Google is getting a lot worse because of the Reddit blackouts • Hacker News Board

Re: Google is getting a lot worse because of the Reddit blackouts

#121

Post by beirut_bootleg » Wed, Jun 14, 2023, 4:14 PM UTC

binkHN wrote: post #33

bicx wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate how easy it is to get confused about what content on the page is even related to the original question. I have to get into my “Quora mindset” where I’m constantly double-checking that I’m not reading the response to a different random question injected into the original page.

I gave up on Quora! I don't even bother looking at all anymore. If Google gave me the ability to block certain sites from my search results, this would be at the top of my list.

Above Pinterest even?!

Re: Google is getting a lot worse because of the Reddit blackouts

#122

Post by bagacrap » Wed, Jun 14, 2023, 4:28 PM UTC

blovescoffee wrote: post #31

bagacrap wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of paid content on the mattress subs and I'm sure many others

Mattress subs?

All I know is I tried to use reddit for mattress recommendations and found it worse than useless.

Re: Google is getting a lot worse because of the Reddit blackouts

#123

Post by Fyrezerk » Wed, Jun 14, 2023, 4:41 PM UTC

reportgunner wrote: post #98

Fyrezerk wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I challenge you to provide me a better resource than reddit for finding reliable product reviews and discussions for just about anything you can buy.

4chan general threads. /g/ for tech, /diy/ or /out/ for tools and gear, /ck/ for cooking and more. If you need to actively find a review for some item you want to buy it's probably not that great of an item imho.

I'm not entirely sure what that implies. It's in the consumer's best interest to check reviews of products when selecting something to buy. How else would you wade through competing options?

Furthermore, 4chan has no search feature so I don't know how that's even equivalent.

Re: Google is getting a lot worse because of the Reddit blackouts

#124

Post by ColinHayhurst » Wed, Jun 14, 2023, 5:27 PM UTC

harimau777 wrote: post #79

b112 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

everything else is content farms or SEO spam. No! The rest of the content is still there, loads of it. Google simple has stopped caring, no it is not "too hard", they just don't care enough. Case in point, Google even aids in crappy results, by aliasing your search terms, preventing precision, putting monetization above all else. Google sucks . SEO/spam is not worse, Google is, they know it, they do not care, because…

Good point. Do you find that other search engines like Kagi resolve the issue?

For alternatives to Google here is a graphical network of web search engines and proxies: https://www.searchenginemap.com/ (desktop display only)

Re: Google is getting a lot worse because of the Reddit blackouts

#125

Post by newoldhead » Wed, Jun 14, 2023, 5:31 PM UTC

narrator wrote: post #26

Just use Yandex.com already. It's like Google search from 15 years ago.

use a searx instance. can aggregate search from almost any relatively known search engine and bypasses tracking.

Re: Google is getting a lot worse because of the Reddit blackouts

#126

Post by Terr_ » Wed, Jun 14, 2023, 5:38 PM UTC

bicx wrote: post #32

binkHN wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Quora This has to be one of these most useless sites on the Internet and it blows my mind how frequently the content from this site is exposed via Google search. Now that I think about it, I think I should probably just block it on my local DNS server.

I hate how easy it is to get confused about what content on the page is even related to the original question. I have to get into my “Quora mindset” where I’m constantly double-checking that I’m not reading the response to a different random question injected into the original page.

> I hate how easy it is to get confused about what content on the page is even related to the original question.

At this point I don't think it's ignorance, it's malice: A deliberate dark-pattern to drive "engagement" by layering in unrelated crap.

Re: Google is getting a lot worse because of the Reddit blackouts

#127

Post by j1elo » Wed, Jun 14, 2023, 6:36 PM UTC

dolni wrote: post #99

Cpoll wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No one wants their work stolen to train ais and then monetised for not even a mention in exchange. I feel (or perhaps hope ) the spirit of FOSS precludes the notion of "stealing." Besides, open source is no stranger to being monetized for the bare minimum mention required by whatever license.

What are you on about? A significant portion of open source software is GPL licensed. Taking GPL'd code and redistributing it without making the source available IS stealing. It is community code. If you want to use it, you have to give back. Otherwise pick something with a BSD or MIT license.

> Taking GPL'd code and redistributing it without making the source available IS

... copyright infringement. Against which you might want to lawyer up and sue in court, if you feel litigious (and have have deep pockets to pay for the expenses, or someone else does it for you). But is nowhere as clear cut as stealing, like you mentioned.

Re: Google is getting a lot worse because of the Reddit blackouts

#128

Post by devilbunny » Wed, Jun 14, 2023, 8:29 PM UTC

function_seven wrote: post #100

ChoGGi wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google groups and Google+ say hi

They say hi, I Wave back. Man, those were the days.

Wave was the way my group of friends watched LOST. Even though it ran like dogshit on the Atom-powered netbooks we were using at the time. What a great product that they just... tossed. It was IRC with benefits.

Re: Google is getting a lot worse because of the Reddit blackouts

#129

Post by pseufaux » Wed, Jun 14, 2023, 9:34 PM UTC

function_seven wrote: post #100

ChoGGi wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google groups and Google+ say hi

They say hi, I Wave back. Man, those were the days.

Rather than participating in this nonsense, I'll just remain a Reader.

Re: Google is getting a lot worse because of the Reddit blackouts

#130

Post by anenefan » Wed, Jun 14, 2023, 11:31 PM UTC

542354234235 wrote: post #118

anenefan wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It misses the point that many people don't use google, those search results from different search engines would similarly be impacted. You should see the basic search page google hands me to use and has been that way the last 7 or so years. Then again, I used to be a very heavy user of google, multiple switches or operators for each advanced search, a habit from the times when that's all I did all day long. Before th…

> I know google results have dropped off the deep end, but framing reddit going dark as being of significant impact to search results is not honest. Yes, the result these people want is now inaccessible - it's not a new thing, results that are inaccessible are not unexpected. It's no different to the many deep searches I've done in the past and found what might have been useful results, were actually private unless o…

If people want to insist it really is a google issue ... sadly no matter how much they would like to think there's getting a prize for being right ... they are simply wrong. This could be a bookmarks issue, or a duckduckgo issue if they were so to be believed.

I know people have the last couple or so years been focusing results using reddit, but it changes little - results are there, just for the moment those results are dark.

If they want technical stuff they might soon learn to use inurl:stackexchange ...

Whether or not I have struck the few no longer available / exists pages was actually quite irrelevant, it was just stated to point out dead pages are not unexpected.

Edit typo.