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As the public begins to believe Google isn’t as useful, what happens to SEO?

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Re: As the public begins to believe Google isn’t as useful, what happens to SEO?

#111

Post by ge96 »

ranting-moth wrote: post #69
ge96 wrote: post #28

I don't get the argument about gpt replacing a search engine. If gpt trains from search engine data how does it get new data? I guess the usage of gpt over time.

Google's search results have been poisoned by SEO. A lot of the time when looking for information about X the search results are dominated either by someone trying to sell me X or they have very superficial information about X just so they can a bit further down try to sell me X. (I'm talking about the unknown X, not Elon's failing project).

I don't disagree with that. I hate trying to get a Towing service and it's a fake website/intercepting the request so they can charge on top/call the actual tow company I was trying to call.

Re: As the public begins to believe Google isn’t as useful, what happens to SEO?

#112

Post by postalrat »

smeagull wrote: post #57
postalrat wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are people you to find your forum if sites indexing sites like google apparently won't link to your site: https://www.google.com/search?q=anonymous+English-language+i...

You are talking as if that isn't a positive. Forums are at their best when they grow slowly.

The 1 in 10,000 forums that actually grow.

Re: As the public begins to believe Google isn’t as useful, what happens to SEO?

#113

Post by wslh »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #88
fsckboy wrote: post #38

I'm old, very educated, very experienced, technical, etc. My assistant is young and none of the above. She finds everything very quickly through internet searches. However-it-is that google is interpreting search terms, that's how her brain works. I told her about a house I drove by that looked like a cool Halloween house. While I was still telling her basics about it, she was already pulling up pictures of it. I had…

The trick is that Google actually works great. It works better than before. It just doesn't work in the way that we (highly educated and technical people) want. We all laughed at our parents and grandparents for typing full sentence questions into the search bar in 2005 instead of carefully crafted incantations with keywords, "site:" labels and other such things. Young people often use full sentences today because th…

Google does not work. I can show you with a simple example with a few keywords together that does not find the specific resource.

I just give an example in another HN thread on a different context [1].

I am open for a 30' session showing a lot more examples.

Regarding less experienced people searching for information, try looking for health data and see what is in the top.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37961449

Re: As the public begins to believe Google isn’t as useful, what happens to SEO?

#114

Post by fsckboy »

wildrhythms wrote: post #52
fsckboy wrote: post #38

I'm old, very educated, very experienced, technical, etc. My assistant is young and none of the above. She finds everything very quickly through internet searches. However-it-is that google is interpreting search terms, that's how her brain works. I told her about a house I drove by that looked like a cool Halloween house. While I was still telling her basics about it, she was already pulling up pictures of it. I had…

How would you have phrased that query?

unlike some of the houses that show up in that query, this house was not designed to appear melting, and I wasn't sure if it was even designed to look uneven, or had the foundation settled and they did nothing about it? So I was trying to explain the uneven wavy lines, rounded corners, and I was saying "it's almost as if it had melted", thinking "this is my personal interpretation, I'm just being descriptive"

so that's what I mean by "informal thinking" vs "explicit query"

it's also easy to explain this one case, but it is true in general, she just finds things much more quickly than I do, and when I ask her what was her query I'm always "why tf did you type that in?" If we used a formal language for search, I'd beat her, but she throws in a lot of extraneous terms that make me think either or both "you are overspecifying" or "you are ambiguating" with those extra terms, but she gets answers I don't get, I think because many other people are typing things in the way she does.

I had been trying to find it before I saw her, and since I knew the general neighborhood I was actually trying to "walk" around with streetview to find it, then I was wracking my brain for architectural terms I could use.

Re: As the public begins to believe Google isn’t as useful, what happens to SEO?

#115

Post by I_Am_Nous »

leptons wrote: post #42
ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #6

The internet was ruined when it was de anonymized by Facebook and LinkedIn etc. I remember growing up in a completely anonymous internet. You could be who you are, say what you want and explore digitally. Then you would go back to society as the real you and temper yourself a bit to fit in and work with others and that was ok because you could blow off steam on the internet.

> You could be who you are, say what you want and explore digitally. You can't even really do that on HN without getting your account deleted. I don't think the blame belongs solely on Facebook and Linkedin so much as anyone who has any kind of power online using it on others as they see fit.

Sometimes people want to say some pretty antisocial things, so it's not too surprising if people tasked with "keeping the peace" are trigger happy with bans. Presence in a community is a privilege, not a right.

That said I also believe you are correct, even small degrees of power can corrupt and being granted power over conversation means your biases may lead to abuse if you don't agree with a view point or the person holding that view.

Re: As the public begins to believe Google isn’t as useful, what happens to SEO?

#116

Post by [deleted] »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #88
fsckboy wrote: post #38

I'm old, very educated, very experienced, technical, etc. My assistant is young and none of the above. She finds everything very quickly through internet searches. However-it-is that google is interpreting search terms, that's how her brain works. I told her about a house I drove by that looked like a cool Halloween house. While I was still telling her basics about it, she was already pulling up pictures of it. I had…

The trick is that Google actually works great. It works better than before. It just doesn't work in the way that we (highly educated and technical people) want. We all laughed at our parents and grandparents for typing full sentence questions into the search bar in 2005 instead of carefully crafted incantations with keywords, "site:" labels and other such things. Young people often use full sentences today because th…

[deleted]

Re: As the public begins to believe Google isn’t as useful, what happens to SEO?

#117

Post by BoorishBears »

wslh wrote: post #113
pclmulqdq wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trick is that Google actually works great. It works better than before. It just doesn't work in the way that we (highly educated and technical people) want. We all laughed at our parents and grandparents for typing full sentence questions into the search bar in 2005 instead of carefully crafted incantations with keywords, "site:" labels and other such things. Young people often use full sentences today because th…

Google does not work. I can show you with a simple example with a few keywords together that does not find the specific resource. I just give an example in another HN thread on a different context [1]. I am open for a 30' session showing a lot more examples. Regarding less experienced people searching for information, try looking for health data and see what is in the top. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=379…

> It works better than before. It just doesn't work in the way that we (highly educated and technical people) want

You could not have chose a more affirming counterpoint of an example.

Re: As the public begins to believe Google isn’t as useful, what happens to SEO?

#118

Post by Waterluvian »

fsckboy wrote: post #38

I'm old, very educated, very experienced, technical, etc. My assistant is young and none of the above. She finds everything very quickly through internet searches. However-it-is that google is interpreting search terms, that's how her brain works. I told her about a house I drove by that looked like a cool Halloween house. While I was still telling her basics about it, she was already pulling up pictures of it. I had…

The problem I have is that I need a way to just get webpage results. I did a search on my phone for “what’s the best colossal sword in Elden ring?” just now and I got:

- full screen of those “intelligent” answers that is just naming swords from Elden Ring and Dark Souls 3.

- two SEO spam sites

- two decent results

- a full page of YouTube suggestions

- two more SEO pages

- a section of “people also searched for”

- four more YouTube videos

- another “people also searched for”

- a block for Reddit posts discussion this question (finally what I really kind of wanted, maybe I just stop using Google…)

- about 10+ more decent-looking websites.

Perhaps your assistant is just paid enough not to be annoyed by this garbage way of getting to the answer. And perhaps she doesn’t know what great really feels like. I wonder if there’s a generation of people who only know of the Internet as being this bazaar that’s absolutely glowing with neon ads like some blade runner undercity.

Re: As the public begins to believe Google isn’t as useful, what happens to SEO?

#119

Post by yard2010 »

ShamelessC wrote: post #100
okdood64 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of HNers are pretty out of touch with how the vast majority of people use the internet.

A lot of HNers are pretty out of touch.

A lot of HNers are pretty

Re: As the public begins to believe Google isn’t as useful, what happens to SEO?

#120

Post by yard2010 »

wkat4242 wrote: post #98
zenincognito wrote: post #25

SEO agency owner here. Have been in the agency game for over 15 years. For whatever it's worth, here are my 2 cents. Business is booming. Not exactly dying as indicated here in the HN circles because obviously HN crowd is much further ahead in the curve. SEO is still the number one opted channel by most ecommerce stores because keywords like "red party dress" or "green shoes" are still immensely more valuable and bri…

The whole thing about Google selling search terms to the highest bidder is exactly why it doesn't work for me as a user. I want the thing I'm looking for in my area with the best quality and best price. Usually the shops that pays the most for the search term are nothing to do with that. I've stopped using Google altogether for things I want to buy. I only search directly in the shops now.

But that's how monopoly works.
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