A glitch in the SEO matrix • Hacker News Board

Re: A glitch in the SEO matrix

#61

Post by qingcharles » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 6:10 PM UTC

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…

Half the stuff I search for (old magazines) doesn't even appear in Google's SERPs any longer.

I resort to Duckduckgo and Brave's searches among many others. Even things like Yandex give much deeper dives now.

Re: A glitch in the SEO matrix

#62

Post by DANmode » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 6:11 PM UTC

codegeek wrote: post #8

dgellow wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of your time do you spend “playing the game”?

I do have a small team but I am constantly involved ensuring that Google is not being mean to us and the game is all about trying to stay on top 5-10 results.

Your bio welcomes strangers to chat, but, no method of contact! =]

How can I get in touch?

Re: A glitch in the SEO matrix

#63

Post by qingcharles » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 6:13 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #5

whispersnow wrote: post #3

I am waiting for the era when SEO world is totally disrupted or destroyed by AIGC

The SEO world is gonna love AIGC. I'm sure it's already in wide usage there; it makes the convincing-but-fake review websites trivial to stand up in quantity. It's the real content that's going to get disrupted/destroyed.

It's been in use since at least 2006 that I know of. That's when I was first let onto it by a friend running a big content farm. Now it's absolutely out of control. I use it myself generously to help me write articles, but you have to be incredibly careful because it so frequently hallucinates. You have to have some knowledge of the domain you are writing in to peep when it is going full HAL9000 on you.

The Internet now feels like this to me:

https://www.okcu.edu/admin/communications/web/wharrgarbl

Re: A glitch in the SEO matrix

#64

Post by RyanHamilton » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 6:18 PM UTC

"Automated search engines that rely on keyword matching usually return too many low quality matches. To make matters worse, some advertisers attempt to gain people’s attention by taking measures meant to mislead automated search engines. We have built a large-scale search engine which addresses many of the problems of existing systems. It makes especially heavy use of the additional structure present in hypertext to provide much higher quality search results. We chose our system name, Google, because it is a common spelling of googol"

Re: A glitch in the SEO matrix

#65

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 6:20 PM UTC

safety1st wrote: post #41

titzer wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having worked at Google for almost 10 years, I can say that almost any solution proposed that includes "we'll have a person look at this with their eyes" would be instantly discounted as unworkable. The reality distortion field towards automatic everything with computers is intense.

It makes sense for Google, the company has learned that they can focus that intensely on reducing costs and get away with it. I think it is our fault as a society (or perhaps our government's fault) that we have not created an environment where the competition is stiff and Google needs to invest more heavily in quality to stay relevant.

[deleted]

Re: A glitch in the SEO matrix

#66

Post by dazc » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 6:21 PM UTC

Regnore wrote: post #27

dazc wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was removed because it was being gamed from the outset. The workable alternative would be a 'Social Credit' system where some domains can be blocked if enough of the 'right people' want them blocked. Google running a social credit system may have unintended consequences though.

> It was removed because it was being gamed from the outset. 'Gamed' as in people would block the most ad-infested pages which just so happened to be the ones which made Google the most money?

No, 'gamed' as in mass blocking one's competitor's results. If you think ads are bad you should take a peep into the world of 'negative seo'.

I can assure you that any solution you can think of that will improve web search will be used in the exact opposite way you imagine.

Re: A glitch in the SEO matrix

#67

Post by dizhn » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 6:21 PM UTC

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.

Totally. The internet is full of blog sites explaining how to do things that are impossible. Like how to cast from vlc to dlna on Android. They'll have a whole page with bullet points and everything that ultimately involves using a Chromecast. I once ended up at a page about an emulator that was hallucinating in GPT3 levels. Something like playing Gran Turismo on an xbox emulator or something. They have no shame.

Re: A glitch in the SEO matrix

#68

Post by carlosjobim » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 6:22 PM UTC

dazc wrote: post #24

nomel wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember how quickly Google removed the ability to block domains, once they added it. I think that was the peak of its usability.

It was removed because it was being gamed from the outset. The workable alternative would be a 'Social Credit' system where some domains can be blocked if enough of the 'right people' want them blocked. Google running a social credit system may have unintended consequences though.

Unless they used those blocklist to influence their normal search results, there is no way to game it. That choice was up to Google.

Re: A glitch in the SEO matrix

#69

Post by Solvency » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 6:27 PM UTC

This isn't a glitch.

This is literally intentful design by Google to make as much revenue as possible while providing as little utility as possible.

The internet as we know it is utterly shaped by this purposeful dystopian SEO dynamic.

Re: A glitch in the SEO matrix

#70

Post by giantrobot » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 6:30 PM UTC

arbuge wrote: post #25

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…

No it's not just ads at all. SEO drives traffic. There are many ways to monetize such traffic, and ads are just one. A lot of SEO is driven by local business owners who hire SEO people with dubious track records that make big promises. They invariably clutter up their websites with 10,000 articles along the lines of "best plumber in dallas". It's funny you mention ads though. One reason that it's so hard to find an S…

But you have heard of me!

-- Capt. Jack Sparrow, SEO guy