsauger-test/ https://www.stern.de/vergleich/staubsauger/ These pages are…

Google knows, has commented on it that it's fine "but you should be careful who you let publish on your domain" and they won't do anything about it. It was a somewhat big topic two or so years ago, and since then everyone has understood that you just need to buy in on media company sites to get ranked.

Hey, maybe it's Google's gift to media companies to allow them to monetize, because they surely are making money with it.

Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)

#103

Post by michaelt »

greyman wrote: post #78
echelon wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The bit of social media people use to talk to their IRL friends and family will be fine.

But the bit of social media where people are listening to celebrities, getting their news, sharing memes, discussing common interests? It might get flooded with bots so convincing as to be indistinguishable from normal users.

Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)

#104

Post by girvo »

neilv wrote: post #38
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…

Buzz marketing, shilling, astroturfing... were already things at almost the very start of dotcoms, and before. (Microsoft actually pioneered some of it in online services before the Web, but I recall some early Web startups in this space.) Maybe starting a decade ago, when I'd tell people about Reddit, I'd switched to telling them that the front page already appeared dominated by marketers and manipulators, but that…

I remember when the first piece of advice I was given was to unsub from the default reddit subs. Prior to that I never quite got it as a site, it seemed like a worse HN to me with less topic overlap with what I found interesting.

Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)

#105

Post by yunohn »

owisd wrote: post #73
Gigachad wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you provide less monetisation for content creators, you end up with less content too. This is not as simple as you think…

Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)

#106

Post by projektfu »

chimprich wrote: post #76
tokinonagare wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Orwell's term is crimethink of course. I can only think of one party that recently passed laws making it a felony to say certain things to certain people. Thankfully you're still allowed to actually hold the thoughts in your head.

Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)

#107

Post by andrewstuart »

projektfu wrote: post #98

"How do I fix some odd setting in Windows, Mac, whatever" 2007: results include documentation, a couple forums, if you're unlucky there's a potentially malware tool that's discovered people need to fix this. 2012: results include Reddit and Stack Exchange, documentation has disappeared, forums have opened that are full of "support specialists" telling you to reset your windows install. 2023: top results are just blog…

Today, ChatGPT gives you an instant step by step guide which may or may not be correct but will likely get you there.

Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)

#108

Post by projektfu »

DeathArrow wrote: post #62

I have an idea: a search engine where a team of humans adds what website they deem important and also ranks it. Website owners who aren't in the index and want to submit their site, pay a small fee. The result would be no SEO, no content farms and highly relevant content. I don't think the algorithms and even AI will ever keep track with people who try to game the engines for profits.

Perhaps it could be organized into a hierarchical set of categories as well...

Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)

#109

Post by anon23432343 »

I do the same when it comes to products and reviews.

When it comes to programming I limit the search to one or two years. This is why my stackoverflow is sorted that the newest answer is the last because they don't let me sort in a way the the newest answer is the first.

I don't think its google fault in general its just the thing that if your first on a specific product you add a link where to buy that thing and this is how you make money. Would be fun to see if affiliate links were not a thing. By how much search results would improve.

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