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Google Search Is Dying (2022)

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Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)

#471

Post by JohnFen »

carlosjobim wrote: post #413
kjs3 wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 luck…

We all have to sift. No matter if the content is text, video or audio. If I'm undertaking a project of some magnitude - like cooking a new dish or changing my brakes - then I don't mind spending a little time to find the highest quality information. And for many things, that will be inside a YouTube video. Even if you have 100 million low quality content creators, you have at least a million high quality content crea…

> We all have to sift.

Sifting videos is tedious and time-consuming. Sifting text is much more efficient.

Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)

#472

Post by codexon »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #311
toss1 wrote: post #269

Earlier 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.

It has always been a cesspool for a long time though. Only fit for consuming memes, cat pics, and financially motivated stunts like when Keanu Reeves was there the other day, using the social media account of the company for his upcoming film in a few weeks.

Each subreddit is controlled by a few essentially random people that likely have personal gain as one of their motivations.

If you think you aren't being advertised to on reddit just because the spam isn't as obvious as elsewhere, think again. The advertising there is more sophisticated than bots dropping links in comments.

There was a leak a while ago showed one of the moderators of wallstreetbets that was posting fake options gains, and it still gave him a massive following which he used to sell them a newsletter or something.

There are many subreddits where there will be a link in the sidebar to a monetized website affiliated with one of the mods.

And even 10 years ago, I remember at least 1 moderator of the programming subreddit somehow always had his blog posts highly voted and ending up on the front page, while any other submissions, especially ones that might counter his claims, would end up being stuck in the "spam filter". And if you messaged to have it unblocked, they'd only respond 1 day later, which means it would never show up on the front page due to the age factor of the ranking algorithm.

Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)

#473

Post by JohnFen »

echelon wrote: post #89
greyman wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what sense will it kill social media?

Unless social media websites begin to require ID verification, they'll be flooded with LLM-powered bots. Humans will tire of this.

I simply cannot imagine being willing to provide identity documents to any of the social media/advertising companies. They would have to somehow demonstrate they're trustworthy first.

Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)

#474

Post by kjs3 »

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.

Ah...it's not at all clear from the Kagi front page that it's a pay service. That does change things.

Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)

#475

Post by kernal »

Google Search Is Dying (2025)

Google Search Is Dying (2024)

Google Search Is Dying (2023)

Google Search Is Dying (2022)

Google Search Is Dying (2021)

Google Search Is Dying (2020)

Google Search Is Dying (2019)

Google Search Is Dying (2018)

Google Search Is Dying (2017)

Google Search Is Dying (2016)

Google Search Is Dying (2015)

Do we see a pattern here?

Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)

#476

Post by qrio2 »

IAmNotACellist wrote: post #397
moffkalast wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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? Oft…

triggering lol

Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)

#477

Post by carlosjobim »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #461
carlosjobim wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can submit your site to Google and they will index it. If your content is good, you can rank highly - even if nobody links to you! Even if you don't pay Google a dime. Instagram doesn't allow links out, so you can not promote or sell your content - only if you pay them through their spy/ad service.

> If your content is good, you can rank highly - even if nobody links to you! I m sorry, this is like news from a different universe. There is an absolutely world-shattering report on how children have lost all freedom ovet the past 40 years. They used to roam the neighbourhood, then they were allowed to stay in one street, and today we dont let them out of backyard. I have it on my PC, but can't find it in Google. I…

I can only talk from my own experience, I've launched several websites that became high ranking on Google solely because of content and speed. Without anybody linking to them. Hell, there's still nobody linking to them years later, and Google still keeps them highly ranked. In niches with well established competitors.

Without Google, I doubt I would have had any chance to reach a public, because nobody except search engines will give you the time of day when you're not already established.

There's many bad things about Google, but they truly allow many people a chance to get their voice out and many small businesses a chance to exist. That is brilliant.

Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)

#478

Post by carlosjobim »

JohnFen wrote: post #471
carlosjobim wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We all have to sift. No matter if the content is text, video or audio. If I'm undertaking a project of some magnitude - like cooking a new dish or changing my brakes - then I don't mind spending a little time to find the highest quality information. And for many things, that will be inside a YouTube video. Even if you have 100 million low quality content creators, you have at least a million high quality content crea…

> We all have to sift. Sifting videos is tedious and time-consuming. Sifting text is much more efficient.

Yes, but sometimes the nugget you need might not be in the text at all.

Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)

#479

Post by carlosjobim »

kjs3 wrote: post #457
carlosjobim wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We all have to sift. No matter if the content is text, video or audio. If I'm undertaking a project of some magnitude - like cooking a new dish or changing my brakes - then I don't mind spending a little time to find the highest quality information. And for many things, that will be inside a YouTube video. Even if you have 100 million low quality content creators, you have at least a million high quality content crea…

I can look at a blob of text and have an idea if it's worth looking deeper at in a glance, especially something structured like a recipe. I have to watch the video. That doesn't scale, and I frankly have better things to do than vet content creators via several or many minutes of inane video at a time, much less 'millions' of creators. In fact, the most efficient way I've found to find a new recipe that isn't a waste…

> I frankly have better things to do

This is what I'm trying to say: Sometimes you don't have better things to do, because you need the knowledge that is in the video. If you're doing something important and somebody comes up to offer to show you a much better way of doing the task, does this have to be the response? "I have better things to do".

Some YouTube videos are worth the time to watch, and I would argue that for recipes you'll spend your time better starting with videos vs search engines. Unless it's something you already know how to make and just need a reminder of the measurements of the recipe.

Talking about cooking, you have the BBQ channels on YouTube, with people showing you how to best cut and prepare different cuts of meat. If you don't personally know somebody to show you these techniques you'd be lost with only text content and no video.

I think it's easier for people to rage at an annoying YouTube video when trying to find information, than to rage at worthless SEO spam. But the solution is the same: close the tab and go back. It doesn't take many seconds to notice if a YouTube presenter is an idiot.

Re: Google Search Is Dying (2022)

#480

Post by realjhol »

brookst wrote: post #401
realjhol wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And if you disagree, please post some examples. The Donald

The poster child for vote manipulation? Where front page articles would have 5000 upvotes 10 minutes after posting? The sub that fetishized persecution despite receiving warning by after warning?

There were a huge number of active users there who lobed up voting anything and everything.

It really didn't fetishise persecuting anyone. The warnings were arbitrary and capricious

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