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Google Search Is Dying (2022)

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Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)

#391

Post by RicoElectrico »

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…

The advantage of Reddit to the broad internet is that there are always people trying to prove you wrong and call out BS.

Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)

#392

Post by IAmNotACellist »

Jensson wrote: post #343
GeekyBear wrote: post #316

Earlier 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.…

It is impressive that Google manages to rank reddit threads very well though. They don't have reddits internal data, do they look at reddit upvote scores or what? Why would the helpful thread be higher ranked than all the content spam on reddit? Google must do something really clever in order to be so good at indexing useful reddit threads.

I've found that Google is willing to return one or two Reddit links but then reverts to its usual SEO crapspam for the rest of the results. Even "site:reddit.com" only returns only a fraction of the discussions related to the topic. The site's been around for over a decade, and most topics have been discussed dozens of times or more.

Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)

#393

Post by Retric »

brookst wrote: post #346
Retric wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You misunderstand, if you penalize excessive advertising then the revenue generated per page view decreases. This will reduce but not eliminate the amount of effort spent on these projects resulting in fewer such webpages. So ‘How to unclog a toilet’ is always going to get SEO optimized spam. However, most topics don’t get that many views making them less viable for this business model.

> the revenue generated per page view decreases That assumption is worth reconsidering. It may be that fewer ads would just be more expensive to run and would work out similarly revenue-wise in the long run. The value of lots of ads may be diversification and smoothing out revenue, not increasing net.

If every single website on the planet had fewer ads then the new equilibrium might be roughly equivalent revenue, but many websites only have a single banner advertisement. So much of the redistribution of revenue would end up on those websites.

Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)

#394

Post by brookst »

benjaminwootton wrote: post #194
chimprich wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

They banned a large Covid sub r/NoNewNormal where the bulk of the content would be accepted as common sense today. Themes in that sub were that “the cure is worse than the disease” (it was) and that “we shouldn’t throw away our way of life for Covid” (we chose not to in hindsight). If you are a member of subs like r/lockdownskepticism even today then you frequently get banned from other subs.

That’s some revisionist history. That sun was a cesspool of bad behavior. It wasn’t banned for believing the wrong thing, it was banned for organized attacks on anyone who dared to believe differently from them.

Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)

#395

Post by 63 »

Everyone loves to complain about how bad Google has gotten, but nobody wants to do anything about it. If you hate the SEO spam and cookie banners and newsletters, make a website without those. Any time you struggle to find information in a Google search but finally figure it out, write a no-nonsense article. Link your article in places it's relevant so people might see it. If we want this to get better, we need to put in some effort and fix it.

Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)

#396

Post by soerxpso »

izacus wrote: post #325
ilyt wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got banned out of /r/games for asking "what rights trans people don't have that other humans do?" under post about someone yelling "trans rights are human rights" about Hogwart's legacy. Not being snarky at all, just curious (as I'm not from US and don't really get what the fuss is about). Still haven't got a coherent answer out of anyone I asked, just insults

That... sounds like a very well deserved ban considering the topic, the reddit and everything that was happening around it. As a moderator of online communities I'd do the same in a heartbeat. Take that to Twitter or somewhere.

How is that well-deserved? His comment was literally about the topic of the post, and the post was apparently allowed. "We allow politics but sorry, you're only allowed to have the Right Opinion here. Take all other opinions to Twitter!"

Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)

#397

Post by IAmNotACellist »

moffkalast wrote: post #133
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…

> forums have opened that are full of "support specialists" telling you to reset your windows install God this is such a pet peeve, those stupid Microsoft forums especially where the customer reps spend 80% of the comment apologizing and wishing a good day and suggest fuck all. They ought to just pull the plug on the site and let reddit handle their support for free.

Hello moffkalast,

I'm Kevin from the Microsoft Customer Support Team. I'm sorry to hear you're having a problem with Windows 10 support forums today. We're here to help and would like to get this problem resolved for you!

I understand that the issue you're currently facing is that "Microsoft forums where the customer reps spend 80% of the comment apologizing" are appearing on your Windows 10 forum search results?

Oftentimes unwanted ads or other unexpected configuration changes are caused by unintended software being installed on your computer, or from other errors.

Please try the following steps to resolve your issue:

1. Log into your computer. Click on the Start Menu and click Shutdown. Then click reboot. Allow any pending updates to install.

If this doesn't work, you can try the following solutions:

1. Log into your computer and click the Start Menu

2. Type "update" into the Search Bar and click Windows Updates

3. Click "check for updates now" and follow the instructions to install any pending updates.

If this still doesn't resolve your situation, you can check the following KBs for further help:

KB: 324829 - Restore from a System Restore Point

KB: 293111 - Update Windows Defender

KB: 299024 - Check for Errors using Windows Network Troubleshooter

I hope this has helped resolved your problem today.

Sincerely, Kevin

Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)

#398

Post by mmcdermott »

kjs3 wrote: post #375
schaefer wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try the search engine kagi.com It just works. Google stopped being a search company, and is an advertisement company now.

Must create account to use a search engine. Hard Nope.

I find the syllogism here a little hard to follow, because here is what the first bit looks like to me:

1. Web search is useful, both for work/productivity and recreation.

2. Running servers to index the internet is a scale of compute beyond the effort and expense of most or all of home users.

3. Web search has distinct economies of scale when applied.

4. Said economies must be funded in some way.

5. There are two proposed models: ad-supported and subscription.

6. We do not like the effects of ad-support in the context of Google.

So the options are to either choose a different add-supported method (with the understanding that it may well meet Google's fate) or else pay for the product directly (subscription).

Frankly, the only reason I haven't signed up for something like this is that DuckDuckGo has been good enough for me lately. It might not always be, but it has been so far.

So I take the view after step 6 that, for the time being, I'm willing to jump from ad supported platform to ad supported platform, but I say that while admitting I'm a bad search stretch away from switching.

Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)

#399

Post by brookst »

projektfu wrote: post #106
chimprich wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It has always been a felony to say “certain things to certain people”. See for instance fraud against the elderly.

Which certain people are you being unfairly restrained from saying what certain things to?

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