Does anyone else think Google search quality has gone downhill fast?
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The draft title of this comment was '9 Reasons You Can't Google Expert Feedback', but my cat came and looked at me with immeasurable disappointment.
What is a(n) {issue}? (what you went to the vet for)
Should you worry about {issue}?
What to do if you see {issue}
Is {medicine} safe for your cat?
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...and more
https://you.com/search?q=cat%20NSAIDs%20side%20effect&fromSe...
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A large chunk of the internet, as it used to be, is still there. You just can't find it in the sea of aggressively search engine optimized (and often machine generated) junk that it has to compete with on Google. You can't find it on Reddit or Facebook or Twitter either, because none of their algorithms favor that sort of content. This creates an illusion that it doesn't exist. But it does.
The solution to this problem is search engine diversity. If you have multiple search engines with incompatible algorithms and disparate views on quality, then even if you manage to game one of the algorithms effectively, that search engine will just lose popularity and your SEO will be less useful. The winning strategy becomes to attempt to SEO against multiple contradictory algorithms, which is something that will never be as successful as manipulating Google alone.
Given Google's role in pushing stuff like Google's Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), I'd say that Google's role in degrading the world's internet experience goes way beyond being an innocent bystander.
Sure, there is a lot of crap, more than ever, but finding the good stuff in the pile of crap is what search engines like Google are for.
I don't know why Google search results appear to be worse. Bing (and its many proxies) are not getting better either, so it is probably not only Google's fault.
Among the explanation I can think of:
- There is a cognitive bias: results are not actually worse
- There is an arms race between search engines and people trying to game the results (SEO), and SEO is winning
- There is a recent disconnect between what is in best interest for Google (and Microsoft) to show you and what is best for the user.
- We are reaching some technical limits. We went from simple indexing, to PageRank, to deep learning, constantly improving, and now we are stagnating.
- Google (and Microsoft) is suffering the large company syndrome, which is like SEO form the inside: employees optimize for their paycheck instead of the quality of the end product, and the corporate structure can't make these goals match.
What I don't believe:
- Google is turning evil: Google is not evil, Google just wants to make money, it has always been the case, and giving out great results made Google a trillion dollar company. AFAIK, Google is not owned by Satan, it has no reason to "turn evil" unless it makes them money, and why it would abandon a "not evil" strategy that worked so well in the past requires some explanation.
- There is a simple solution: Google may be a corporate mess, but people there are not completely stupid. If there is a simple solution that fits in a random HN post, they would have done it. As they say, for every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.
Until they have a serious threat from competition (you'll know this is the case when you hear a lot of non-technical people talking about "Binging" or "Yandexing" something instead of Googling) nothing will change.
That was a choice
it's a bit harder to find the best articles, but it's still better than the average google search.
Bad thing is that Google is like ethanol for internet knowledge. What is not googleable, it is like not existing on web.
A few weeks ago I decided to switch to search.brave.com, because I read they build there own index. This is what I ultimately want from an alternative search engine, not relying on googles/bings results.
It then turned out, that at least their image search is not an own index at all, because the first site of results was 100% similar to googles image search.
Also it turned out, when searching with brave, all of a sudden I get to see these github clones in my results.
I am not sure about the reasons for all this, but I went back to qwant.
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Even if Google were on par with Bing (which I don’t find it is, but my interests may differ from the average HN case) I’d still want to see the company burn for its betrayal of its own mission, of the internet, and of humanity (I mean why not, while I’m being dramatic).
From “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”, to “to present a peep-hole sized view of the world, where said view best suits the values and interests of Google and its sponsors.”
I hate Google because I stumbled on it in 1998 and it was sheer magic, but now it’s 1997 again. They were a really, really good company and deserved all the success. Too good to survive becoming a public megacorp. It’s like how people are sadder when the bright young student full of promise and dreams falls into drugs and alcohol and ruin, than when it happens to the one who was always a delinquent since they were four.