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The internet is an SEO landfill

docs.sendwithses.com

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Re: The internet is an SEO landfill

#141

Post by RestlessMind »

userbinator wrote: post #78
ehnto wrote: post #18

Search results are so heavily weighted toward commerce, products and services because those are the people that can spend money on SEO. It's made the internet, seen through the eyes of search results, seem like an aggressive, shady market bazaar. I try searching for anything remotely bike related, bike community, mechanical information, or just general cool bike stuff and I can't find the human community underneath a…

Don't forget the "showing results for Y, click here to search for X" when X is what you actually wanted to search for. It's ironic that, in trying to make search "human friendly", Google has also succeeded in giving it all the negative traits of a human --- the "human" that is more like a commissioned salesperson. I know the argument is that humans frequently make mistakes so "we should just show them what we think t…

> Search was much better when ...

If you really believe that, maybe it is a nice startup opportunity for you :)

Re: The internet is an SEO landfill

#143

Post by Gene_Parmesan »

swayvil wrote: post #119
jacquesm wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One nice solution would be a search engine that throws out anything related to commerce or linking to commerce.

Agreed. Much like a spam-filter. Seems straightforward enough. What am I missing?

What you're missing is the fact that larch search engine companies have no profit motive to do this. They get the vast amount of their money from commercial ad sales -- ads for commercial results. Why would they purposefully castrate their highest paying customers?

And if you think the answer is to create and host a new, independent engine, you will be hard pressed to develop a good one, and to find the money to keep it running.

Re: The internet is an SEO landfill

#144

Post by smt88 »

highace wrote: post #105
dheera wrote: post #32

It would be awesome if Google had up/downvote buttons like Reddit and use them to eliminate all the fluff in search results, even if on a targeted community basis. For example if a recipe has no pictures, too many ads, not clear instructions, or no equivalent volume measurements (e.g. "4 grams sugar (about 1 tsp)") I'm likely to downvote it, and those properties can be learned from multiple downvotes.

This already exists. If you navigate back to the search results then that counts as a downvote. If you don't navigate back, that's an upvote.

I know this is true, but my use of tabs means I've opted out of the system.

I open tabs for the top results and just close them when done. Often, I have to re-search with added "verbatim" filter or quotation marks because Google seems to ignore my most important keyword 90% of the time.

Re: The internet is an SEO landfill

#145

Post by Gene_Parmesan »

robertAngst wrote: post #111
ehnto wrote: post #18

Search results are so heavily weighted toward commerce, products and services because those are the people that can spend money on SEO. It's made the internet, seen through the eyes of search results, seem like an aggressive, shady market bazaar. I try searching for anything remotely bike related, bike community, mechanical information, or just general cool bike stuff and I can't find the human community underneath a…

I find some of my top 'competitor' blogs are worse quality, but somehow perform better due to having tons of links/content. Something like 'Save Money on Food', I am positive I am best-in-class, but I am only front page google, on occasion. Without a doubt, I should be the number 1 result, and instead, well SEO'd mom-science wins. Btw, does this mean google should be looking for crappy code/design=genuine website?

The catch of course is that anything search engines start looking for, SEO will start optimizing for. If crappy code == genuine website, then get ready for a shitstorm of shitty looking SEO-enhanced pages.

Come to think of it, that might be kind of funny for a day or two.

Re: The internet is an SEO landfill

#146

Post by hedora »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #132

The Internet needs a good non-profit search engine that has no conflicts of interest. It could be funded by a foundation like Wikipedia or by the government like PBS, but the world sorely needs this resource.

Most people forget (or never realized) that the main benefit page rank had over previous search engines was that it briefly bypassed pay for placement.

At this point, if search results are dominated by SEO paid placement, then Google search should be as ripe for disruption as the search engines it replaced.

I think a non-profit, curated index is a good first step to disintermediating this whole shady (and spammy) industry.

Re: The internet is an SEO landfill

#147

Post by voxl »

mythrwy wrote: post #139
lostctown wrote: post #121

I append "reddit" to any query not meant for a productive task. Except now the internet is mostly reddit for me, which kinda bums me out. Especially given the new js-heavy design. In 2019, if I want reliable search about something I know nothing about I must first search on google, then try again with "reddit" appended, then change www.reddit.com to old.reddit.com, then parse through what are often questionable answe…

Am I the only one who thinks Reddit really sucks? It's a cesspool of kiddie memes, shock, ill informed opinion and political posturing. Besides, if I wanted to search Reddit I'd go to Reddit. It being front page for _everything_ I search for now is so annoying.

Yet you browse and comment on this website, clearly a bastioned of informed opinions, and no political posturing.

Really it's worse off for not having the occasional meme.

Re: The internet is an SEO landfill

#148

Post by albertgoeswoof »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #132

The Internet needs a good non-profit search engine that has no conflicts of interest. It could be funded by a foundation like Wikipedia or by the government like PBS, but the world sorely needs this resource.

I don’t think it’s searching for things that’s the problem, it’s creating things of value. There’s no reason to create a great piece of content if no one sees it. To get people to see it you need to fill it with fluff for google.

Re: The internet is an SEO landfill

#149

Post by smt88 »

swayvil wrote: post #142

What would be a good name for a commerce-free search engine?

Wikipedia is basically an information search engine without commerce or social media.

The problem is that your results page is the article itself, and you need to scroll to the bottom to get to an external site.

It's theoretically possible to change the UI or analyze Wikipedia to make a pretty solid search engine powered by millions of person-years of curation.

Re: The internet is an SEO landfill

#150

Post by brianpgordon »

dheera wrote: post #114
vntok wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you are describing is a literal filter bubble, where very soon your only exposure to content will be seeing content you are already liking, ideas you are already adhering to, people you are already looking to. A bubble where ideas and people that you and people like yourself don't like automagically get hidden from you so that you never get exposed to them. A nightmare.

I think this can be done a little more intelligently. Up/downvotes should be based on the structure of the site and more so than the meaning of the content. An downvote should not mean "I disagree with this author" but rather "this site was useless spam" or "I derived no information from this site because it threw 5 popups in my face". Or if I downvote a bunch of paywall sites it should stop showing me paywall sites.…

> An downvote should not mean "I disagree with this author" but rather "this site was useless spam"

How would you tell them apart? If you could identify abusive site formats mechanically anyway why even solicit votes?

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