I add “site:reddit.com” to consumer/product related Google searches. This usually gets me the quality information I’m looking for.
Google search improved web but then ruined it for no fault of its own [0]. There is just so much spam.
Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it
21–30 of 289 posts
Re: Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it
#22[deleted]
Re: Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it
#23It's also a rough time to be buying a bicycle. I bought 3 bikes (1 new, 2 used) this year and each one was a minor miracle.
Re: Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it
#24As for the search in question: instead of "best commuter bikes for under $500", do yourself a favor and buy a beater bike for $100-200. The comfort is the same if not higher, but you stop thinking about your bike at all, and if someone steals it you buy another one next day without shedding a tear. My favorite ones are by fahrradmanufaktur, very solid, a new one will cost you a few thousand bucks, but after 5-7 years it still feels fantastic and you can buy it for a fraction of the price.
Re: Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it
#25As for the search in question: instead of "best commuter bikes for under $500", do yourself a favor and buy a beater bike for $100-200. The comfort is the same if not higher, but you stop thinking about your bike at all, and if someone steals it you buy another one next day without shedding a tear. My favorite ones are by fahrradmanufaktur, very solid, a new one will cost you a few thousand bucks, but after 5-7 years…
I really was clueless at the time and figured it would take at least $400-500 to get a decent starter bike. Thankfully I wound up coming across a used bicycle sale in Brooklyn shortly after and picked up an old Giant for $150. Have probably done a couple of thousand miles on it since!
Re: Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it
#26It's also a rough time to be buying a bicycle. I bought 3 bikes (1 new, 2 used) this year and each one was a minor miracle.
I wrote this pre-pandemic, back in January of 2020. I was able to snag a bike at a used bike sale a few weeks after writing it. Congrats on your new bikes!
Re: Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it
#27I think a bike is one of those items that you have to try out before you buy it, so I would not buy it online and I also would not go to Google to research it (at least initially).
When I was in the market for a new bike a few years ago, I looked at Yelp to find the 5-6 bicycle shops with the best rating in my city. Then I went to each shop and told them what I wanted from my bike and my budget.
This process went very well. Not only am I supremely satisfied with my purchase, even after a couple of years, but I also found a new great bicycle shop that I go to for repairs and upgrades and stuff.
Re: Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it
#28I would argue that google is being used incorrectly here. Google is specially being asked for a product list which meets a certain criteria. The user is asking Google to recommend the best bikes.. The user is actually looking for authoritative bicycle reviews to make a purchasing decision. Searching for “bicycle reviews” would give a far higher chance of finding what the user is after. They can then use the criteria…
While I agree with you about the incorrect search being used, I disagree that bike review results will give anything more useful. Many "reviews" are also collections of affiliate links, disguised as a review.
Re: Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it
#29There's also an even worse thing here. If you search for a product under shopping on google, something that is somewhat known like a certain TV model, and you'll see most SHOPPING results are from websites that actually don't sell anything, but rather will have a "product page" where either the buy button is disabled or redirects to amazon. They typically have much lower prices, or just low enough so you'll click.
Re: Amazon has ruined search and Google is in on it
#30I add “site:reddit.com” to consumer/product related Google searches. This usually gets me the quality information I’m looking for.
Except Google still displays a lot of archived very old threads as if they are new[0] so often searching for recent reviews that way is annoying.