Search engines and SEO spam • Hacker News Board

Re: Search engines and SEO spam

#261

Post by mminer237 » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 6:28 PM UTC

bogwog wrote: post #159

numbsafari wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't that Google doesn't employ these people or invest in their activities. It's that Google has destroyed their own search results in order to continue to expand their revenue opportunities. If Google: - Enabled downvoting on results, like YT videos. (Has its own spam problems, just like YT) - Allowed you to block certain domains from your search results, like YT videos. (If they added some kind of "coo…

Those shitty SEO spam sites exist only to serve ads, and Google has a monopoly on internet ads. So there is no real incentive for them to solve the problem.

Real review sites serve ads too. I don't think Google has any incentive to make things worse, and they still want people to google reviews instead of just asking friends or people on reddit for reviews.

Re: Search engines and SEO spam

#262

Post by li2uR3ce » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 6:28 PM UTC

bombcar wrote: post #88

Just give users the ability to blacklist domains when searching; pretty soon you'll have a decent list of what users consider worthless. And pintrest would die.

Google used to have such a feature.

It would be nice if Google would ask you the simple question: "Did you find what you're looking for?" Instead they rely on the assumption that users only stop looking when they've found what they're looking for.

These days, there's a reasonably high chance that I quit looking because I gave up in futility--not because I found what I was looking for.

It's also the case that there's no way to train Google not to omit search terms or generalize them to the point of uselessness.

I really wish abusive SEO were the only problem but it's far from the case. Search results being crappy is a cumulative effect. You could solve SEO spam and I'll still not be able to find a USB SuperSpeed cable because it gets generalized to "usb cable" and there are a gazillion more charging cables than there are SuperSpeed cables.

Used to be that you could quote things to indicate that you really meant it. That's fuzzy now too. Every time we figure out how to circumvent the bad results, features are removed.

Re: Search engines and SEO spam

#263

Post by duskwuff » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 6:28 PM UTC

numbsafari wrote: post #238

fragmede wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you fight brigading, the organization of groups elsewhere to collectively vote on something? Eg white supremacist groups get together and vote down everything by people of color, and vote up their pages about how great they are?

How does Google already handle this exact problem on YT?

They don't. There's a lot of pretty obvious manipulation that goes on in YouTube recommendations and search results.

Re: Search engines and SEO spam

#264

Post by ijidak » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 6:29 PM UTC

canyonero wrote: post #259

I've been troubled by the just plain awful results being delivered by Google search over the last few years. I think these are just plain hard problems to solve and that Google is not incentivized to solve. Google wants you to click on ads at the end of the day, full-stop. Often times I find myself searching for "best ($product|$thing_to_do)" which I think many other people do as well because we all want the best. Ot…

In some ways paid search disincentives Google from delivering quality organic results.

The larger the gap between paid results vs organic results, the more users click the paid results.

Not sure how to solve this problem.

Re: Search engines and SEO spam

#265

Post by lubesGordi » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 6:31 PM UTC

djoldman wrote: post #203

Google knows how to surface relevant results and they choose not to because they aren't optimizing for relevant results, they're optimizing for revenue or profit within some constraints (don't lose too many users, privacy, avoid actually terrible or completely irrelevant results). All the various suggestions in this thread plus far more complex and insightful solutions are known to Google. Most of it boils down to us…

Likewise Youtube doesn't optimize for relevant results, only engagement to maximize ad exposure. The side effect of this is polarizing content gets returned more than relevant content (polarizing content being more engaging than relevant content apparently).

Re: Search engines and SEO spam

#266

Post by mc32 » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 6:33 PM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #91

To some extent, I worry that the problem with search engines is that there isn't any data worth returning. Yesterday's thread talked a lot about reviews. Writing a review is hard work that requires deep domain expertise, experience with similar products, and months of testing. If you want a review for something that came out today, there is no way that work could have been done, so there simply isn't anything to find…

Reviews are a special category. It suffers from a couple of issues:

1. You need to have enthusiastic reviewers (people who care enough about a product category to review them semi-throughly.)

2. Proper reviews can take time and may need domain knowledge.

3. Competition. When there were one or two people doing reviews on some category of products, maybe the economics worked out. Once you have hundreds or thousands competing with you, the time demand may be overwhelming and not worth it.

4. If you are a trusted reviewer or site, you will get economic pressure to review a particular thing or brand you may not like very much but the money may be good. So you will begin to experience conflicts of interest.

5. If reviews are just a hobby and not a way to make money, eventually you will slow down or move on, opening a hole that gets filled up by spammers.

7. Some things are timeless (a pipewrench, let's say) and some are seasonal (consumer electronics, toys, etc). The former deserves a through review but the latter doesn't deserve as much but it may get the bulk of interest due to seasonal demand). Does it really matter if the latter's latest iteration has 2% increased battery life to discuss?

I'm sure there is a lot I didn't think of. But it's a doomed category, unless people are willing to pay for professional reviews (Consumer Reports types and other independents).

Re: Search engines and SEO spam

#267

Post by sillysaurusx » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 6:36 PM UTC

noduerme wrote: post #66

hammock wrote: post #9

>This may not just be a problem with Google but possibly also the recipe for beating Google. A startup usually has to start with a niche market. Why not try writing a search engine specifically for some category dominated by SEO spam? >You might need to do a lot of manual spam fighting initially. That could be both the thing-that-doesn't-scale, and the thing that differentiates you by being alien to Google's DNA. (Th…

He's right as often as he's wrong

What has he been wrong about?

Re: Search engines and SEO spam

#268

Post by narmiouh » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 6:37 PM UTC

deadalus wrote: post #223

imranhou wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree that is annoying, but if you start excluding such results then how does one find that type of content?

You clearly label paywalled content with a symbol or image.

I think the only issue there might be that google might be unaware that it is a paywalled content due to how many sites allow crawlers access to content but not to users (based on crawler ip ranges). Agree such a flag would save time when available or even a search filter option to skip those results.

Re: Search engines and SEO spam

#269

Post by li2uR3ce » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 6:37 PM UTC

lubesGordi wrote: post #250

How about a platform for curation. Curators who know a subject well can link to content that looks good to them. Search goes through the curators, people can favorite certain curators. Lots of people like to curate. This is a better idea than trying to go after spam.

301 Battlefield moved: curator spam.

Re: Search engines and SEO spam

#270

Post by celdon25 » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 6:38 PM UTC

nobbis wrote: post #222

10 years ago, the original engineer of Google's search engine told me what he now wanted was asynchronous, human-powered search with curated results, e.g. a Google-like interface, but queries cost $5 and take 15 minutes. Money's no object for him, so he wanted to outsource the filtering, ranking, and interpreting of results. Would be even more useful today (albeit a tiny TAM.)

I would have told him not to quit his day job. That sounds ridiculous.