171–180 of 243 posts
Google being garbage as a search engine feels like something we could have predicted as soon as google realised ads make money. Search engines powered by ads are simply not incentivised to send you to the best product, or even a group of the best products, since you won't click their adverts.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's the alternative? Manually curated directories lost to search. Anything completely manual isn't going to be "web-scale". Anything algorithmic is ranked and optimizable.
Manual curation, the way libraries work. (Or at least, good libraries) And search functions within those curated datasets.
Is it just that no one has found a good way to do it yet or is it fundamentally impossible because of some google ranking thing?
The whole Cisco courses, blog spam, SEO industry are some of the worst things to exist in technology. I hope all of them gets burned by a massive fire. Who even thinks of becoming a SEO consultant?
These Cisco certifications are such a scam tbh. Cisco commands and CLI are the most confusing, illogical designs for any feature. And they make sure to put in tens of thousands of features and hundreds of ways to configure every different feature. Then they create these overpriced courses and pay for their own employees to take every single one. Since Cisco employs a lot of people, and prefers people with Cisco certifications, this creates a lot of demand for the courses.
Most of the certifications could be replaced with a single 2 month networking course that explains the workings of features, provided they redesign their CLI to be slightly usable.
You either play the Organic SEO game or you Pay to Play (Ads). Google as a search engine is now useless when it comes to searching for a tool/software etc because everyone has gamed the "Best software for xyz" etc. But what's the alternative ? None. There are these "review" websites like Capterra/Software Advice/G2 and again you have to pay to play. You can technically get a review from a customer and get listed BUT…
From the point of view of someone who spent 10 years running an e-commerce store, and all its advertising, until a couple of years ago. Both SEO and search result ads on Google are dead. The hay day of being able to play the game and make a tidy profit is long gone. Google are playing every trick in the book to extract every possible cent from advertisers, spying on their business and sales to maximise their own prof…
Does Google want to win the game, or do they profit from the game continuing?
For example... When Google was founded, your site would flourish by the value of its content. But today, given all the SEO that the search engines permit, your options are limited. And one of the big options you're forced to choose from is to pay Google money, to be seen at all in real-world searches by people.
"That's a very nice Web site you got. Would be a shame if nobody was to find it."
If they wanted to, maybe Google has enough information about the world that it could wipe out the vast majority of SEO, with a zero-tolerance policy.
For example... Let's say you do SEO work. Google can probably tell that a site you worked on was SEO'd. So the site gets penalized severely. But there's more. Google probably knows exactly who you are, much of what you work on, who you interact with, etc. After your last clients are burnt to the ground, discoverability-wise, you get an engagement to work on a different site. Google has a good chance of figuring out that, too, and those sites get penalized severely. For engaging in deceptive and manipulative behavior, to rig search engine results, compromising people's ability to access the world's information.
"Nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
You're not going to keep doing SEO, because nobody wants to pay money to have their site receive search engine perma-death.
I'm not saying that this particular approach would be a good thing (and there would have to be a managed transition from the current mass sociopathic frenzy). But saying that the current situation is a cat&mouse game that can't be solved... might mainly be serving the cat and the mouse.
Maybe the cat and mouse are in a symbiotic relationship that lets them both milk the cows.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is no alternative. People talk about alternatives but everyone I've checked is even worse. Bing, DDG etc. All give complete garbage results. Perhaps not as gamified, but usually that just means you're going to a wordpress of a less competent admin.
Back to webrings! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webring (This is a joke (or is it?))
This feels like one of the last bastions of the true web left, the small web that is actually interlinked, not the dead ends you find in your ecommerce or social networking sites.
But it too is disappearing fast, I for one will miss it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
From the point of view of someone who spent 10 years running an e-commerce store, and all its advertising, until a couple of years ago. Both SEO and search result ads on Google are dead. The hay day of being able to play the game and make a tidy profit is long gone. Google are playing every trick in the book to extract every possible cent from advertisers, spying on their business and sales to maximise their own prof…
Even with all that data/information, Google still cannot find a more sustainable business model. Despite the countless number of sustinable businesses humanity has produced, so-called "tech" companies just cannot find one. These are not creative people. "We'll just keep on playing eavesdropping intermediary ("middleman") until we have undermined every business, every government and society along with it." Sounds grea…
Amazon, Microsoft, Apple are more diversified.
You either play the Organic SEO game or you Pay to Play (Ads). Google as a search engine is now useless when it comes to searching for a tool/software etc because everyone has gamed the "Best software for xyz" etc. But what's the alternative ? None. There are these "review" websites like Capterra/Software Advice/G2 and again you have to pay to play. You can technically get a review from a customer and get listed BUT…