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New ways we're tackling spammy, low-quality content on Search

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Re: New ways we're tackling spammy, low-quality content on Search

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they (say) don't store your history They don't show your history. > the ad profile Google builds on you is probably more damaging to your privacy than a photo of the entire contents of your wallet. I can take measures to prevent Google from linking together a full profile. It sucks that it's necessary, but once you log in it's effectively game over. And your payment info has enough stable identifiers that it's triv…

Kagi explicitly promises not to store your history[1] and then takes your money based on that promise. If they do store your history, then they are committing fraud on a grand scale. [1] https://kagi.com/privacy

Evert VPN app promises privacy but actually they don't honour that promise

Re: New ways we're tackling spammy, low-quality content on Search

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting you bring this up. We saw something similar happen at another FAANG where the fake review detection mechanisms that had worked so well were suddenly removed from the codebase, among other quality control safeguards.

Safeguards can hard to fight for when they make key numbers go down but improve something else that doesn't (immediately) show up in metrics.

Agreed, metrics such as customer satisfaction, customer retention, and brand trust.

Re: New ways we're tackling spammy, low-quality content on Search

#143

The expired domain abuse thing --- that's interesting because finding that signal was one of the few things I got done while I was at Google... in November 2006! And I vaguely remember being told that the fix went into the codebase after I identified that it was happening.

Interesting you bring this up. We saw something similar happen at another FAANG where the fake review detection mechanisms that had worked so well were suddenly removed from the codebase, among other quality control safeguards.

I wonder if Google does something to detect fake Android reviews or coordinated review bombing? It seems to me, at least anecdotally, that they don't have effective mechanisms for this.

Re: New ways we're tackling spammy, low-quality content on Search

#144
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just opened incognito window and entered "brownie recipe"... the first link is to "Love and Lemons" site which seems pretty good - there is a pretty small introduction, but then there is ingredients list, steps, etc.. top 5 links all look pretty good to me. (At least in web design area... I have no ideas if recipes themselves are tasty or not) Maybe it's a regional thing (I am in the US)? Or your profile is messed up…

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=brownie+recipe&ia=web Returned Love and Lemons first too. Never heard of them, but their SEO must be amazing.

I'm pretty sure it's because they integrated some google thing in order so show that rating and reviews right below the search result. It has the highest rating/amount or reviews ratio so it feels like this logic is putting it to the first result. Will be not surprised if most of these comments and reviews are some language models talking to each other, it's a bit uncommon to see THOUSANDS of comments, ratings and reviews on a recipe site, probably SEO optimisation.

Re: New ways we're tackling spammy, low-quality content on Search

#146

My "bar" for how Google does here is how it treats recipe pages. I absolutely loath what SEO has done for recipe pages, because now essentially every recipe page looks exactly the same: 1. Tons and tons of content about the history of the recipe, how humans first domesticated wheat, when the ancient Egyptians first discovered yeast as a leavening agent, etc. etc. 2. Then, after thousands and thousands of words, there…

Is the long text purely for SEO or because a longer page gives more opportunities for ad impressions and higher engagement metrics?

Recipes are not copyrightable so the only thing that sets each site apart is the surrounding story and nonsense described above - otherwise every recipe is flagged as duplicate content.

Re: New ways we're tackling spammy, low-quality content on Search

#147

My "bar" for how Google does here is how it treats recipe pages. I absolutely loath what SEO has done for recipe pages, because now essentially every recipe page looks exactly the same: 1. Tons and tons of content about the history of the recipe, how humans first domesticated wheat, when the ancient Egyptians first discovered yeast as a leavening agent, etc. etc. 2. Then, after thousands and thousands of words, there…

https://www.justtherecipe.com/

Perhaps this is a case where Google could rip the recipe off the page and display it in Search.

Re: New ways we're tackling spammy, low-quality content on Search

#150
post #28

I would really love for Google to provide advanced search capabilities or filters to superusers who know EXACTLY what they are searching for. I wouldn't even mind paying for it tbh.

I would really love Google to let me ban certain domains like photo banks which feel attacked by Google searches.

I’m not paying Google any money though. And $10 a month is over my budget

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