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Search engines and SEO spam

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Re: Search engines and SEO spam

#431

Post by jayd16 »

Veen wrote: post #36

> Why not try writing a search engine specifically for some category dominated by SEO spam? Back in the olden days, there were lots of organizations that collated high quality content from the best writers. They nurtured expert writers and paid them well. They fact-checked the content and employed diligent editors and proofreaders so it was accurate and well-written. Over the years, they'd build a reputation for reli…

I guess there's also the rise of influencers in the mix here. The commoditization of publishing means content creators can more easily work independently.

Re: Search engines and SEO spam

#432

Post by dehrmann »

nemothekid wrote: post #423
dehrmann wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're unfairly putting blame on Silicon Valley. Publishers were only able to produce high-quality content because, with no conversion metrics, advertisers were willing to overpay for placement. Tech undermined publishers' revenue, but what it revealed was that people don't actually want high-quality journalism, they want entertainment, and they're definitely not going to pay a premium for it. This was hidden…

> Publishers were only able to produce high-quality content because, with no conversion metrics, advertisers were willing to overpay for placement. This implies that big budget advertisers (the CPGs, like Coke and P&G), are buying Google/FB because they have better conversion metrics. That isn't true today; only SMBs and gaming companies care about conversion metrics. There are interns in LA/NY probably collectively…

> the CPGs, like Coke and P&G

Did any of these heavily buy newspaper ads before 2000? Definitely TV, possibly magazine, but newspaper? I just don't remember seeing ads for Tide in newspapers.

Re: Search engines and SEO spam

#433

Post by Beldin »

chongli wrote: post #404
Beldin wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure" -- Goodhart's Law. Google's algorithms didn't create this situation; people chasing high Google rankings did. Had Google used completely different algorithms yet became equally dominant, people still would have poured their hearts and souls into getting higher rankings. Basically, an application of the tragedy of the commons. Or: "why we can't have nic…

But that's taking for granted that Google would have become dominant. Perhaps if they hadn't chosen the algorithm they did then they wouldn't have been as overwhelmingly successful. Instead, I could imagine a world in which there are multiple search engines and none of them are all that good. In fact, that's the world I remember from before Google existed. Search was bad but communities were strong and life was good.…

On the glass-half-full side of this: we're getting those communities again! Here on HN, on reddit, for certain topics on various social media (there are pearls there too), on Mastodon, various blog authors, Ars Technica, Quanta, etc. [1]

It's just fragmented - i.e., catering to a specific group. Because if it isn't, it's awesome for 5 minutes and then monetization rot sets in.

[1] None of these work for everyone; conversely, all of these are seen as great things by some and have people who prefer that one thing over others for its quality.

Re: Search engines and SEO spam

#434

Post by PeterisP »

mrkramer wrote: post #378
adventured wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is quite right. Those are the main drivers and it's due to lack economic opportunities. Hacking heavily originated in the US because the US practically built the entire modern tech universe from the ground up. The US was far out in front when it came to utilizing the Internet and the Web, so of course unethical people in the US pioneered various types of online crime, the US was the early adopter. If you're an eli…

>You're an elite engineer in Russia, top ~1%-3% globally. What do you do? Earn several thousand dollars per month doing legit software development in Russia Become software entrepreneur? And many international software companies have software development teams and presence in Russia.

In places with a less-established legal system it's harder to make money by above-board entrepreneurship and keep it instead of handing it over to local strongmen (two colorful examples that have stayed in my memory and unlike many others have become public and have also been described in non-Russian media - https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/valery-pshen... and https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/us-embassy-ru... , but of course those are the exceptions because the usual result is complying with threats and handing over your business or most of it). But it's not really about Russia, it's a general issue with parallels in other countries as well. And of course, there's the issue of the local market; the financial advantages for a skilled tech person going towards entrepreneurship legitimately are less attractive in most places compared to USA; heck, even EU potential tech entrepreneurs often just go 'across the pond' to start their business.

If you can't get a work visa to a first world country, you do have less options than someone already living there; and the salaries offered by first-world "international software companies" in their remote subsidiaries tend to be 'according to local market rates' (the same "several thousand dollars per month" mentioned by the parent poster is a decent rate) and thus not as competitive with "black entrepreneurship" which pays according to global standards.

Re: Search engines and SEO spam

#435

Post by grvdrm »

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…

Well said - it is among my biggest annoyances with the web. Reviews are almost always packaged into best-of or top-X lists. The quality of the Wirecutter is gradually trending down but it is still the website I use to find the "best" of something. I don't have to waste time sorting through hundreds of list-spam sites.

Re: Search engines and SEO spam

#436

Post by mrkramer »

ijidak wrote: post #258
wodenokoto wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why has blogs and articles stopped linking to things? I'm reading a restaurant review site, and they won't link to the restaurant. The chef name is a link to a list of all articles tagged with the chefs name, rather a wikipedia link or something useful that can tell me who that person is.

Because, years ago, linking to lower reputation sites would drain your page rank. So everyone worried about SEO became afraid to link to anything except: 1) Their own website 2) High reputation sites like NYTimes, etc. It's sad. Makes it harder to navigate the web.

Wouldn't it be reasonable from Google to show how their ranking algorithms work so all webmasters and content creators know how to behave on the web. Now we have black box that's causing confusion and is misdirecting websites and web users.

Re: Search engines and SEO spam

#437

Post by [deleted] »

citizenkeen wrote: post #363
GarlicToum wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried creating a search engine for recipes. It works well and people like it, but the struggle is no one remembers that it exists and Google is just their default for search. So from an individual developer perspective, it's very hard to get people to change their habits. And Google/duck/Bing is the one stop shop. It's still out there, but I haven't worked on it much lately. I always think that if I had some good a…

(1) What is it? (2) Do you have a bang on DuckDuckGo? I'm pretty aggressive with bangs, and I suspect a lot of DDG users end up being aggressive with them as well.

[deleted]

Re: Search engines and SEO spam

#438

Post by mrkramer »

Beldin wrote: post #366
chongli wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bang on. Saying that "there isn't anything out there anymore" is missing the point: Google's algorithms created this situation , intentionally or not. Before Google, people linked to what they wanted and communities would naturally cluster around topics of interest. Google came in and made reputation into a currency which effectively destroyed all these communities through incentivizing selfishness.

"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure" -- Goodhart's Law. Google's algorithms didn't create this situation; people chasing high Google rankings did. Had Google used completely different algorithms yet became equally dominant, people still would have poured their hearts and souls into getting higher rankings. Basically, an application of the tragedy of the commons. Or: "why we can't have nic…

>Google's algorithms didn't create this situation; people chasing high Google rankings did.

But lowkey Google incentivized such behaviour by not being open and transparent on how exactly their algorithms work.

Re: Search engines and SEO spam

#439

Post by dredmorbius »

gomox wrote: post #279
dredmorbius wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The other moats are lock-in to advertising networks, website metrics, and effective control over Web standards through the Chrome browser. An alternative search platform might provide better search. It would be fighting Google on at least three other fronts. It might have some success, but it would be challenging. (As history largely demonstrates.) Even a rival tech monopolist, Microsoft, barely holds even with i…

I mean, Google is big and it has that advantage like any big enterprise, but the search engine market is very permeable compared to what people traditionally refer to as a moat (say, trying to compete with YouTube as a video hosting platform or with Salesforce as a CRM). If you have a good search engine, people will flock to it, and search ads will be valuable. That's it. That's how Google became Google. The fact tha…

Just for the record, I'm in at least mild agreement that search is looking increasingly vulnerable. Google are falling down here.

It's just that "search" is really a web of interrelated services, capabilities, and revenue streams, and they tend to reinforce each other strongly. I'd like to see the monopoly disrupted.[1] But I don't think it's just a matter of "build a better mousetrap^Wsearch engine." Attack one corner, and Google will snipe at you from the others.

And with the AdWords cash cow, they've got an immense revenue stream.

________________________________

Notes:

1. Well, mostly. Google's acquired so goddamned much personal data that the premise is frankly kind of terrifying as well --- a weakened Google with neither the revenues nor talent to defend that pile.... And I'd really like to see the toppling occur without simply raising a new monopoly in its place.

Re: Search engines and SEO spam

#440

Post by Baeocystin »

nkrisc wrote: post #338
Baeocystin wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd believe it. As an IT consultant, I interact with a lot of people who are semi-techs themselves- mostly small business owners who are used to wearing a lot of hats, and also the type to have been motivated to run their own personal blogs about diving/photography/conlangs/quilting/gardening/whatever their personal hobbies are. Ten years ago, the majority(!) had at least something up and running, where they would po…

I think a lot of people are still writing this kind of content, but you have to look elsewhere for it: Reddit, Facebook, Twitter; to name the obvious ones. It’s also harder to find, but you can find all kinds of personal content written in comments and posts on these sites.

I realize that this is a hard thing to 'prove', but I am personally certain that the amount and quality of such things has dropped significantly from a decade ago.

Not to zero. You can still find things tucked away in a post on reddit or the like. Almost never, as far as I have experienced, on Facebook or its ilk, as the affordances are different. I genuinely think there has been a loss.

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