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Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

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Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#451

Post by porridgeraisin »

jsheard wrote: post #12

They do the same thing on the Play Store, for example I just searched for Firefox and the first result is a sponsored spot for Opera. Does Apple do that on the App Store? A funnier example: searching for Amazon gives Temu as the first result. Searching for Temu gives Shein as the first result. Searching for Shein gives Shein as the first result! ...but only because they outbid everyone else for the ad spot on their o…

> Amazon

Speaking of amazon... By god amazon search is horrid for this.

If you search for HP laptop you get a whole bunch of sponsored Lenovo's at the top of the page.

Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#452

Post by dostick »

Author has never ran startup on the internet. For past 15-20 years, if you have competitors you have to bid-buy top ad slot from Google. That’s hundreds or thousands of dollars monthly.

Midjourney don’t do that because they are doing good with new signups without it.

Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#453

Post by vkazanov »

porridgeraisin wrote: post #451
jsheard wrote: post #12

They do the same thing on the Play Store, for example I just searched for Firefox and the first result is a sponsored spot for Opera. Does Apple do that on the App Store? A funnier example: searching for Amazon gives Temu as the first result. Searching for Temu gives Shein as the first result. Searching for Shein gives Shein as the first result! ...but only because they outbid everyone else for the ad spot on their o…

> Amazon Speaking of amazon... By god amazon search is horrid for this. If you search for HP laptop you get a whole bunch of sponsored Lenovo's at the top of the page.

Searching for anything really on amazon is... an experience. 15 sponsored vs nothing of substance. And there is no way to know that a given, say, boardgame is not even available on Amazon.

In fact, the results are so bad that most of the time I go through Google.

Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#454

Post by Foobar8568 »

alanh wrote: post #379
zeroq wrote: post #373

One of my "sales pitches" is "I can find answers online, I know kung-fu". I've been using internet since '98, and I somehow developed this elusive skill of knowing how to navigate all these ads, seo farms, paid content, murky websites, and getting straight to the answer, no matter what the question was. For a long time I didn't thought of that as a special power. I thought it was natural, like driving a car, or speak…

Right? Google is dog caca now. Myself and everyone I know keep getting sent to AI-written garbage nonsense slop websites, or for some reason, to the Hindustan Times

Yeah for some reasons it ranks among the first newspaper any times I am looking for some US news. It feels like someone tweaked the algorithm for money.

Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#455

Post by rkomorn »

porridgeraisin wrote: post #451
jsheard wrote: post #12

They do the same thing on the Play Store, for example I just searched for Firefox and the first result is a sponsored spot for Opera. Does Apple do that on the App Store? A funnier example: searching for Amazon gives Temu as the first result. Searching for Temu gives Shein as the first result. Searching for Shein gives Shein as the first result! ...but only because they outbid everyone else for the ad spot on their o…

> Amazon Speaking of amazon... By god amazon search is horrid for this. If you search for HP laptop you get a whole bunch of sponsored Lenovo's at the top of the page.

I don't have access to any data that supports my vibes, but it just feels like any business that sells stuff has very little incentive to actually give you what you're searching for.

I can't think of a single online store that's good at search and it seems like it's because the thought is "don't miss anything that might come close to the search terms".

Whether it's Amazon, IKEA, the supermarkets where I live, etc, any search I make comes back with what looks like spray and pray SEO.

Maybe it's actually a hard problem to solve, or maybe the goal is "sell anything!" (including better placement the seller pays for) rather than "give the user what they want".

Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#456

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

This is like going into a butcher's shop and being surprised that they're pushing meat on you instead of flowers or textiles.

Google is an ad company. They're the ad company. They built a search engine to sell ads. They built a browser to sell ads. They built an e-mail provider to sell ads. They built a video streaming platform to sell ads. They built a worldwide street-level navigation system to sell ads. They built an operating system and computers, just to sell ads.

They showed you ads. They gave you what they sell.

You don't like meat? Stop going to the butcher shop. Don't sit here complaining that the butchers keep trying to sell you meat.

Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#458

Post by whilenot-dev »

rkomorn wrote: post #455
porridgeraisin wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Amazon Speaking of amazon... By god amazon search is horrid for this. If you search for HP laptop you get a whole bunch of sponsored Lenovo's at the top of the page.

I don't have access to any data that supports my vibes, but it just feels like any business that sells stuff has very little incentive to actually give you what you're searching for. I can't think of a single online store that's good at search and it seems like it's because the thought is "don't miss anything that might come close to the search terms". Whether it's Amazon, IKEA, the supermarkets where I live, etc, an…

Probably the virtual variant of the Gruen effect in action: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gruen_transfer

Fortunately we still have Geizhals in AT[0]/DE[1]/PL[2]/UK[3] to work around that.

[0]: https://geizhals.at/

[1]: https://geizhals.de/

[2]: https://cenowarka.pl/

[3]: https://skinflint.co.uk/

Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#459

Post by bambax »

Denzel wrote: post #351
johnfn wrote: post #249

Can anyone reproduce this? When I search "Midjourney", I get an ad for Midjourney (from Midjourney), followed by Midjourney, the site. After that, I get the Midjourney Discord, the Midjourney subreddit, the Midjourney Wikipedia page, and then (inexplicably), another Midjourney ad. That seems about as good as it could be. Edit: I guess I should say that I do agree that the quality of Google Search is pretty poor these…

Google SERPs are personalized. Likely OP is a Midjourney user which is recorded in his targeting profile. When OP searches for Midjourney as a Midjourney user, Google’s algorithm infers he might want to consider an alternative because why would an existing user search for the product they’re already using. We see evidence supporting this given no Midjourney ad showed up for a direct keyword match query; and only alte…

> This is kinda like Amazon retargeting you with alternative toasters after you just bought a new toaster. Most people think this is stupid. Well, the most likely cohort to buy a new toaster is a person that just bought one because they’re not satisfied with their purchase.

I don't think that makes sense. The goal of Amazon can't be to have you unhappy with shopping on Amazon, if for no other reason that returns cost money.

Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#460

Post by spaqin »

flyinglizard wrote: post #412
inerte wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're trying to do anything in terms of official documents, there's a middleman charging more. I searched for "passport application" the other day and it was 4 ads of people offering this service. My dad was trying to get an ESTA visa a couple years ago and ended up paying twice the actual price, because he can't discern what's the official site or not.

That's down to US Government policies. If you tried middle-manning any for-profit like that, you'd get a cease and desist letter really quickly. But USG doesn't seem to care. We can't reasonably expect Google to be a gatekeeper here.

That's not just the US. I've seen that myself with Vietnam and Seychelles, and I'm sure it's a problem with any other country where a visa or other documents are required
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