That would be exactly the outcome they were expecting with this change. I disagree that Google still holds the power to change the internet tho.
Google just updated its algorithm. The Internet will never be the same
81–90 of 187 posts
Re: Google just updated its algorithm. The Internet will never be the same
#82I searched for how to use a massage ball (my back hurts) last week and got a giant page full of ads and ad-like sections for buying one with barely any articles at all. That is not a search engine; it's an ads engine.
At the very least Google (or any search engine for that matter) should consider implementing a feature that allows users to explicitly signal query intent. For instance, a 'noshop:' prefix could be used to signal that the user is not looking to buy anything. There are two distinct groups of users searching for terms like "massage ball" or (in my own case) "managed switch": those looking to buy the product and those w…
Which Google user would want to pay for ads about things you cant buy ('noshop')?
Oh wait, you meant Google _product_. You want Google to cater to its product needs by sacrificing own money making potential and limiting its actual users.
Re: Google just updated its algorithm. The Internet will never be the same
#83So I'm normally skeptical of the anecodata you see on HN and elsewhere ("Google is now useless, I switched to DuckDuckGo 23 years ago") but it seems like Google has done rather big things here: 1. Greatly increased the weight of doamin authority. This... seems desperate; 2. Increased the weight of reddit. Google have probably noticed how many people add "reddit" or "site:reddit.com" to search terms. I do this too. It…
> Google is now useless, I switched to DuckDuckGo 23 years ago
7-8 years ago now, i think. Definitely years ago. Yes it started its slide towards useless back then.
If you're searching for pizza near you it's probably useful still, if you're searching for say product reviews or niche technical questions it's been completely useless for a while.
Re: Google just updated its algorithm. The Internet will never be the same
#84We need to make bookmarks a common way to access the web again! So many people use Google or other search engines to access even the most basic sites, instead of storing a bookmark or typing out the whole URL. I have used a simple bookmarking strategy in Firefox for some years now, simply storing everything and anything I suspect I might want to retrieve later. I give each bookmark a few quick keywords and store it a…
I just started using BookmarkOS: https://BookmarkOS.com
Re: Google just updated its algorithm. The Internet will never be the same
#85Honestly, bravo at BBC for whoever green-lighted this story. It puts the finger right on where it hurts for small publishers and illustrates Googles new way of thinking. I am sad but also frightened for small creators and those who simply share interesting information once in a while. Google is bulldozing these people away from anywhere near the AI answers or the ten blue links below it. The article didn’t mention it…
I don't think there's a new element to their thinking.
They used to rely on DMOZ's human curated content and then replaced it. Knowledge panels (at least the non-business ones) are reliant on wikipedia. The 10 blue links reliant on the web.
They don't mind borrowing until they can replace, and monetise what they borrowed.
Re: Google just updated its algorithm. The Internet will never be the same
#86Note that the article is crying about the poor small businesses that google killed. Not about the good old days when you could find unbiased reviews that were done not-for-profit out of someone's personal experience on a geocities page that hurt your eyes with all those blink tags.
Re: Google just updated its algorithm. The Internet will never be the same
#87I’ve been using bing and ddg so much more. The bing outage actually impacted me and that took me by surprise.
Re: Google just updated its algorithm. The Internet will never be the same
#88Over the past several months I find Google search has become completely useless to find anything other than online retailers. I thought it may have been just something about my profile, but this article suggests it may have been an update on their end. Meanwhile, Duckduckgo still provides decent results in my experience.
Kagi is miles better then google, i've been using it for nearly a year now. Worth the subscription.
Re: Google just updated its algorithm. The Internet will never be the same
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
>20-25 years ago when there were half a dozen prominent engines That's not how I remember it. My recollection is that for a year or 2 (roughly 1998 and 1999) Altavista was the dominant engine, which rapidly gave way to Google essentially as soon as Google became available, and since 2000 Google has been the dominant engine. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, I was getting my info on what engines people were using mos…
Altavista was very popular in tech circles. But I remember "normies" mostly using and talking about Yahoo, Lycos, Ask Jeeves, and even lots of local, country-specific, search engines. And after that moving to Google.
I noticed at the time that Yahoo's engine was very popular with the less-technical users, yes.
Re: Google just updated its algorithm. The Internet will never be the same
#90I've been thinking more about what we can collectively do to fix what is now broken. One tiny part of the solution may be individual curation. To me that means the return of the blogroll. I've been exploring this, along with others, at https://alexsci.com/rss-blogroll-network/
It's at an early stage but I've found value from it already.