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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?

#101

Post by wkat4242 »

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…

Hmm yes but that melting house is not something a SEO buyer would pay for.

The problem is Google monetizes search terms and thus show the highest bidders and not the most relevant results.

This manifests itself the most for things people want to sell (products or services)

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

#102

Post by sneed_chucker »

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…

It all comes back to that "marginal user" blog post

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

#103

Post by kridsdale3 »

w0m wrote: post #29
zeruch wrote: post #17

I cant foresee a scenario where an endlessly growing mass of AI-generated noise, stacked upon itself, will be useful to anyone. Humans will invariably find a less contentious path (maybe its seeking out more localized options, maybe its balkanizing into various specialized domains, maybe its $NEWTHINGYETTOBESEEN, or all of the above. But the current trajectory cannot hold. Someone else mentioned the "reverse-takeover…

Eventually; someone will create an index to sort through the AI output and determine what's true/relevant and return it to the consumer. Call it 'airank' maybe?

It's basically Wikipedia.

Take as axiom that there exists infinite content of apparently human-readable stuff in the universe at random IP addresses. It is grey static, that maybe at one point in the past used to be ordered information. Now, all entropy.

A human managed and manually curated safe zone of information is the refuge. Real people had real discussions and votes and decisions to result in what you see. This is true with Reddit to a lesser but still useful extent. Democracy can be gamed, but it's 1000x better than Engagement Signal Ranking that drives Google or Meta's products.

The same principles apply to education, science, and political organization of human enterprise.

Basically, institutionalize your info-world.

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

#104

Post by wkat4242 »

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.

The majority is often totally wrong and disinformed so being out of touch doesn't have to be a bad thing at all.

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

#105

Post by ssgh »

devin wrote: post #95
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…

Username is fsckboy. > I'm old, very educated, very experienced, technical, etc. Checks out.

"fsck - check and repair a Linux file system" (https://linux.die.net/man/8/fsck) The -b -o -y must be undocumented flags.

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

#107

Post by arp242 »

spookie wrote: post #49
qvrjuec wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this what happened with rap genius around a decade ago[0]? Maybe this was long before their policy of zero human intervention. [0] https://www.theverge.com/2013/12/25/5243716/rap-genius-plumm...

Their lengthy apology is.... I don't know how to describe it. It reminds me of relationship I had, in a bad way. The part where they go on to say "We messed up" cracked me up. You don't "mess up" when you are fully aware of your actions, and perform them as planned.

I kind of understand their "yeah, but other sites are doing the same shady shit". You can say that doesn't excuse it, and it kind of doesn't, but you're at a real competitive disadvantage if you don't participate in the arms race. It's bringing a knife to a gunfight.

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

#108

Post by kridsdale3 »

viburnum wrote: post #18

This is maybe the worst-written article I’ve ever read. So much random detail about dresses and Canadian hometowns and almost nothing to say about the actual topic.

It's written for human beings with full and complete emotional centers. I found it lovely.

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

#109

Post by [deleted] »

sneed_chucker wrote: post #102
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…

It all comes back to that "marginal user" blog post

[deleted]

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

#110

Post by Chilko »

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…

Indeed, I've had to force myself to start searching in full sentences much more as the results from the old method of keyword searching have steadily deteriorated.
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