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Google Search Is Dying

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Re: Google Search Is Dying

#671

Post by joe_the_user »

jedwhite wrote: post #585
softwarebeware wrote: post #6

Some really good thoughts here. I'll summarize the ones that hit me: - "Why are people searching Reddit specifically? The short answer is that Google search results are clearly dying. The long answer is that most of the web has become too inauthentic to trust." This is it for me exactly. I search for the following kinds of things on Reddit exactly because results on other sites aren't trustworthy: Reviews are secretl…

There's a reason why it seems shocking that Google has been able to balance the ads well enough that people still use it. They haven't! Google has orchestrated a monopoly over search engine distribution that allows them to get away with search results that are dominated by ads and spam, without losing most consumers. Let's be blunt here - almost no consumer consciously chooses to use Google search anymore. Google has…

There's a reason why it seems shocking that Google has been able to balance the ads well enough that people still use it. They haven't! Google has orchestrated a monopoly over search engine distribution that allows them to get away with search results that are dominated by ads and spam, without losing most consumers.

I disagree. Two to three years ago I could get more what I wanted in a complex search once I tuned it properly. So Google had a twenty year run of good and useful searches. Google also worked to strong arm their monopoly, yes. But I claim they still served some quality after that. It's not that unusual for a monopoly built on quality to maintain their quality for a period of time after it achieves that monopoly status - institutional standards die but they can die over time.

Re: Google Search Is Dying

#672

Post by cosheaf »

notacoward wrote: post #668
cosheaf wrote: post #23

It's already dead. Google mined all the links that were curated by the initial internet communities for all it was worth and turned them into profits for Google's earliest employees and shareholders. Now that no one is curating useful links anymore their search quality, unsurprisingly, is deteriorating. Without human curation there is no signal for Google to use anymore and whatever signal is there is just SEO spam t…

So basically Google is a parasite that killed its host. I really really like that analysis. Thanks!

Thanks but it's not really my analysis. I learned it from an art project: https://googlewilleatitself.com/.

Re: Google Search Is Dying

#673

Post by karmakurtisaani »

generalizations wrote: post #293
profstasiak wrote: post #148

Just a heads up if someone is searching reddit for product reviews. I believe most of them are inauthentic. I worked in marketing for several companies and we always had some budget for whisper marketing aka shilling. There are third party agency specialized in shilling on reddit and making it all look authentic.

I remember picking up on this when I was researching vpns. Compare the comments on Reddit and hacker news, and the difference is stark. It becomes fairly apparent that a lot of the Reddit comments were paid.

Which VPN did you end up going with?

Re: Google Search Is Dying

#675

Post by userbinator »

judge2020 wrote: post #19
softwarebeware wrote: post #6

Some really good thoughts here. I'll summarize the ones that hit me: - "Why are people searching Reddit specifically? The short answer is that Google search results are clearly dying. The long answer is that most of the web has become too inauthentic to trust." This is it for me exactly. I search for the following kinds of things on Reddit exactly because results on other sites aren't trustworthy: Reviews are secretl…

> This is the most annoying behavior because I really mean what I write. Tons of people don't, though. They type whatever unprocessed half-second thought they have into Google and expect Google to lead them to the water, even if they're tugging and trying to go in the completely wrong direction. Google has optimized for working 'most of the time' for 'the most people', and that means striving for fixing the complete…

A less charitable interpretation --- and unfortunately one that could be true --- is that Google does not want you to think. It wants to keep you stupid because it's easier to deceive those who can't think and bend their thoughts in the direction that gives G more $$$. I'd say it's not merely optimising for the stupid; it's actively encouraging it. It wants to be your brain, control your thoughts and life.

Re: Google Search Is Dying

#677

Post by northernexposur »

I have absolutely been adding ‘Reddit’ to my queries for 2+ years and waiting for this kind article to bring some discourse about shit google results.

“This [AI-created content being widespread] isn’t true (yet), but it reflects some general sense that the authentic web is gone.”

It isn’t gone, but it is different. Reddit is essentially a site of blogs turned inside out. Each post produces individual comments that are often really blog posts tied to commentary/chat discourse. Problem is, each post and it’s daughter discussion/blog posts isn’t useful for continuous coverage of a topic (e.g. cooking). Thus the subreddits exist with quality control through mods that curate content.

Yet, something is missing when there is a single umbrella organization with power over these fief post blog chats. I don’t want to read archives from 2005, but it is the last time it feels like the kind of personal blogs I find here on HN were prevalent and searchable through places like Google. Each article is presented in the context of the user/owners wider work and enriched and enriching for being presented that way.

The ‘authentic web’ of 15 years ago was better, more pluralistic, and more diverse in literary and artistic design when there were more ‘online magazines’ in this way.

This death of Google feels unlike the way Usenet died. I was less broken up about that death when it happened precisely because the web offered a broader, richer landscape. What I Think we are being taught, though, is that perhaps USENET and the web should’ve existed together and been supported, since Reddit is just Usenet, after all, in many ways.

Google is like a former ritzy neighborhood that has been corporatized, had the blood sucked from it, is falling into disrepair, and now is ghettoized and awaiting gentrification, which will probably mean a return to the walled gardens of yore when they start charging for improvements (as in Youtube Premium).

Re: Google Search Is Dying

#678

Post by userbinator »

takeda wrote: post #540
softwarebeware wrote: post #6

Some really good thoughts here. I'll summarize the ones that hit me: - "Why are people searching Reddit specifically? The short answer is that Google search results are clearly dying. The long answer is that most of the web has become too inauthentic to trust." This is it for me exactly. I search for the following kinds of things on Reddit exactly because results on other sites aren't trustworthy: Reviews are secretl…

>> "Google increasingly does not give you the results for what you typed in. It tries to be “smart” and figure out what you “really meant" ..." > This is the most annoying behavior because I really mean what I write. Yeah I remember this being mentioned in a local presentation at university. As a great thing. Google doesn't search for what you write, but what you want. The problem is that very often Google don't know…

Google knows what it wants. Its job is to convince you to agree with it.

Re: Google Search Is Dying

#679

Post by PoignardAzur »

brundolf wrote: post #527
bnralt wrote: post #308

An important thing to realize, too, is that this is a problem that keeps getting worse. The article talks about product reviews and recipes, but it's been spreading a lot further than that. Recently I was trying to look up a technical error, and found a lot of web pages that seemed to be auto-generated with "How to solve [error_scraped_from_the_web]", complete with a list of generic things unrelated to the error (IE,…

Free project idea for someone with more time on their hands than me: Classical search engines determine trust automatically, based on various factors including "link neighborhoods" where trustworthy sites link to other trustworthy sites. These automated strategies are clearly breaking down; the spammers are winning the arms-race. So maybe we need to go back to human-based trust. People used to curate lists of website…

The biggest problem, doing that, is that you increase the pressure from bad actors to websites that are trusted by lots of people.

So, for instance, the more weight you give to sites that are quoted by Wikipedia in your search rankings, the more content farms will have incentives to sneak edits that link to their sites.

There are ways to counter that (eg moderation), but in general, defense is more expensive than offense.

Re: Google Search Is Dying

#680

Post by sciolizer »

> Large proportions of the supposedly human-produced content on the internet are actually generated by artificial intelligence networks in conjunction with paid secret media influencers in order to manufacture consumers for an increasing range of newly-normalised cultural products.

> This isn’t true (yet)

It's at least partially true:

https://www.jasper.ai

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