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In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

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Re: In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

#271

Post by [deleted] »

reaperducer wrote: post #148
BitwiseFool wrote: post #15

Google results have gotten dramatically worse over this last decade. Google now seems to fixate on the most common terms in my query and returns the most generic results for my geographic area. And, it seems like quotes and the old google-fu techniques are just ignored or are no longer functional. There are a whole host of factors behind this, but I'm certain that the switch to Natural Language Processing / Semantic…

Google results have gotten dramatically worse over this last decade. A lot of people say this is because Google is worse at returning the desired search results for various reasons (algos, ads, spam, etc). I've come to suspect it is more deliberate on the part of Google. I've said it before, so I'll belt out the chant again: "Google doesn't make money from providing the right search results. Google makes money from k…

[deleted]

Re: In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

#272

Post by abecedarius »

bartread wrote: post #32

I suspect a bunch of people might jump on the bandwagon that this is Google repackaging others' content into search snippets and robbing their sites of traffic. No doubt there's some truth to that, but I'd like to indulge in a slightly different flavour of Google bashing on this occasion. The reason I often don't click through on search results is that the search results are garbage - either irrelevant or poor qualit…

> about becoming a more senior business leader is that I feel like I'm changing as a person. I feel like the way I think about problems and people is changing.

Dunno, but this might be the sort of perspective you're seeking: there's a book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Mazes about the culture of managers at large corporations. And a series of posts on it -- I'd start with the one near the top that's just quotes from the book, to see if it's you're after: https://www.lesswrong.com/s/kNANcHLNtJt5qeuSS

Re: In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

#273

Post by ecf »

gonehome wrote: post #63
BitwiseFool wrote: post #15

Google results have gotten dramatically worse over this last decade. Google now seems to fixate on the most common terms in my query and returns the most generic results for my geographic area. And, it seems like quotes and the old google-fu techniques are just ignored or are no longer functional. There are a whole host of factors behind this, but I'm certain that the switch to Natural Language Processing / Semantic…

When I search Google now I mostly get spam. “Product vs. Product” -> list of spam websites that just show them side by side with ads. “Product Review” -> same as above, spam. “Product referral code” -> sites with spam and no codes. Interesting web content is in Reddit (and youtube), Google exists as a tool to search Reddit since the “new” Reddit site is awful. Programming questions are mostly stack overflow, but occa…

> Interesting web content is in Reddit

I’ve found this to no longer be the case after Reddit has starting doing nefarious tricks with the date of a post.

For example, I’ll click on a link in Google showing it’s from last week when in reality the post is 2 years old.

Re: In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

#274

Post by squarefoot »

Not going to change, since Google has become a huge advertising container with less and less value wrt genuine information about products. If I search for a product to buy, I usually add the "price" word to it so that the search engines includes shops selling that product. All fine, but if I want to read reviews (real ones, not the usual paid fakes) or blogs in which a product features, compatibility etc. are discussed, which is very common in IT hardware, I don't want Google to throw at me a pageful of its top sponsors. No thanks, I don't care, I'm perfectly able to find a place where to shop; what I want from a search engine depicting itself as intelligent is to know when I want technical information and stop defaulting nearly every damn result to a shop to buy from.

Re: In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

#275

Post by jayqd3 »

Const-me wrote: post #253
reaperducer wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google results have gotten dramatically worse over this last decade. A lot of people say this is because Google is worse at returning the desired search results for various reasons (algos, ads, spam, etc). I've come to suspect it is more deliberate on the part of Google. I've said it before, so I'll belt out the chant again: "Google doesn't make money from providing the right search results. Google makes money from k…

And another reason, Google makes money when you click on low-quality machine generated search results, because these pages are almost always monetized with google ads. This causes a conflict of interests: when they improve search, they earn less money.

Your remark is very good. How do they balance rich answers which lead to zero-clicks with the revenues which are based on a-clicks? Thanks.

Re: In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

#276

Post by gxqoz »

cruano wrote: post #163
cgriswald wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I add “wiki” too, but I made it a keyword search command to use Wikipedia’s search and cut out the middleman altogether.

You can prefix your search with "!w" on DuckDuckGo, bangs[1] are a neat feature and what actually made me switch [1] https://duckduckgo.com/bang

This is effectively the same as the "wiki [query]" search shortcut you can add to a browser. This is useful, but there are also situations where I want to get to the search engine's results page but weighted towards the wiki content. Wikipedia search will always send you to the page for an exact match. There are times where I want to see the search results instead.

Re: In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

#277

Post by gxqoz »

newsbinator wrote: post #23

2/3rds of my Google searches are: * current time [city] * [city] weather * [city] covid

Are you like frequently traveling to different cities based on the covid level? Is your behavior somehow changing significantly due to slight differences in covid deaths in your city?

Re: In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

#278

Post by lifeisstillgood »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #15

Google results have gotten dramatically worse over this last decade. Google now seems to fixate on the most common terms in my query and returns the most generic results for my geographic area. And, it seems like quotes and the old google-fu techniques are just ignored or are no longer functional. There are a whole host of factors behind this, but I'm certain that the switch to Natural Language Processing / Semantic…

So there needs to be a significant cost in production of the content - youtube for example - want to see how to (a recent example) lay laminate floor, well you need to have a camera and a person and, hell, a room with laminate flooring needed - that's a big cost.

Lowes has made a video, so have dozens of contractors. It's amazing how tool rental firms have not advertised on there ... actually that is a bit weird...

SideNote - for some reason I replied to an email outreach from Rand, and he actually replied back within a few hours, clearly having read my words and come up with a real answer.

I was frankly shocked. Either he works an inhuman amount or he has secretly invented AGI to respond to his emails for him.

Kudos and good luck

Re: In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

#279

Post by marshmallow_12 »

kikokikokiko wrote: post #153
tompagenet2 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this sounds implausible, but I find Bing image search so much better than Google.

Not just for images. Bing seems to be a lot more closer to what Google search used to be a few years ago. Anything related to torrents or streams is pretty much impossible to find on Google. Any news not spouted from mainstream sources, gone from Google. My default search deck nowadays is a mix of Bing and DuckDuckGo.

it's nice to see my vague worries, bothering me in the back of my head put into words. Also good to know that i'm not crazy for thinking googles results are surpisingly poor and generic. I sometimes get the same feeling using google that i get reading a poorly transalated manual from a Chinese company. Generic, admire the fact some effort has been made, little laugh inside. Except this is google (and ironically, the chinese copywriters are probably using Transalate)

Re: In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

#280

Post by benibela »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #15

Google results have gotten dramatically worse over this last decade. Google now seems to fixate on the most common terms in my query and returns the most generic results for my geographic area. And, it seems like quotes and the old google-fu techniques are just ignored or are no longer functional. There are a whole host of factors behind this, but I'm certain that the switch to Natural Language Processing / Semantic…

It seems to just return the most popular sites

Mostly ignoring what is on the sites

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