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Google Search Is Dying

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Re: Google Search Is Dying

#491

Post by StanislavPetrov »

CodeGlitch wrote: post #140
brimble wrote: post #5

The other day I was searching for a specific kind of jewelry and realized I don't know of a search engine that can do what I needed, which is to just find good results for my search. Searches for jewelry-related keywords triggered Google to go 90+% ads, and their results (and other search engines' results) were so junked up with spam and the same couple sites over and over that they were useless. We're back to the We…

Am I the only one who just skips the search engines and go straight to the source? If I want factual information, I just go to Wikipedia and use their search. If I want to shop I'll go to respected online stores and again use their inbuilt search feature. Obviously I've just built up a list of good sites in my head which I trust... Google search is good for discoverability if you're new to the web I guess? Although i…

>If I want factual information, I just go to Wikipedia and use their search.

Wikiepedia is a very good resource for a lot of things, and a good jumping off point, but you shouldn't assume that you are getting "factual information", especially when it comes to hot button social or geopolitical issues.

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/05/the-philip-c...

Re: Google Search Is Dying

#492

Post by mixedbit »

monkeynotes wrote: post #196
eloeffler wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About the "dead internet conspiracy" - I've worked in writing how-to articles for a fairly large "help" website. They paid very little attention to the quality of the articles. I was paid for each piece and thus had about 30 minutes to write an article and later integrate feedback from internal review. Otherwise the payment became too low. The most important factor was cramming SEO terms and links to keep people on t…

Speaking of bots, I'd be interested to know the percentage of articles on major traffic content sites are authored or co-authored by AI. My suspicion is this is rife given how many articles read poorly and are almost entirely fluff. If this is true it would appear we are doomed to algorithms shaping our online experiences, which is worrying given the existing shrinking diversity of opinion and content. It's like a en…

Stock analysis articles are very commonly generated automatically from templates. The selected template is based on some real characteristics of a described company (whether the stock went up or down recently, what is the P/E etc.), but the content is generic and reused across all companies with similar characteristics.

Re: Google Search Is Dying

#494

Post by bfrog »

I miss the old school yahoo directory, in part because it seemed to be curated by real people like a library would be. Or web rings where there would be humans curating content. In a way, Reddit is a crowd sourced content curation site with human curated topics. No wonder I find almost everything I need there, and Wikipedia.

Re: Google Search Is Dying

#495

Post by registeredcorn »

bnralt wrote: post #308

An important thing to realize, too, is that this is a problem that keeps getting worse. The article talks about product reviews and recipes, but it's been spreading a lot further than that. Recently I was trying to look up a technical error, and found a lot of web pages that seemed to be auto-generated with "How to solve [error_scraped_from_the_web]", complete with a list of generic things unrelated to the error (IE,…

I concur on the looking up technical errors bit directing you to auto-generated sites!

I was recently trying to troubleshoot a very basic error message for Linux and was getting results and webpages that would list the error message in the title in some way, but then give instructions on "First, open up device manager", "Click Win+R to open windows command prompt", etc. Lots of untrustworthy ads. Different URLs, almost line-for-line identical webpages.

This was something like the top four search results (that weren't sponsored ads).

Re: Google Search Is Dying

#496

Post by TheMerovingian »

Philip-J-Fry wrote: post #464

Oh man I'm glad I'm not the only one who adds "Reddit" to every search. If I want info about computer parts, software, games, cooking, fitness, etc. Then I don't think there's anywhere better at the moment. At least there's nothing better that Google serves up. I'm fed up of Google returning blog spam, ads, and shamelessly rehosted content. I want real information by real people, not automated blog posts with titles…

I recently found myself looking for info on gardening potatoes. Each time I used google, I'd get the equivalent of "Top 10 things to plant this spring". It's AI generated drivel, void of any substance. Like reading book's table of contents, nothing else.

I added "site:reddit.com" and I had my answer on the first hit. This is sad.

Re: Google Search Is Dying

#497

Post by going_ham »

Yup, search is terrible when looking up for very specific/ niche topics.

It only works as a fact machine now. For example search for "Who is the father of the president of USA?"

I think majority of this problem arises from academia/industry disconnect as well as greed.

1. Greed: Ad revenue.

2. Academic people + research = Let's create a general solution for all. They never bother to understand what problems users are facing.

You may wonder, why would any one care to ask stupid facts? Turns out people don't need internet for finding relevant information. They are already bubbled up, so they search for "facts" to verify or argue against their belief. Eg. "Kanye west and Kim Kardashian". And for these examples, google works best.

It's really HCI problem. It doesn't take for them to tune down on the ads, but why would they? If you search for niche, they just show ads because they get $$$. But if you search for facts they just give the highlight. And this small highlights create positive reinforcements among it's users. It manifest to common users that google works.

So google basically is fact machine to find clues for an argument or bubble up belief. It is utterly useless for anything else.

Product reviews. Nah

Technical topics: Nah

DIY: Nah

Hobbies: Nah

It's either facts or ads.

Such is modern search engine.

Re: Google Search Is Dying

#498

Post by cosheaf »

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #480
cosheaf wrote: post #23

It's already dead. Google mined all the links that were curated by the initial internet communities for all it was worth and turned them into profits for Google's earliest employees and shareholders. Now that no one is curating useful links anymore their search quality, unsurprisingly, is deteriorating. Without human curation there is no signal for Google to use anymore and whatever signal is there is just SEO spam t…

It’s not just the links. After the links, google mined facts, like “how much does a german shepherd weigh,” so no on gets those clicks, and the incentive is gone there too. They’re even mining the snippets of the content, lowering the incentives for creating that too.

It's essentially a machine for printing money and people don't really understand what they're giving up in exchange for "free" search results. Google is beholden to market forces, it's no longer in the business of indexing useful information because the market doesn't value useful information, it values ad revenue.

This is a structural problem and anything that gets large enough will succumb to the same forces. If the incentives are for optimizing ad revenue then that's what all corporate machines will do at scale, regardless of their initial motives and incentive structure. It doesn't help that Google is also an ad network, hence the ouroboros aspect.

Re: Google Search Is Dying

#499

Post by trentnix »

> The long answer is that most of the web has become too inauthentic to trust.

Exactly the problem search is supposed to solve. Google doesn’t seem to be very interested in solving it.

Re: Google Search Is Dying

#500

Post by evilduck »

N1H1L wrote: post #360
profstasiak wrote: post #148

Just a heads up if someone is searching reddit for product reviews. I believe most of them are inauthentic. I worked in marketing for several companies and we always had some budget for whisper marketing aka shilling. There are third party agency specialized in shilling on reddit and making it all look authentic.

Depends on subreddits. I love shoes for example, and /r/goodyearwelt is a really decent resource in general. /r/malefashionadvice and /r/rawdenim for fashion are pretty great too.

Thursday Boots astroturfs a large number of the comment sections of posts about their products. Red Wing, Nicks and Truman have periodically had self-identified employees that frequented the site and their specific subs if they exist.

The small group of GYW brands seem to at least be generally aware that a community of enthusiasts exists on Reddit and that's probably enough to start being skeptical of positive reviews.

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