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For some searches the whole screen on Google is now ads

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Re: For some searches the whole screen on Google is now ads

#341

Post by ngc248 »

RosanaAnaDana wrote: post #298

I'm just gonna throw this out there as I'm noticing it more and more at this point since switching languages. What the actual F has happened to google search results for programming issues? I used to be able to google a question and get, more or less, a right answer from a forum or stack overflow. Recently, many coding tutorial websites have clearly figured out how to hack googles pageranks and now instead of one 'ri…

GeeksForGeeks is the prime culprit and lotsa times what geeksforgeeks has is just the docs.

Re: For some searches the whole screen on Google is now ads

#342

Post by hetspookjee »

shiftpgdn wrote: post #269
heavyset_go wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still bitter that they've deprioritized results from SongMeanings.net in favor of garbage like Genius. The former is one of the only sources for lyrics from smaller acts, especially from the 90's to early 2010's. Since it's from the pre-Web 2.0 era, it's disappeared from Google's search results.

Same with Sheldon Brown’s website on bicycle maintenance. Much of the information on his site is still the best resource on the internet but instead Google would rather serve irrelevant results that show ads.

It’s only a matter of time till it gets ripped and hosted on another ad filled website like all the fake stack overflow websites these days. So at least the material is not lost.

Re: For some searches the whole screen on Google is now ads

#343

Post by omot »

I call this the squeeze.

Google, even after all its attempts, is still a one trick pony. They have to grow at least 20% year over year to justify the market cap. They weren’t able to create a two pillar company like Amazon (AWS + Retail) so what do uncreative master executives naturally turn to? Of course their only cash cow.

“ Rabban! I place you in charge of Arrakis. It's yours to squeeze, as I promised. I want you to squeeze and squeeze and squeeze!” - Dune

Re: For some searches the whole screen on Google is now ads

#344

Post by vocram »

shiftpgdn wrote: post #269
heavyset_go wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still bitter that they've deprioritized results from SongMeanings.net in favor of garbage like Genius. The former is one of the only sources for lyrics from smaller acts, especially from the 90's to early 2010's. Since it's from the pre-Web 2.0 era, it's disappeared from Google's search results.

Same with Sheldon Brown’s website on bicycle maintenance. Much of the information on his site is still the best resource on the internet but instead Google would rather serve irrelevant results that show ads.

Gosh! It’s been a while that none of my searches ended up on that site. Now I know the reason.

Re: For some searches the whole screen on Google is now ads

#345

Post by sk5t »

benlivengood wrote: post #305
RosanaAnaDana wrote: post #298

I'm just gonna throw this out there as I'm noticing it more and more at this point since switching languages. What the actual F has happened to google search results for programming issues? I used to be able to google a question and get, more or less, a right answer from a forum or stack overflow. Recently, many coding tutorial websites have clearly figured out how to hack googles pageranks and now instead of one 'ri…

Python has been the worst for me; it's almost impossible to find the official documentation for modules/functions. Defining search aliases or custom search engines in the browser with URLs like ''' https://www.google.com/search?q=site:docs.python.org+%s ''' is probably the reasonable thing to do.

Ditto, moving from Scala to Python and Go for a stint shocked me with the craptacular state of search results for "easy/popular" languages. Next stop was an extension for blocking particular sites in search.

Re: For some searches the whole screen on Google is now ads

#346

Post by rawoke083600 »

endisneigh wrote: post #73
dessant wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how search results for "car rentals new york" look like on my display, there are no organic results above the fold. https://i.imgur.com/CFeWDY1.png As for your question, there is no point in trying to replicate results for the same query, search results and the displayed ads can wildly differ for the same query based on a large number of factors.

Quoted post unavailable.

lol whot ??

Re: For some searches the whole screen on Google is now ads

#347

Post by kecupochren »

cmckn wrote: post #80

To be fair, it depends on the screen. The submission makes it sound like the whole first page is ads, but there’s 4 ads at the top instead of the usual 2-3. It happens to extend to the fold in this Twitter user’s browser. I scroll past all ads out of habit[0], so honestly this doesn’t impact my Google usage. Wish I didn’t have to train that muscle, but here we are. :( [0] my pihole breaks the links anyway

I was/would be okay with that but now you also get adds in-between organic results too

Re: For some searches the whole screen on Google is now ads

#348

Post by geysersam »

yeuxardents wrote: post #292
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the opposite experience most of the time. I’ve been trying to use DuckDuckGo as my default search engine but I end up clicking my Google bookmark a lot of the time because the DDG results are so low quality. I have no doubt there are edge cases where Bing/DDG outperform Google, but most of the time I have better luck with Google.

I have found that for technical results, and niche programming, and anything really to do with IT, google gives top results. For just about everything else, use any other search engine.

Maybe they get the most of their user feedback from their own engineers.

Re: For some searches the whole screen on Google is now ads

#349

Post by dazc »

lolinder wrote: post #198
ssss11 wrote: post #2

Yeah I’ve noticed this too. But also the rest of the front page is often either seo spam (like those Pinterest links which catch whatever search term you’ve used) or shopping sites. I’ve found google search to be increasingly hostile to its customers. I guess we’re not the customers. Use duckduckgo or something else.

> Use duckduckgo or something else. Duckduckgo hasn't been any better for me lately. It seems like search as a whole is failing to respond to the latest round of SEO tricks. It takes a lot more work to find what I'm actually looking for, regardless of which engine I use.

You don't get the first page of ads on DDG though, a simple change of settings equals none at all.

Re: For some searches the whole screen on Google is now ads

#350

Post by dazc »

onphonenow wrote: post #44
ssss11 wrote: post #2

Yeah I’ve noticed this too. But also the rest of the front page is often either seo spam (like those Pinterest links which catch whatever search term you’ve used) or shopping sites. I’ve found google search to be increasingly hostile to its customers. I guess we’re not the customers. Use duckduckgo or something else.

How is pinterest not just banned unless you do site:pintrest or whatever. If you are not logged into some of these sites you can't actually get to stuff either. Annoying.

I'm beginning to realise that Google are happy for Pinterest to monopolise all image search since it requires a lot of resource and is difficult to monetize.

Not sure why they are allowing them to take over the rest of search though?

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