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

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

#201
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't mind that one. That a man in the US and a woman in Japan would get different results for a search for "sushi restaurant" is perfectly reasonable (even if the woman in Japan was searching in English). It's when two people in the same neighborhood got different results for the same search that I said "wait a minute, they're personalizing search results now for ad-targeting purposes" and ditched them. The pot…

When I search Python I should get the programming language but when my neighbour searches Python he should get snakes. That is a valid use of personalised search.

Good example, which is why both you and the other commenter gave it. And if that's as far as it went it wouldn't have bothered me so much; it was when conservative people I know were getting different results from liberal people for the same search terms that I started to realize the potential for an echo chamber, and decided it was a bad idea.

It's good for your mental health to be exposed to arguments you disagree with. Many times they will be bad arguments and you can dismiss them, but it's good to know what the people who disagree with you actually believe. And sometimes, just sometimes, you might see something that makes you realize that it's your own worldview that was mistaken, and adjust your worldview to better fit reality. If your search results only show you echo-chamber results that already agree with yours, you'll rarely learn the areas where you were mistaken. (And nearly everyone is mistaken about some things; the person who is right about everything is a rare creature indeed, and you should never gamble that you're that person).

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

#202

Dont worry in a year or two, Google wont even redirect you to the actual true url, instead everything will be a page with all links rewritten so all http is tunnelled thru them.

Doesn't this just describe AMP?

what happened to that anyway? I remember seeing it everywhere, and it just... stopped?

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

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, I decided to check, and the first links that show up when I search for "war ukraine" in yandex.com are Google news are from rbc.ua and bbc.com. When I search for it in yandex.com, the first link is CNN, the second google news, the third is indeed TASS, but the fourth is novayagazeta. I then picked "bucha" as the query most likely the be affected by propaganda and censorship. In yandex.ru, there are propaganda out…

Have your tests been ran on vpn with vpn cloaks?

I explicitly say, that I won't be surprised if the results change from Russian territory. I already put way too much effort to check the validity of an internet comment, but if anyone is interested, they can check.

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

#204
post #171
post #33

I've been using DuckDuckGo for years now, ever since it became noticeable that two different people searching for the same search term would get two different results back from Google. Meaning they were no longer completely reliable: they might show one person a result that they hide from the other person by burying it on page 3 where few people ever look. DDG's search results have been poorer recently than they used…

2. They are MS Bing, how is that better?

DuckDuckGo is owned by Microsoft? Are you sure? You're not confusing them with Bing, by any chance?

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

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note: Irrelevant. The reported behavior exists, does it not? Anecdata: I've observed this behavior for several weeks already as a regular user without a Google account and there are countless comments from regular users reporting the same behavior.

It’s very relevant because the author has a conflict in interest. They can wax poetic about “open internet” but really their business depend on it.

Kagi also uses this

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

#206
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's rather frustrating that after they crawled my website to use for their AI without my consent, and using that AI to slowly strangle my traffic, they're not happy that _other people_ are doing the same to them.

This is what capitalism's all about. Take as much as possible and give as little as possible if you want to win. Ideally, give negative amounts.

>”This is what capitalism's all about. Take as much as possible and give as little as possible if you want to win. Ideally, give negative amounts.”

Your description is vague enough to encompass every system that I’m aware of, from feudalism, through to mercantilism, communism, and capitalism. It may best fit communism and feudalism, both of which are most notable for fostering negative-value-added firms.

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

#207

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.

In this case they assume correctly that it is enshitification. A search engine, that doesn't understand what hypertext and the web are supposed to be is shit. There are no good reasons to not have proper links. Whoever creates such websites is having other motives or doesn't know good web development. In the case of Google employees I have to assume the former. They are not acting in the best interest of the users, and therefore enshitify Google search.

Well, I hope ultimately this will lead to even more user loss for them. Fortunately, I myself don't have to suffer due to it, because I degooglified my life.

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

#208

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.

It's not exactly the same: when in hover over a link, I want to know where it's taking me. I want to know if the URL is pointing to a safe domain.

Google being the cesspool it is, can serve whichever (ad laden) domain that fits their own interests the best.

This is yet another move to remove power from the users.

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

#209
post #110

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…

I paid for Kagi a couple months, and was rather unimpressed with the quality of results.

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

#210
post #204
post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2. They are MS Bing, how is that better?

DuckDuckGo is owned by Microsoft? Are you sure? You're not confusing them with Bing, by any chance?

No, sorry, it uses MS Bing as their main source, that also explains the low(er) quality
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