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Become Ungoogleable

joeyh.name

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Re: Become Ungoogleable

#151

Post by srsQ »

all2 wrote: post #128
srsQ wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my reference frame, “being discoverable” is an ideological stance. You can have your tribal perceptions and others are allowed theirs. Social norms are immutable physics. Other people’s content is over rated; I’ve been soaking it up for years and frankly none of it has been as moving as the effort of making my own. Social codependency at scale is proving toxic to the species. We can intentionally “great filter”…

I find this opinion to be solipsistic, but also relevant to the discussion because it moves the focus from consumption to production. I find the focus on producing goods/services/etc. to be more palatable than the consumption focused mindset we often see. Yes, we're all looking for information, but should we only consume as a way of life? I'll leave that as an open-ended question.

[dead]

Re: Become Ungoogleable

#152

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: Become Ungoogleable

#153

Post by shortformblog »

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…

This is one of those times where anecdotes don’t really do the argument justice. I’d recommend talking to people who actually do research. They can’t rely on Reddit alone.

Re: Become Ungoogleable

#154

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: Become Ungoogleable

#155

Post by DrThunder »

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…

School students can barely type or use a full blown computer anymore so I don't think this is a good anecdote. The type of people you're referring to are more worried about their next TikTok swipe and live on mobile apps. They don't even get to the point they search for meaningful content.

Re: Become Ungoogleable

#156

Post by m463 »

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…

I use ddg, but I'm weird.

Re: Become Ungoogleable

#157

Post by marginalia_nu »

distortedsignal wrote: post #150
marginalia_nu wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on the rants I've gotten from barbers, taxi drivers and the like when I've told them what I'm working om, there does indeed seem like there is a widespread dissatisfaction with capital G.

Yeah - but that's a different problem. How many barbers are there in your city? How many taxi drivers? Now - how should Google satisfy all of those people? I'll confess that I don't have the answer here. But if you're trying to look up "barber ${my_city}" or "taxi ${my_city}", and there are more than one page of results, everyone but the top 10 (top 20? how many results per page are there on google these days?) is go…

No I mean it's the barbers and taxi drivers struggling to find things.

Re: Become Ungoogleable

#158

Post by twelve40 »

deltarholamda wrote: post #73
Aurornis wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I typed "Joey Hess" into Google. The author's blog pops up as the first result, presumably because it hasn't been deindexed yet. The first page of results also includes his GitHub and an HN comment talking about him that…

"Useless" isn't accurate, but "not nearly as good as it used to be" sure is. At least in my experience. PageRank was brilliant, and worked as expected. It's now been superceded by... whatever is going on over in Googleland. Some of which isn't Google's fault, per se; the Internet is a lot bigger now than it was two decades ago. Some of it is. Their entire profit model depends on people using Google in a way orthogona…

> People pay Google to game Google results

are you referring to ads? cuz Im not aware of a way to pay Google to game search and it doesn't make any sense. Is there some dark alley in Mountain View where I can drop off a bag of cash? to game the search? Really curious now.

Re: Become Ungoogleable

#159

Post by dylan604 »

dmoy wrote: post #131
pperi11 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I literally search "xyz reddit" on google if i want reddit refs lol

To be fair reddit internal search is terrible

to be fair, the argument that people don't use google while someone is saying they use google while limiting to a specific site is more the point. while reddit's internal search is terrible is not really the point even if a motivator. googs is still being used nullifying whatever the point of the start of this topic was

Re: Become Ungoogleable

#160

Post by distortedsignal »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #157
distortedsignal wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah - but that's a different problem. How many barbers are there in your city? How many taxi drivers? Now - how should Google satisfy all of those people? I'll confess that I don't have the answer here. But if you're trying to look up "barber ${my_city}" or "taxi ${my_city}", and there are more than one page of results, everyone but the top 10 (top 20? how many results per page are there on google these days?) is go…

No I mean it's the barbers and taxi drivers struggling to find things.

Sorry, I misunderstood.
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