google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update • Hacker News Board

Re: google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update

#141

Post by makeitdouble » Sat, Sep 12, 2026, 6:06 AM UTC

ed_mercer wrote: post #102

lubujackson wrote: post #82

As much as I am sad that Google died like 15 years ago, I am past the mourning phase. That was when they announced they were shifting from returning websites to "returning answers" and it has been a long slide into shittification I do enjoy using their free AI. For actual web search I actually like using Yandex. It reminds me of old Google, returning reasonable results and much less "shaping results to please our cor…

>I do enjoy using their free AI It's really not free. You're paying with your data.

People have this fixation on privacy, when there's so much more going on, potentially way mor important.

Google's strong position in AI gives them bragging right to attract more companies and get them to actually pay, subsidizing your use. It also lowers competitors position as you're not touching them while we're on Gemini. It also fortifies their position in the future ad market.

Being second or third in AI usage is worth a lot, one's private data matters very little in comparison.

Re: google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update

#142

Post by orbital-decay » Sat, Sep 12, 2026, 6:07 AM UTC

JsonDemWitOster wrote: post #114

While a lot of people are concerned with local model performance, I wonder how feasible is it now to run a local indexed web search? Surely running an old school Google is possible with the beefy AI rigs today. I know the problem will be crawling which would be bottlenecked by the ISP but I use Google to search SO, Wikipedia, programming language docs, Github issues, and AWS docs. I think a feasible workflow would be…

https://yacy.net/

Re: google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update

#143

Post by andwur » Sat, Sep 12, 2026, 6:09 AM UTC

nine_k wrote: post #110

lubujackson wrote: post #82

As much as I am sad that Google died like 15 years ago, I am past the mourning phase. That was when they announced they were shifting from returning websites to "returning answers" and it has been a long slide into shittification I do enjoy using their free AI. For actual web search I actually like using Yandex. It reminds me of old Google, returning reasonable results and much less "shaping results to please our cor…

The real "old-school Google, but modern" is Kagi, with the caveat of being paid. (Worth the $5 for me.) But LLMs can be commanded. This is may bookmark alias for invoking the spirit of old Gog=ogle from within the new, AI-based Google: https://google.com/search?q=You%20are%20Google%20Search%20fr... (Cleaned / decoded: 'You are Google Search from 2004. Given a search request, provide 10 links to relevant pages, each w…

Good workaround! It's just sad that to achieve the previous behavior we now need to burn significantly more compute, and in turn energy, and with far worse performance and an inverted UX.

The most frustrating part is that they have all of the data, and oodles of compute, available to surface the same very functional experience they originally offered, but they would prefer the image of being visionaries rather than the reality of being useful.

Re: google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update

#144

Post by Brian_K_White » Sat, Sep 12, 2026, 6:10 AM UTC

encomiast wrote: post #98

Brian_K_White wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything that isn't repeatable is by definition unreliable.

Random number generators notwithstanding.

The definition of "not repeatable" or unreliable in an rng is if it was random sometimes, and predictable other times.

Re: google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update

#145

Post by noisy_boy » Sat, Sep 12, 2026, 6:12 AM UTC

nine_k wrote: post #110

lubujackson wrote: post #82

As much as I am sad that Google died like 15 years ago, I am past the mourning phase. That was when they announced they were shifting from returning websites to "returning answers" and it has been a long slide into shittification I do enjoy using their free AI. For actual web search I actually like using Yandex. It reminds me of old Google, returning reasonable results and much less "shaping results to please our cor…

The real "old-school Google, but modern" is Kagi, with the caveat of being paid. (Worth the $5 for me.) But LLMs can be commanded. This is may bookmark alias for invoking the spirit of old Gog=ogle from within the new, AI-based Google: https://google.com/search?q=You%20are%20Google%20Search%20fr... (Cleaned / decoded: 'You are Google Search from 2004. Given a search request, provide 10 links to relevant pages, each w…

> Worth the $5 for me

Steep at 300 searches per month or about 10 per day. If you search often, it is too expensive. If you rarely search, not worth 5 bucks.

They are plainly trying to push people to their $10 unlimited plan. I would have appreciated if they allowed, say, 600 searches per month for $5 or so.

Re: google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update

#146

Post by saint_yossarian » Sat, Sep 12, 2026, 6:12 AM UTC

nine_k wrote: post #110

lubujackson wrote: post #82

As much as I am sad that Google died like 15 years ago, I am past the mourning phase. That was when they announced they were shifting from returning websites to "returning answers" and it has been a long slide into shittification I do enjoy using their free AI. For actual web search I actually like using Yandex. It reminds me of old Google, returning reasonable results and much less "shaping results to please our cor…

The real "old-school Google, but modern" is Kagi, with the caveat of being paid. (Worth the $5 for me.) But LLMs can be commanded. This is may bookmark alias for invoking the spirit of old Gog=ogle from within the new, AI-based Google: https://google.com/search?q=You%20are%20Google%20Search%20fr... (Cleaned / decoded: 'You are Google Search from 2004. Given a search request, provide 10 links to relevant pages, each w…

That prompt mixes in unrelated results about the workings of search engines. You could just use `udm=web`:

https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=web

Re: google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update

#147

Post by googapologist » Sat, Sep 12, 2026, 6:14 AM UTC

what wrote: post #97

JohnFen wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because I wouldn't want Google to know what links I click on. When I used to use Google, and they added such redirects that included the destination URL as a parameter, I'd edit the link to make it just that URL before resolving it. This new scheme would make that impossible.

They already knew which links you clicked on though…

[flagged]

Re: google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update

#148

Post by googapologist » Sat, Sep 12, 2026, 6:15 AM UTC

brainwad wrote: post #117

JohnFen wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because I wouldn't want Google to know what links I click on. When I used to use Google, and they added such redirects that included the destination URL as a parameter, I'd edit the link to make it just that URL before resolving it. This new scheme would make that impossible.

They own the JS on the page, they don't need the redirects to know where you clicked...

[flagged]

Re: google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update

#149

Post by googapologist » Sat, Sep 12, 2026, 6:16 AM UTC

Cider9986 wrote: post #54

1e1a wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

JavaScript being disabled - Google was already sending analytics pings when search result links were clicked on, using JS.

It doesn't work without JS though.

Pings are blockable in Firefox and so are the event analytics requests triggered by Google's on-page JavaScript.

Re: google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update

#150

Post by orbital-decay » Sat, Sep 12, 2026, 6:17 AM UTC

aucisson_masque wrote: post #123

So why are we angry about that ? I mean the end result for the users are exactly the same, it matters only for bots. Google have such a (justified) bad reputation that whatever they do, people assume it’s entishification. I don’t believed it is on that matter.

Yeah. I might be wrong but I think they only served direct links for a relatively short time in their history, early on in the 90's and in recent years with ping, which they used to track clicks anyway. At least half of their history they used either the 302 redirects or onmousedown link rewriting (which was terrible). And I'm not even starting on AMP.