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New ways we're tackling spammy, low-quality content on Search

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Re: New ways we're tackling spammy, low-quality content on Search

#51

Post by sollewitt »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #47

My "bar" for how Google does here is how it treats recipe pages. I absolutely loath what SEO has done for recipe pages, because now essentially every recipe page looks exactly the same: 1. Tons and tons of content about the history of the recipe, how humans first domesticated wheat, when the ancient Egyptians first discovered yeast as a leavening agent, etc. etc. 2. Then, after thousands and thousands of words, there…

Is the long text purely for SEO or because a longer page gives more opportunities for ad impressions and higher engagement metrics?

Re: New ways we're tackling spammy, low-quality content on Search

#52

Post by friendlynokill »

iamthepieman wrote: post #35

The best way to improve Google search results is to stop and use Kagi[0]. Seriously. If you are reading this article and these comments then you must be somewhat interested in search results. Do yourself (and the search world) a favor and subscribe. [0] https://kagi.com

This comment convinced me to subscribe to Kagi. I've been hearing so much about Kagi on HN that it's time to see what all the hubbub is about.

Re: New ways we're tackling spammy, low-quality content on Search

#53

Post by CGamesPlay »

nlh wrote: post #36
minimaxir wrote: post #4

The post alludes to it, but one of the targets here is AI-generated content. > We’ve long had a policy against using automation to generate low-quality or unoriginal content at scale with the goal of manipulating search rankings. This policy was originally designed to address instances of content being generated at scale where it was clear that automation was involved. > Today, scaled content creation methods are mor…

And I’m reading this to say they can’t reliably detect whether something is AI-generated or not, so they’re not going to try. Whether human or AI or otherwise procedurally generated, sounds like they want to target this kind of low quality long tail search stuff.

This seems good though. Reminds me of https://xkcd.com/810/

Re: New ways we're tackling spammy, low-quality content on Search

#54

Post by andrewinardeer »

friendlynokill wrote: post #52
iamthepieman wrote: post #35

The best way to improve Google search results is to stop and use Kagi[0]. Seriously. If you are reading this article and these comments then you must be somewhat interested in search results. Do yourself (and the search world) a favor and subscribe. [0] https://kagi.com

This comment convinced me to subscribe to Kagi. I've been hearing so much about Kagi on HN that it's time to see what all the hubbub is about.

If you end a sentence with a question mark an LLM will attempt to answer your question. It's great.

Re: New ways we're tackling spammy, low-quality content on Search

#55

Post by yedava »

As AI generated content takes over the web, algorithmic search will become increasingly useless. In fact, for many things - like what to buy - it already is useless. Your best bet is asking your family/friend/neighborhood groups.

If I had trillions like google does, I'd invest in hiring a whole bunch of humans to curate a search index that is actually useful. It's something a new player will never be able to scale up to.

Re: New ways we're tackling spammy, low-quality content on Search

#57

Post by janalsncm »

Joel_Mckay wrote: post #41

Simply add a user call-back rating system, then subtract a factor of 10 for anomalous feedback traffic inconsistent with unique regional ISP blocks and human users. They can't do this as 95% of the internet would disappear overnight including a lot of Google ad revenue. The proposed project has a paradoxical use-case defined, and as such will not function as expected. Where do we send the invoice for stating the obvi…

If this worked Yelp would have a fair ranking system.

Re: New ways we're tackling spammy, low-quality content on Search

#58

Post by Joel_Mckay »

fragmede wrote: post #45
Joel_Mckay wrote: post #41

Simply add a user call-back rating system, then subtract a factor of 10 for anomalous feedback traffic inconsistent with unique regional ISP blocks and human users. They can't do this as 95% of the internet would disappear overnight including a lot of Google ad revenue. The proposed project has a paradoxical use-case defined, and as such will not function as expected. Where do we send the invoice for stating the obvi…

If you think more deeply, you'll realize why that won't work.

It encourages cheats to identify themselves, and automatically identifies hostile population clusters through a clique algorithm.

i.e. people get a local version of the results consistent with their local cultural values. You are correct in that the cons/spammers on this forum wouldn't notice anything change from their perspective.

Maybe we should deploy it on the ISP DNS servers for fun =)

Re: New ways we're tackling spammy, low-quality content on Search

#59

Post by janalsncm »

quitit wrote: post #16

This is a bit tongue in cheek, but it is also kind of true: The easiest way for Google to detect spammy, low-quality content is to ... simply add up the number of Google Ads placements on the page. Those flooding the internet with garbage content are doing so because the verbiage is tightly intermingled with Google Ad placements, that's the business model. Google -could- go a step further and deactivate those account…

There was a freakonomics podcast episode about this the other day. Basically, plumbers with names like “AAA Plumbing” tend to be worse. Plumbers who can’t compete on service tend to try to directly game the rankings.

Re: New ways we're tackling spammy, low-quality content on Search

#60

Post by Joel_Mckay »

janalsncm wrote: post #57
Joel_Mckay wrote: post #41

Simply add a user call-back rating system, then subtract a factor of 10 for anomalous feedback traffic inconsistent with unique regional ISP blocks and human users. They can't do this as 95% of the internet would disappear overnight including a lot of Google ad revenue. The proposed project has a paradoxical use-case defined, and as such will not function as expected. Where do we send the invoice for stating the obvi…

If this worked Yelp would have a fair ranking system.

Yelp does not filter the vitriol because their business is shaking down businesses to remove defamatory content.

Statistically, sociopaths are <3% of the population.

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