In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click • Hacker News Board

Re: In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

#61

Post by _ea1k » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 5:54 PM UTC

bartread wrote: post #32

I suspect a bunch of people might jump on the bandwagon that this is Google repackaging others' content into search snippets and robbing their sites of traffic. No doubt there's some truth to that, but I'd like to indulge in a slightly different flavour of Google bashing on this occasion. The reason I often don't click through on search results is that the search results are garbage - either irrelevant or poor qualit…

I'm seeing very similar issues. Google seems to heavily favor sending people to the sites with the highest content volume instead of the highest quality content.

The worst thing is that content creators are manipulating this to build content farms full of low quality content and overwhelming ad volumes.

I miss the old web where Google was really great at finding that one guy's blog post that was actually useful.

Re: In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

#62

Post by yakubin » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 5:54 PM UTC

echelon wrote: post #28

BitwiseFool wrote: post #15

Google results have gotten dramatically worse over this last decade. Google now seems to fixate on the most common terms in my query and returns the most generic results for my geographic area. And, it seems like quotes and the old google-fu techniques are just ignored or are no longer functional. There are a whole host of factors behind this, but I'm certain that the switch to Natural Language Processing / Semantic…

My guess is that you're part of an unprofitable long tail. Why optimize for your use case when they can capture customers that bring more money with far less effort? I wager that most people don't perceive a decline in search results quality. At least not to an extent where they'd notice and switch to using Bing.

Google Search users aren't Google's customers. Making Google Search useful to its users is not what makes it profitable. It only needs to be mildly better than the competition, so that people use it and can be used for collecting data and serving ads.

So GP may not be "an unprofitable long tail". GP may in fact be "a profitable typical long tail for whom Google Search is frustratingly unhelpful".

Re: In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

#63

Post by gonehome » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 5:55 PM UTC

BitwiseFool wrote: post #15

Google results have gotten dramatically worse over this last decade. Google now seems to fixate on the most common terms in my query and returns the most generic results for my geographic area. And, it seems like quotes and the old google-fu techniques are just ignored or are no longer functional. There are a whole host of factors behind this, but I'm certain that the switch to Natural Language Processing / Semantic…

When I search Google now I mostly get spam.

“Product vs. Product” -> list of spam websites that just show them side by side with ads.

“Product Review” -> same as above, spam.

“Product referral code” -> sites with spam and no codes.

Interesting web content is in Reddit (and youtube), Google exists as a tool to search Reddit since the “new” Reddit site is awful.

Programming questions are mostly stack overflow, but occasionally you get a useful blog.

General knowledge is Wikipedia, news is axios.

Amazon for most purchases (except for products that have their own brand and sites that are at risk of being faked). Etsy for boutique stuff.

Most of the rest of the web is junk.

I think we could probably go back to curated 90s era web portals and have a better experience.

Re: In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

#64

Post by truxten » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 5:55 PM UTC

I wonder if you'll see more domain specific content aggregators/search engines pop up as people (like myself) because increasingly dissatisfied with the almost populist nature of a lot of Google's search results.

Re: In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

#65

Post by tyingq » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 5:55 PM UTC

I wonder if an AMP click counts as a click or not.

Re: In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

#66

Post by lucasmullens » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 5:55 PM UTC

cma wrote: post #18

ilikehurdles wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that model is as relevant as ever. Google is just narrowing the list of “high-traffic” sites worth putting your ads on, to exclusively Google properties.

I'm fairly sure they block wikipedia on medical searches not due to accuracy, but due to drug ads on webmd etc. that use Google for ads.

I tried 5 different diseases, 4 had wikipedia on the first page, 1 had it on the top of the second page.

Do you mean blocking just that automated text result that appears on the top of the page for some questions? That would make sense, since they probably don't want to boldly state medical facts without context, especially since that feature can be wrong sometimes.

Disclaimer: I work for Google, not on anything related

Re: In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

#67

Post by Robotbeat » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 5:56 PM UTC

allenu wrote: post #54

Robotbeat wrote: post #26

Half of my Googles are literally just using Google as a calculator.

I used to do that until I realized on Mac, I can just cmd-spacebar to do Spotlight search and type my equation in there.

I don’t have a Mac. Does Spotlight handle units as well as Google does? Also, doing the calculation in Google is handy because it’s easy to share in a modifiable way.

Re: In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

#68

Post by the__alchemist » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 5:56 PM UTC

BitwiseFool wrote: post #15

Google results have gotten dramatically worse over this last decade. Google now seems to fixate on the most common terms in my query and returns the most generic results for my geographic area. And, it seems like quotes and the old google-fu techniques are just ignored or are no longer functional. There are a whole host of factors behind this, but I'm certain that the switch to Natural Language Processing / Semantic…

I agree, but it still seems far ahead of any competitor. Eg DuckDuckGo, Bing etc... anecdotally for the things I search for.

Re: In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

#69

Post by bmitc » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 5:56 PM UTC

BitwiseFool wrote: post #15

Google results have gotten dramatically worse over this last decade. Google now seems to fixate on the most common terms in my query and returns the most generic results for my geographic area. And, it seems like quotes and the old google-fu techniques are just ignored or are no longer functional. There are a whole host of factors behind this, but I'm certain that the switch to Natural Language Processing / Semantic…

It drives me crazy how Google never fails to remove the most unique and yet most important words of my search term. It basically does this 99% of the time now.

Re: In 2020, two thirds of Google searches ended without a click

#70

Post by tasogare » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 5:56 PM UTC

thomascgalvin wrote: post #25

If Google ever started including copy-pasteable code from Stack Overflow, I might never follow a link from Google again. Which I think says a lot about how Google is used now. I don't use Google to find web pages , I use it to find an answer to a pressing question. When I'm looking for something to read, I go to a content aggregator like HN or Reddit. Of course this isn't sustainable. If Google is just presenting oth…

I don’t particularly like the press, but as a profession they recognized quickly the danger of Google displaying directly their content on the results page. Too bad they fought only for themselves and not for the web in general, since they’re holding enough power to tip the scale.