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Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

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Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#641

Post by spogbiper »

Cheetah26 wrote: post #384
jsheard wrote: post #12

They do the same thing on the Play Store, for example I just searched for Firefox and the first result is a sponsored spot for Opera. Does Apple do that on the App Store? A funnier example: searching for Amazon gives Temu as the first result. Searching for Temu gives Shein as the first result. Searching for Shein gives Shein as the first result! ...but only because they outbid everyone else for the ad spot on their o…

Learned that App Store does this too during a recent MFA rollout. What really surprised me was that when instructed to install Google Authenticator, a significant portion of people (I'd estimate close to 50%) would search the exact name and then proceed to reach to install the sponsored top result with a completely different name until I stopped them.

A lot of the MFA apps that Apple allows to appear above the official apps do work, but they have a $10/month subscription fee. The MS Authenticator clones have very similar icons and names

Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#642

Post by jeremyjh »

cuu508 wrote: post #633
shomp wrote: post #608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we not like Yandex?

For me personally the issue is that some of my money would go to Yandex, and, by extension, to Russian government. I understand it is only a symbolic amount per user, but still, for me, this is unacceptable (I was a happy Kagi subscriber before I found out about this).

America is nearly as bad as Russia. Dollars paid to American companies are taxed and used to bomb children in Gaza. Are you boycotting all American companies?

Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#643

Post by rhetocj23 »

antibios wrote: post #435

This discussion is crazy. Google is a business that sells advertising. They build a free browser so that it is easier for the end user to use their product. Chrome does tricky things to help google like, automatically searching if you don't type a URL into the address bar. You as a user, you have typed midjourney instead of midjourney.com using google search as your dns lookup. Google is a business that has correctly…

I think people need to keep repeating this until they make sense of it.

- Google is in the business of selling online advertising.

- Google is in the business of selling online advertising.

- Google is in the business of selling online advertising.

- Google is in the business of selling online advertising.

...

The tech stuff? AH its just stuff they offer so they can do the above more efficiently and effectively.

Thats it. It seems many either cant see the truth or dont want it to be so.

Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#644

Post by array_key_first »

behnamoh wrote: post #70
LorenDB wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You also should just stop using Google Search. DuckDuckGo is solid, or if you don't want to use search results from Bing's index, I've been very happy with Brave Search.

people say that but they often come back to Google ;) I've just learnt to use ad blockers. the only time I disable it is when I look up the definition of something or the location of a place and the entire page goes blank because of some rules I've added to uBlock.

> people say that but they often come back to Google ;)

The thing is that Google is actively becoming more hostile and difficult to use. Not just Google Search, but really all their products.

They're becoming Facebook, slowly but surely. Something we might be forced to use now and again, but nobody actually likes.

The reality is that Google is such a poorly run company that they will destroy their own products, given enough time. Their competitors need to do nothing. Literally nothing.

Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#646

Post by array_key_first »

flyinglizard wrote: post #412
inerte wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're trying to do anything in terms of official documents, there's a middleman charging more. I searched for "passport application" the other day and it was 4 ads of people offering this service. My dad was trying to get an ESTA visa a couple years ago and ended up paying twice the actual price, because he can't discern what's the official site or not.

That's down to US Government policies. If you tried middle-manning any for-profit like that, you'd get a cease and desist letter really quickly. But USG doesn't seem to care. We can't reasonably expect Google to be a gatekeeper here.

We can absolutely expect Google to be a gatekeeper for advertisements they run on their platform. These aren't just middlemen, they're scams.

We shouldn't just be used to Google being allowed to essentially run infinite scams. Remember, they directly profit off the scams.

Its like if I had a billboard and then let someone put an ad up that said "give me all your money and you'll live forever!"

Am I off the hook? Why, lil ole me? I just run the billboard!

You might then say, well, obviously looking at every ad you accept is far too onerous! Its not like a billboard, because the billboard owner must see all the ads!

Which then I would reply - why is Google entitled to a business model like that? If they can't reasonable run their business in an ethical way... Perhaps they shouldn't run it all.

Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#647

Post by array_key_first »

oblio wrote: post #553
tjpnz wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's be more precise about what ads actually are, based on how the ad industry works today: malware

They always were. Remember IE toolbars? Java and Acrobat bundled software?

Yes, we called them adware and lumped them in with email worms.

We should go back to that.

Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#649

Post by Recursing »

johnfn wrote: post #249

Can anyone reproduce this? When I search "Midjourney", I get an ad for Midjourney (from Midjourney), followed by Midjourney, the site. After that, I get the Midjourney Discord, the Midjourney subreddit, the Midjourney Wikipedia page, and then (inexplicably), another Midjourney ad. That seems about as good as it could be. Edit: I guess I should say that I do agree that the quality of Google Search is pretty poor these…

Another repro:

https://imgur.com/a/ZNtA0rI

Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#650

Post by h2zizzle »

Denzel wrote: post #351
johnfn wrote: post #249

Can anyone reproduce this? When I search "Midjourney", I get an ad for Midjourney (from Midjourney), followed by Midjourney, the site. After that, I get the Midjourney Discord, the Midjourney subreddit, the Midjourney Wikipedia page, and then (inexplicably), another Midjourney ad. That seems about as good as it could be. Edit: I guess I should say that I do agree that the quality of Google Search is pretty poor these…

Google SERPs are personalized. Likely OP is a Midjourney user which is recorded in his targeting profile. When OP searches for Midjourney as a Midjourney user, Google’s algorithm infers he might want to consider an alternative because why would an existing user search for the product they’re already using. We see evidence supporting this given no Midjourney ad showed up for a direct keyword match query; and only alte…

>When OP searches for Midjourney as a Midjourney user, Google’s algorithm infers he might want to consider an alternative because why would an existing user search for the product they’re already using.

That's insane. Someone searching for something they've searched for in the past is looking for stability of the search results; they're trying to get back to where they've been before. If they wanted different results, they'd change the search query.

Is this the "logic" behind Google and Youtube search results being different each time a query is run?

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