Google is damned-if-they-do, damned-if-they-don’t. One side screams that Google Search is dead because Google doesn't innovate. The other - Google AI innovation is killing the web.
Google is burying the web alive
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Re: Google is burying the web alive
#22As someone who remembers what the web was like 25 years ago, I have a feeling that they're burying a corpse.
There’s still tons of personal webpages out there, Google just doesn’t expose them because it’s in their interest to show ad-filled SEO blogspam since they also operate AdSense and DoubleClick for Publishers. https://marginalia-search.com/ does a much better job of finding personal sites.
Re: Google is burying the web alive
#23Implicit in this article is the idea that you have to use Google, and that Google Search equals “the web”. I’ll be the boring nerd, I guess, who has to be the one to say there are many other search engines out there.
If you don’t like Google (I don’t), or don’t like where they are moving their products (I don’t) — please use a competing search engine.
I’ve used DuckDuckGo for years and I don’t miss anything about Google. There are plenty of other good search engines out there too.
It’s not particularly difficult to switch away and get an experience more to your liking, so it’s a bit baffling when Google Search product decisions are equated with burying the web alive. Just don’t use it!
Re: Google is burying the web alive
#24I get why this is problematic for industries that depend on high traffic for ad revenue etc, but is bad for websites who are actually trying to market services that provide tangible value? Like if I’m searching for a dry cleaner in Glasgow, if I end up with the same provider, I don't care (and neither does the dry cleaner) whether I find them through traditional links or an AI-mediated search?
Feels like more curation than we had before. My wife and I recently bought a commercial space and have been trying to find contractors for renovation projects. It has kind of blown us away at how unresponsive most have been. Like, we'll reach out them ... wait DAYS, sometimes they get back to us ... maybe a week later they'll come for a site visit to give us a quote and then we need to keep following up with them ...…
Hey, you should meet the folks in the other thread: "oh why did Google add my phone number to my business profile on Maps?" "It should be illegal for Google to publish listings for businesses without consent!" "It's crazy that just anyone can submit contact information for a business on Google Maps!"
If you're using Search or an LLM for a business recommendation, you're already using the wrong tool for the job. Even before Google Maps ramped up, there was Yelp, craigslist, Tripadvisor...
Re: Google is burying the web alive
#25Re: Google is burying the web alive
#26Implicit in this article is the idea that you have to use Google, and that Google Search equals “the web”. I’ll be the boring nerd, I guess, who has to be the one to say there are many other search engines out there. If you don’t like Google (I don’t), or don’t like where they are moving their products (I don’t) — please use a competing search engine. I’ve used DuckDuckGo for years and I don’t miss anything about Goo…
When "to google" has literally become a verb in several languages, you know it's not going to be that easy to convince literally hundreds of millions of people to use something different. For many unsavvy people, Google is and continues to be their window into the web, and they wouldn't even know they can have it another way.
Re: Google is burying the web alive
#27As someone who remembers what the web was like 25 years ago, I have a feeling that they're burying a corpse.
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Re: Google is burying the web alive
#28Implicit in this article is the idea that you have to use Google, and that Google Search equals “the web”. I’ll be the boring nerd, I guess, who has to be the one to say there are many other search engines out there. If you don’t like Google (I don’t), or don’t like where they are moving their products (I don’t) — please use a competing search engine. I’ve used DuckDuckGo for years and I don’t miss anything about Goo…
You have control over what you use to search the web, but you don't have control over the incentives of publishers, the content of which google used to get big and monetize and is now cannibalizing.
Re: Google is burying the web alive
#29Business idea: build a firewall for AI crawlers that variably gives them access to customer’s sites based on traffic they send. The more traffic they send, the more they are allowed to crawl.
Re: Google is burying the web alive
#30This is actually a good thing, now we don’t have to sift though a dozen semiautomatically created SEO gaming website that try and make the same point 5-6 said in slightly different ways.
What is better? A single source or a variety of sources to determine bias? If I do publish on the web? What is my incentive to keep doing so if my site never gets seen in search results? What will fuel the LLM then?