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Google made me ruin a perfectly good website (2023)

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Re: Google made me ruin a perfectly good website (2023)

#311

Post by sambazi »

zrobotics wrote: post #167
samdung wrote: post #165

The internet is an SEO landfill ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20256764 ) This is a related discussion from about 5 years ago about how SEO is ruining search. Google still seems to have a thick enough skin and a monopoly to get away with crap even after so many years of ruining search.

Calling it a Landfill seems accurate. I just searched (on DDG) for the tap size for a 5/16-24 bolt. I got garbage like this: https://shuntool.com/article/what-size-drill-os-used-for-a-5... This isn't even the worst example, since it does at least have the correct info buried amongst tons of Ai generated garbage, but I can't use this for reference, since it tells me 4 different drill sizes. I've had to switch back to…

> How have we regressed to the point that I'm better off using a paper book than online charts for things that don't change?

because products that require iteration lend themself to subscription models which in turn mean a recurring revenue which is deemed superior to onetime payments for a 'finished product'.

Re: Google made me ruin a perfectly good website (2023)

#312

Post by albumen »

calgoo wrote: post #217
Lazare wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not entirely fair. The problem is that Google forces actual good cooks to make their recipes look like worthless blogspam, but a good original recipe is not actually worthless blogspam, even when disguised in the way Google requires.

When it looks and acts like the spam sites, then what difference is there really? If I have to scroll 4 pages to find the ingredients and then scroll around like crazy to find the instructions (then scroll back and forth while cooking/baking) then it does not matter how good the recipe is, the page killed it for me.

I'd argue that most web users have a higher tolerance for ads than HN users, so they put up with the scrolling. And if it results in a tasty recipe, then they'll do it next time too, since that's seemingly the (tolerable) price to be paid for good food.

But lots of recipe sites now have a "jump to recipe" link at the top, so they've realised the junk is annoying for some fraction of their users. Although page junk is a pain, shortcuts for low-tolerance users seems like a good compromise.

Re: Google made me ruin a perfectly good website (2023)

#313

Post by gtfiorentino »

VelesDude wrote: post #282
reddalo wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need to collectively stop using Google, but the alternatives are just not as good for some things. The best one is probably Kagi, but let's be real: "normal" people would never pay for a search engine service. Well, "normal" people don't even know the difference between Google, Google Chrome and probably the internet.

My default is Duckduckgo but in the recent weeks they have massively upped how abrasive their ads are. Nothing wrong with there being search related ads but the sheer volume is getting out of control.

Hi, I work at DuckDuckGo - thanks for the feedback. Nothing much has changed in the past few weeks on our side, and so would love some more info so we can investigate. Do you mind sharing what country you are searching from, and whether you noticed on desktop or mobile? Also just FYI — you can turn ads off completely in settings if you want.

Re: Google made me ruin a perfectly good website (2023)

#314

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

throwup238 wrote: post #129
tonyarkles wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just looked up Cookie and Kate. On my iPad I had to flick 7 times to get past the exposition on Crispy Roasted Chickpeas and find the actual ingredients. When I found the ingredients, they occupied a small squeezed sliver of the page. As I was counting the number of simultaneous ads surrounding the ingredient list (4 separate ads), a pop up covered them all and suggested I sign up for her newsletter. The recipe loo…

The problem is that Google started weighing time spent on page very heavily in their ranking algorithm - I don't remember at what point this happened but it must be about a decade ago by now. Every time a user clicks a Google result without using "Open in New Tab" and clicks the back button, Google gets a signal about how long they spent on the page. The longer a user spends on the site, the stronger the signal. Once…

Why did people continue to engage with such trashy sites?

Re: Google made me ruin a perfectly good website (2023)

#315

Post by bitnasty »

bruce511 wrote: post #121
blargey wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Quite who uses this site is unclear. Isn't that what all the tracking and analytics is supposed to determine? I thought ads were supposed to be tailored to the viewer as much (if not more than) the site. > Conversely Adsense sells ads based on "targeted users". Which means your original site is pretty useless to Adsense. It might have been a fair point, but AI-generated word salad was enough to make this site palat…

Oh, I agree it's still a crappy site for advertising. He gamed the algorithm to get onto the program. Of course getting into adsense isn't the goal, the goal was to make some money. But he didn't have a site worth advertising on before, and he doesn't now. I predict actual revenue will be equally turgid. On the tracking front, sure, I mean I suppose some people go to the site. So it gets some views. I have a road pas…

If he’s getting paid per impression, then I don’t see how the payout will be unexpected terrible considering the site has existing traffic. Of course he could be paid by click, in which case you are probably right.

Re: Google made me ruin a perfectly good website (2023)

#316

Post by withinboredom »

sambazi wrote: post #306
withinboredom wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That stake can be anything, time, work or money. I think you'll find that money should be removed from your list. There are some untrustworthy people that have tons of money. Sadly, I think trust must be EARNED, and that requires giving effort (work) and time. You cannot buy trust with simple money.

> You cannot buy trust with simple money. yet rich ppl are granted more upfront trust. maybe because we assume less incentive to rob.

This clearly isn't true, since if you dress and make a rich person smell homeless, they simply won't be trusted in most parts of civilization.

No, what you're talking about is POWER and AGENCY. Rich people have the power to override trust through the fact that they can operate with near impunity; so you have very little agency to not trust them. If you choose to not show trust, you may invoke their wrath.

Re: Google made me ruin a perfectly good website (2023)

#317

Post by egeozcan »

isodev wrote: post #215
pyinstallwoes wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How might you see solving this problem? How could we distribute the task or goal of curation amongst individuals? How do we incentivize and enable discovery of maven/curators?

I don’t know, webrings?

Webrings were a lot of people doing work for free or with little return. Nobody has time to do this anymore, and the only way to support such project would be paid membership (hard to gain traction) or ads (back to square one).

Sorry that I sound pessimistic but I just am.

Re: Google made me ruin a perfectly good website (2023)

#318

Post by egeozcan »

hosteur wrote: post #281
elorant wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was already solved in the past. Don’t just build a web site, build a community. This way the community will advertise the site and attract more users.

How do you build a community if google prevents users from finding it?

Start local. With actual people. Advertise with posters on utility poles (oh well they do not exist anymore in most places so replace with a suitable alternative and go to your local church/mosque/dance club/whatever relevant). I'm not saying this will work, but it is how it used to work.

Re: Google made me ruin a perfectly good website (2023)

#319

Post by bityard »

pineaux wrote: post #309
steve1977 wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, it’s not Google who is gatekeeping the Internet, but the “dumb masses” who are using Google. Google is just gatekeeping Google.

Do you have a god alternative? I am interested.

I've had some luck with excessive consumption of alcohol

Re: Google made me ruin a perfectly good website (2023)

#320

Post by ThePhysicist »

I mean it's hard to keeping growing 10 % every year if you're already one of the biggest companies in the world, so I think it's unavoidable that at some point you will prioritise revenue over user interest if those are misaligned, which they seem to be for search. People using search engines and companies wanting search traffic have vastly different incentives, so it's even surprising to me that the system worked so well for such a long time. Recently it just seems that the whole thing starts to come off at the seams, there's just too much pressure from all sides that squeezes against user interest. The last 10-20 years were characterised by strong growth of the web and with that revenue per user icnreased as people did more and more stuff online, but maybe now we're reaching a saturation phase were revenue per user won't increase naturally anymore, so you have to start hacking user attention to squeeze out more revenue. Seems very similar to the streaming platforms, all was great when their growth was fuelled by user growth, but as that seems to saturate companies switch gears and monetise individual users more agressively as a growth driver.
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