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Become Ungoogleable

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Re: Become Ungoogleable

#101

Post by distortedsignal »

deltarholamda wrote: post #95
distortedsignal wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to point out - if you get to the seventh page of Google, it's been known for some time that those results are... specious at best. Check out this xkcd from almost a decade ago: https://xkcd.com/1334/ https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1334:_Second If you're really going to page 7 of Google... man, that's a desperation I've never known.

I've searched for various weird error messages and ended up far into the Lands of Deep Pagination before, trying to find some glimmer of hope that I can unbrick whatever beep-boop thing I broke. It is a violent and windswept place, barren of joy or peace.

We've all had our denvercoder9 moment, for sure.

Re: Become Ungoogleable

#102

Post by GoblinSlayer »

ghaff wrote: post #86
rotexo wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, though as I understand it, that still leaves a public record. Also, I looked into it when I got married, and the sense that I got was that name changes for men are logistically challenging.

A lot of the "deep web" stuff is behind paywalls (like background investigation sites) now. But a number of years ago when some of them were still pretty open, I was pretty floored by how much information you could get on a person if they had an uncommon name and/or you knew just a little bit about them. There is a lot of information that's public as a matter of law--which arguably, in many cases, hasn't reconciled t…

There's tradition when a family has only daughters and the oldest daughter marries, her husband takes her family name.

Re: Become Ungoogleable

#103

Post by marginalia_nu »

deltarholamda wrote: post #78
distortedsignal wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that I agree. My brother tried to set me up with a girl last week. She has a pretty uncommon name. Googled her. Found... a lot of stuff. I have a VERY common name. Think multiple (relatively) famous people (photographers, US Medal of Honor winner, enough lawyers to choke a court system for DECADES), but if you google my name and the city I live in (1,000,000+ people), my LinkedIn is like the second resul…

Okay, but now try "what's the best gaming laptop?" or something similar. This is the sort of query that, at one time, would unearth some nerd's web site alongside PCWorld or whatever. Now it's seven pages of nearly identical listicles, some of which are on bizarre domains like "DougsAutoBodyAndFlowerShop.com", and all of which are festooned with ads, also provided by Google.

Not really sure what organic content you expect to find for that query.

Maybe you'll find a blog post from someone who bought a gaming laptop and found it pretty good? Or an old forum thread like this one[1]

Not a lot of actual human beings sitting around buying and comparing various gaming laptops. It's much more likely the content you'll find is from some content mill.

[1] https://celephais.net/board/view_thread.php?id=61296

Re: Become Ungoogleable

#104

Post by kevincox »

If you really want to make a stance it is probably much better to keep your pages on Google but put up a "browser wall" that doesn't allow any Chomium-based browsers.

"Using chromium based-browsers is harmful to the openness of the internet. See [link] for examples of harmful APIs that Chrome is pushing. Browser diversity is important to an open and user-friendly internet. Please use Firefox, Safari or any other non-Chromium browser to view this site"

Re: Become Ungoogleable

#105

Post by bachmeier »

Aurornis wrote: post #8

> Nobody really expects to be able to find anything of value in a Google search now This is a categorically false premise. The kind of statement that only makes sense when you're in a deep bubble and entirely removed from the average person's use of the internet. Deliberately removing yourself from Google is fine for the author who is more concerned about taking an ideological stance than they are about being discove…

> This is a categorically false premise. The kind of statement that only makes sense when you're in a deep bubble and entirely removed from the average person's use of the internet.

I mean no harm by this comment, but I think you're the one living in a bubble. Do you watch high school students using the internet? Where do they go for information? Reddit is the first place they look. Then they look for a Discord server. Google is a last resort, but since they know it's probably just going to return crappy SEO spam articles, they may give up entirely without even trying Google.

Your answer is technically accurate, but only in the sense that it disproves the "nobody" part of the statement because of the population of users age 45+. Google has lost their place as the site to use when you want to find information.

Re: Become Ungoogleable

#106

Post by bilekas »

> The web will end one day. But let's not let Google kill it.

The web will end one day. Imagining google in it's form today will even exist is a stretch.

Google and all the big players today are all fault to some degree of the cesspool we are in at the moment. I get the hate. But the hyperbole of blaming them for the destruction of the internet is just nonsense

Re: Become Ungoogleable

#107

Post by l33t233372 »

bachmeier wrote: post #105
Aurornis wrote: post #8

> Nobody really expects to be able to find anything of value in a Google search now This is a categorically false premise. The kind of statement that only makes sense when you're in a deep bubble and entirely removed from the average person's use of the internet. Deliberately removing yourself from Google is fine for the author who is more concerned about taking an ideological stance than they are about being discove…

> This is a categorically false premise. The kind of statement that only makes sense when you're in a deep bubble and entirely removed from the average person's use of the internet. I mean no harm by this comment, but I think you're the one living in a bubble. Do you watch high school students using the internet? Where do they go for information? Reddit is the first place they look. Then they look for a Discord serve…

If a highschooler is using reddit to find information, I guarantee they find the thread through google.

Re: Become Ungoogleable

#108

Post by vmoore »

My most sensitive searches are when I lookup people online. Google only gets you so far. With enough money, you can throw a few coins at data broker firms and get back solid 'dox' on many people. It depends on how online a person is, and how much they unwittingly divulged to various services (services that sell their data to people-search firms and other brokers).

I have the real name of several so called 'anonymous' online personalities, but I won't divulge this info. I was curious recently about a Twitter account posting under a pseudonym and wanted to see if their opsec was tight. Turns out it wasn't. Their real name was discovered in ~15 minutes with some heavy Googling.

Imagine if you can simply throw money at the problem and forgo Google entirely, getting not only their legal name, but other PII too?

Re: Become Ungoogleable

#109

Post by JohnFen »

distortedsignal wrote: post #100
deltarholamda wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>mainstream tech press sites That's kind of the point. Old Google unearthed things. New Google is where you go to find out what the media (and Google) wants you to know. If that's what you want, then sure, Google is great. I used "best gaming laptop" as an example, but you can try "what is the best mayonnaise" if you'd like. My results included Uproxx. Which I guess counts as "unearthing," since I would never go to a…

Yeah - I think that "commercialization and commodification" is kind of what I've attributed this to. I think the webring concept is probably the best way to get away from this, but it's not trivial to find those hidden gems. The good ones become/became less hidden. The bad ones get/got buried. But if these are the complaints about Google - "I only see sites that are so good that they constitute the mainstream" - I'm.…

> "I only see sites that are so good that they constitute the mainstream"

The problem as I see it is that the mainstream websites are not good. Search results that gave a broader range of hits than just that sort of thing would be much, much more useful.

If I want, for example, to find what laptops people consider the best, none of those sites help me.

Re: Become Ungoogleable

#110

Post by motbus3 »

deltarholamda wrote: post #33
Aurornis wrote: post #8

> Nobody really expects to be able to find anything of value in a Google search now This is a categorically false premise. The kind of statement that only makes sense when you're in a deep bubble and entirely removed from the average person's use of the internet. Deliberately removing yourself from Google is fine for the author who is more concerned about taking an ideological stance than they are about being discove…

>This is a categorically false premise This is accurate, somewhat. A lot of people do expect to find things of value when the use Google to search. But people who are more technical know it's a bit of a faff and bother to get Google to spit out what you're actually looking for, outside of "who is Chloe Grace Moretz" or something equally banal. And Google-the-Company does treat the Internet like it is their corporate…

I believe it was an ideologic position by the author, but maybe it is not too far. I can't tell for others, but depending on what I look for Google is not the best option. I find that now there are too much ads which kind get in the way of the answer. There are too many crafted results to appear more relevant than they are and they tend to sticky to the top for a long time.
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