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Tell HN: Google search sucks even more during Reddit blackout

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Re: Tell HN: Google search sucks even more during Reddit blackout

#71

Post by Zetice »

Quarrel wrote: post #64
Zetice wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit's valuation is insane right now, they got in before the "correction" so it's at some absurd multiple. Anyone trying to buy Reddit would need to basically lowball the hell out of them and make the case that an IPO will only be worse (which may or may not be true).

is this correct? It doesn't sound right. It last raised money at $10B in 2021, but Fidelity, who led that round have since cut that valuation on their own books back to $6B. I would not be surprised if that is a conservative number. The market has moved and reddit hasn't been going in the right direction. While that's still a lot of money, it is unprofitable, so a trade sale would make some sense. The real issue is t…

I still think $6B falls into "insane", but that's my unqualified opinion, so it may not be correct.

That said, I also don't think they're willing to accept the idea that even $6B might be high, so I don't think anyone would be successful with a meaningfully lower offer.

Re: Tell HN: Google search sucks even more during Reddit blackout

#72

Post by dvngnt_ »

slig wrote: post #27
birken wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd just like to note the irony of saying how bad Google is while at the same time saying that Google's general purpose search engine is still better than any of the specific search engines of these individual sites. Perhaps the issue isn't that Google is bad, and the issue is that search is incredibly hard.

They are bad now, but they were exceptional few years ago. Same thing with Gmail, now I get obvious spam in my inbox and real email in the spam folder. Looks like they gave up.

been getting the same obvious CVS spam email message like crazy

Re: Tell HN: Google search sucks even more during Reddit blackout

#73

Post by mordnis »

olalonde wrote: post #63
Rapzid wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get a ton either which is odd because I OFTEN add "reddit" onto my search and get way better results for what I'm looking for. Kinda odd how Google search hasn't learned yet that Reddit results are higher quality, at least for me? Almost like it's not optimizing for quality of results... It's almost like Google's optimizing for revenue on results has created the Reddit situation. Can't find better results wit…

> I don't get a ton either which is odd because I OFTEN add "reddit" onto my search and get way better results for what I'm looking for. Could you give some example queries?

Best shaving cream reddit

Re: Tell HN: Google search sucks even more during Reddit blackout

#74

Post by sshine »

buildbot wrote: post #17

Actually though, is SEO/spam so out of control that allegedly the best software engineers in the world are unable to counter it? Are bad results actually good for google in some perverse ad-based way? Do people at google actually use their products at all?

> Are bad results actually good for google in some perverse ad-based way?

Not when you frame it like that.

But I always google when I need to buy something.

And when I search for anything non-commercial, I use a private search engine.

Google is good for search results which generate money, e.g. when you intend to buy things.

Re: Tell HN: Google search sucks even more during Reddit blackout

#75

Post by dailyplanet »

I'm trying to write a book and researching some niche old stuff and trying to extract info from 90s websites (some of the websites are dead and I don't know how to search Internet Archives), and Google Search is becoming hopeless, so I've been switching to yandex.com to find stuff.

Even Google Image Search is terrible now and I use TinEye.com and yandex.com for that. I should probably try Bing more as well.

Re: Tell HN: Google search sucks even more during Reddit blackout

#76

Post by marginalia_nu »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #61

Duckduckgo has somewhat recently added a feature where with some searches they'll spot you're trying to search for Reddit posts, and ask if you want more of them displayed. It's a useful addition for the habit I've picked up of adding "reddit" to searches to limit the blog spam. It's a shame it came out now, when reddit is increasingly full of spam and now is blowing itself up.

It's funny, I've seen spam sites in my web crawls that append have 'reddit' appended to the page title. I've never seen such search results appear in any search results, but points for effort.

Re: Tell HN: Google search sucks even more during Reddit blackout

#77

Post by waif »

dageshi wrote: post #41
buildbot wrote: post #17

Actually though, is SEO/spam so out of control that allegedly the best software engineers in the world are unable to counter it? Are bad results actually good for google in some perverse ad-based way? Do people at google actually use their products at all?

It's not that they can't counter it, it's that there's less and less to find...

I dunno. I have a blog with niche info, but it doesn't even show up before page 10 or whatever. But technically, it's still indexed...

Search engines lost. With ChatGPT it's about to get 10x worse.

We could switch back to manual human-curated web directories, or website link lists.

Re: Tell HN: Google search sucks even more during Reddit blackout

#78

Post by SllX »

ricardobeat wrote: post #3
neovialogistics wrote: post #2

I think there is a third cause: the low visibility of high quality non-Reddit forums on Google against the tide of low-quality results. There's some kind of SEO exploit that Google is unable to counter. Apparently, by creating bot accounts on a semi-reputable social media platform like LiveJournal, Baidu or Reddit and having them post endless links to each other from website X, website X is inflated on Google even if…

I don't think I've ever seen a result linking to Baidu or LiveJournal, and Reddit is always legitimate content. Might be a location thing?

Reddit has tons of spam that I run into whenever I try to search for any kind of prior product information or advice through the API. As of June 30th, maybe that will no longer be my problem, but I don’t think the spam links will cease.

Re: Tell HN: Google search sucks even more during Reddit blackout

#79

Post by sigstoat »

vesinisa wrote: post #31
2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote: post #4

It's really disturbing just how bad Google search has become. For so many cases Google actually is only useful as a search interface for Reddit, StackOverflow, and other sites that accumulate (and actually garbage collect) knowledge. Without such a qualifier Google will just give you absolute SEO trash results for many types of searches.

It would certainly be an interesting next turn of events if Google made an offer to buy out Reddit - just for the user-generated content and to stop the site from self-destructing, i.e. the golden goose offing itself. It's unlikely given current capital interest rates, but at this point this drama has pretty much crossed the borders of plausible fiction anyway.

> the golden goose offing itself

they'd give it some icon indistinguishable from the rest of the google apps, forget about it, and then turn it off in a few years.

Re: Tell HN: Google search sucks even more during Reddit blackout

#80

Post by OkayPhysicist »

mr_00ff00 wrote: post #46
Zetice wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit's valuation is insane right now, they got in before the "correction" so it's at some absurd multiple. Anyone trying to buy Reddit would need to basically lowball the hell out of them and make the case that an IPO will only be worse (which may or may not be true).

Maybe I am missing something about IPOs here, but if Reddit’s valuation is way off because it was before the correction, wouldn’t it be easy to argue your low ball offer is the real value? Even if they IPO, wouldn’t the stock immediately crash if it’s overvalued?

> Even if they IPO, wouldn’t the stock immediately crash if it’s overvalued?

Yes, this is effectively guaranteed at this point. The hope of the investors is presumably that they will be able to sell fast and early.

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