Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A glitch in the SEO matrix

izzy.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 243 posts

Re: A glitch in the SEO matrix

#51

Post by superasn »

samwillis wrote: post #31
superasn wrote: post #21

It's so weird that Google still hasn't created the ability to block spam domains. I don't think it's a technical difficulty but rather a management decision to allow spam as long as they have their adsense ads and it baffles me they just don't care about their end users at all. I think being a monopoly with most competitors lagging a lap behind can make you this way, but with chatgpt catching up quick, Google better…

Most of these spam content farms are covered with ads supplied by Google. The incentive isn't necessarily there to remove them. On top of that the worse the search results, the more likely the user will click an ad rather than an organic result. The Google of old wouldn't have been tempted by that incentive, but that Google is long dead. Bad search result = more revenue from ads. Obviously it's a fine balance, they d…

This is such short term thinking imo but then what do i know. People who are paid millions of dollars are making these decisions at Google so maybe that's how the game is played. I still think treating your customers like the way they're doing it now eventually never always works out.

Re: A glitch in the SEO matrix

#53

Post by carlosjobim »

codegeek wrote: post #4

You either play the Organic SEO game or you Pay to Play (Ads). Google as a search engine is now useless when it comes to searching for a tool/software etc because everyone has gamed the "Best software for xyz" etc. But what's the alternative ? None. There are these "review" websites like Capterra/Software Advice/G2 and again you have to pay to play. You can technically get a review from a customer and get listed BUT…

The alternative for users is Kagi, which is superior to Google for search results.

For businesses, there is no good alternative to Google. Many are investing a lot of effort and money in social media, but the returns are very low compared to Google.

Re: A glitch in the SEO matrix

#54

Post by samwillis »

superasn wrote: post #51
samwillis wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of these spam content farms are covered with ads supplied by Google. The incentive isn't necessarily there to remove them. On top of that the worse the search results, the more likely the user will click an ad rather than an organic result. The Google of old wouldn't have been tempted by that incentive, but that Google is long dead. Bad search result = more revenue from ads. Obviously it's a fine balance, they d…

This is such short term thinking imo but then what do i know. People who are paid millions of dollars are making these decisions at Google so maybe that's how the game is played. I still think treating your customers like the way they're doing it now eventually never always works out.

When you have a metric driven company, where peoples career progression and bonuses are tightly tied to revenue numbers in a database, you incentivise this sort of thinking on an employee level. The visibility of the impact isn't necessarily there at the top.

Re: A glitch in the SEO matrix

#55

Post by [deleted] »

codegeek wrote: post #4

You either play the Organic SEO game or you Pay to Play (Ads). Google as a search engine is now useless when it comes to searching for a tool/software etc because everyone has gamed the "Best software for xyz" etc. But what's the alternative ? None. There are these "review" websites like Capterra/Software Advice/G2 and again you have to pay to play. You can technically get a review from a customer and get listed BUT…

[deleted]

Re: A glitch in the SEO matrix

#56

Post by Animats »

"SEO is also a zero-sum game."

One with external costs imposed upon others.

I had a go at fixing this with Sitetruth, which was an attempt to tie web sites to real-world companies rated using info from Hoovers, the SEC, DNB, etc. But the whole concept of tying web sites to real world companies now seems dated.

Re: A glitch in the SEO matrix

#57

Post by firefoxd »

The majority of times when i search on google I'm looking for someone's personal take on a matter. Whether it's a software recommendation or alternative, a recipe, or experience with a tool. Google only has listicles, top x, or best in 202x.

I used to search reddit, but the hostile mobile page ruined that for me. Now i go to yandex and navigate through malware to find what i want.

It doesn't help that recent trend of developers building their content website with react and such, have no little to no concept of SEO.

Re: A glitch in the SEO matrix

#58

Post by bhuber »

superasn wrote: post #21

It's so weird that Google still hasn't created the ability to block spam domains. I don't think it's a technical difficulty but rather a management decision to allow spam as long as they have their adsense ads and it baffles me they just don't care about their end users at all. I think being a monopoly with most competitors lagging a lap behind can make you this way, but with chatgpt catching up quick, Google better…

If anyone wants this capability, the chrome extension uBlacklist ( https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublacklist/pncfbmi... ) provides it. I've found it very useful for removing github scraper sites from search results. Whenever you see a garbage result in a google search, you just click "Block this site" and it's gone forever.

Re: A glitch in the SEO matrix

#59

Post by anovikov »

brucethemoose2 wrote: post #23

The root cause of all this madness: Ads. As long as there is even a marginal financial incentive to get human eyeballs on websites (as opposed to the viewers actually playing for services or, you know, just hosting websites for free because they are cool), this will keep getting worse. A genuine desire to help incoming traffic doesn't really matter either. Anything helpful will be infinitely cloned, as long as there…

While i'm not naive anymore (i hope not, there's no way to tell lol), and i know most business is simply a scam/based on people's delusions or addictions or other vice without providing any value, the ad industry can't stop surprising me. In all my career i never seen a case of any paid ads actually getting people anywhere. But they continue to spend, and spend, and spend.

Retargeting may be the only exception, although it is annoying as hell, it won't let people forget about your stuff (and comes very cheaply because very few people will ever see it), so probably generates positive returns... But i'm not even sure about that one.

Re: A glitch in the SEO matrix

#60

Post by PheonixPharts »

jrmg wrote: post #10

It wasn't written to answer someone's question or satisfy their search intent. It was just written to rank. Anyone who’s searched for reviews or tech questions recently has experienced this. And it’s slowly eating everything. The web is turning into nothing but potemkin content.

This is strangely where I've found the most personal benefit of LLMs. As long as it's not too current or depend on recent information (like the weather), searching for information in LLMs reminds me a lot of Google 10 years ago.

Yea sometimes LLMs hallucinate, but sometimes websites are just wrong. For a variety of topics LLMs are just a better form of search.

Post reply on HN