If google indexes Reddit properly and timely I’m not sure why I would go specifically to Reddit to search there for the subset. Same goes with stack overflow, I hardly need to go there to search
Google Search Is Dying (2022)
381–390 of 514 posts
Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)
#382Earlier quoted context omitted.
How would you even index something like Discord? It's mostly a chat app, where discussions are casual and often mixed togheter with others... It's not like a forum where each post is at least a somewhat coherent thought written out properly.
Discord should be publishing chat logs in HTML format, like how FreeNode did for their IRC logs.
I would dislike that. Imagine if every single thing you say to your friends while being in a public space was recorded for everyone to see in the future... The point of a chat is to be ephemeral. Otherwise it would just be a forum with really bad and chaotic content.
Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)
#383Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I imagine Google is in an awkward spot because, since ads is their bread and butter, they can't meaningfully penalize these websites without eating into their own bottom line. Many of the most intrusive ads are google ads. The fun thing is that NOT fixing this will kill them long term as well - they're like meth heads seeing how the drug is destroying their body and the short-term optimizing managers, C-suites and,…
Well how would you fix Google's predicament? I think it's easy enough to conclude they're harming themselves, but what are their options?
I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.
Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)
#384Earlier quoted context omitted.
>>Limit your search to Reddit, HN and/or Stack Exchange! Yup, Google and it's main result set has for quite a while been dead to me (ya, I use DDG, and pretty much threat the main result set that way too). Finding valid detailed comments on Reddit, HN, or SE is what I use for primary clues. Sadly, this has a predictably limited shelf-life. When using Amazon for product search, for a short while, it worked really well…
People have been astroturfing on reddit for a long time, the only reason it's not a cesspool is that reddit has a hardcore anti-marketing bent in a lot of subs and they'll aggressively out shills. I expect that GPT powered reddit bots will make the shills a lot harder to identify though.
The humans on reddit are often indistinguishable from bots as well.
Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)
#385As a programmer I often use search to find solution to my problems. This works most of the time.
Sometimes I search for Covid related sites, or related to protests, or to other 'hot' topics. It is difficult to find anything interesting in the results, as they are monitored, and homogeneous. I would like to see what the disinformation is, I would like multiple points of view. Even if wrong.
I started creating my own link database, so that I could find past links I found interesting. It does not have to be connected to ill intention from Google. There are so many pages, links that it just could be hard to find stuff there.
It is impossible to find useful data on words that are 'open' to interpretation. Search for 'apple'. I would like to receive millions, if not billions of news, links, information about the company, about types of apples, about anything that relates to that word. Instead you can only receive 31 pages in news, and around 10 pages in normal query.
This is unacceptable. Google search is like looking through a keyhole at the internet.
Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)
#386Earlier quoted context omitted.
And the worst of SEO pages are cooking recipes, where you have to scroll down screens of badly written meaningless text before you actually get to ingredients list. At least Google still keeps indexing recipe microformats.
Search your recipes on YouTube. It is a better way of getting the information and higher quality. Edit: To the friendly people downvoting me: Try for yourself and you'll be surprised how much good and informative content you can find on YouTube.
You're getting downvoted because those of us who have tried for ourselves often find videos vastly less useful, efficient or relevant than a bit of text. Especially in the world of the 'influencer'. Now you have half a video pimping their dozens of YouRedTwitTok accounts you just have to click on, the other influencers they're mutually shoveling traffic to, the products they're being paid to pimp...and if you're lucky you might get some information tacked onto the end.
Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)
#387Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I just headed over to one of the popular subreddits That was your first mistake, the defaults are cesspools full of karma farming bots. Nobody goes to those for advice.
Spoken like someone in a bubble. "Nobody goes there anymore; it's too crowded." Well, if "nobody" goes there, how are the bots able to farm karma? Who's giving them the views and upvotes? I guarantee you anything that's the "default" is being visited by many, many casual visitors, people not "in the know", and people who don't recognize karma farming bots for what they are.
I said nobody goes there for advice because there usually isn't any there, we mainly go to those for arguing nonsense and laughing at memes. And I'm not saying that there aren't many advertisements on those, but they are usually painfully obvious.
Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)
#388Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe this is giving reddit too much credit, but I do see people say "append reddit to searches" literally every time the topic of search is brought up, so what if reddit is aware people do that but doesn't want to be a search engine? Imagine you're one of the few remaining sources of human content on the Internet, and you look at the terrible cat and mouse game google plays forever with spam, you don't really envy i…
I disagree with that. It doesn't matter if Reddit doesn't want to be a search engine. People are already using it a search engine and they simply will never stop no matter what those ppl in Reddit are thinking. Better to embrace the search use case and make it search friendly.
With big power comes greater responsability.
Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)
#389I don't know if it's Google that is dying. It's more like a large segment of the public facing internet is wilting. The user experience without an adblocker is almost nothing but ads, popovers, permission requests and chat boxes, sign-up-to-the-newsletter requests. And these are the websites that aren't trying to bait-and-switch you For example, this is the screen I'm showed when I navigate to www.producthunt.com: ht…
When I navigated to your link I first got a full screen popover from Imgur and briefly thought that was the point. And, in a sense, it was.
Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)
#390Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I don't know if it's Google that is dying. I tried to use Google to see what would be good brand to replace a decade old small electrical appliance that failed a couple of months ago. Absolutely none of the results were helpful until I tried the "append Reddit to the search terms" trick. Immediately, I found a link someone had shared to a consumer reports style review of different brands at different price points.…
The Reddit trick is increasingly less viable as marketers are astroturfing Reddit.
That's been a significant factor on reddit since 2008 or so. It may be getting worse or the dynamics changing, idk, but it's nowhere near new.