New Google Trial Docs May Explain Why Search Sucks So Bad Now
New Google Trial Docs May Explain Why Search Sucks So Bad Now
New documents in the Google antitrust trial show how tension between product and advertising teams could lead to degraded experiences for consumers.
Honestly the biggest issue is all the garbage websites using SEO to try to be at the top of the results without having actual meaningful content.
It seems like whenever I search for a problem, a bunch of websites come up with pages dedicated to that exact issue, but all of fixes are generic and don't actually help. And that whole website will be filled with pages like that, pages that claim to have solutions for specific problems but lack any content of substance. Add in paywalls to access sites, that lawsuit to have google remove the "view image button" from image results, and websites like Pinterest that require an account before you can view anything. People were relying on content from websites like reddit to get actual real answers to searches, and now reddit is looking at getting itself removed from google search as well.
I don't think it's that Google is specifically getting worse, but rather that the internet is becoming an increasingly unhelpful place where everyone is competing to sell you answers and drive clicks.
161Honestly I wish I had a personal blacklist on my Google account so it could never show me results from specific domains that I flag as unwanted ever again, such as FUCKING PINTEREST.
71I’ve been using Kagi lately and one of my favourite features is the ability to raise or lower the priority of a website in your searches. You can even just outright ban a site from your search results
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@Fubarberry what you're describing is happening too.
But Google will no longer even show me results for certain things I know are there. It serves me shitty corporate bs with "no further results found" and I have to go to them manually or ddg.
That's why I switched.
54This was the main thing that made me switch to another engine, too. It's very obvious that Google hides certain results in addition to sponsoring others, and I don't want a profit-driven corporation deciding what I can and can't see (or anyone, if I can help it). On a larger scale, it's terrifying how much power over our culture via access to information this gives Google. I'm just glad there are still better options for me to choose from.
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Competing to sell you non-answers, which is even worse.
IDGAF if the SEO-robot-optimized site actually contains useful information. Invariably, they don't.
34Beyond that, sites impersonating real business FQDN's are becoming increasingly common in top search results.
These include sites including illicit clone sites through to malware-laden shit holes trying to trick users into downloading some virus intereste infested imposter.
Often enough, they're registered via GoDaddy and use CloudFlare to obfuscate their true origin.
Many of them prey on typo-swatting, not necessarily in the domain name but rather on SEO-indexed terms that will get them into the top results, for example microsoft.com might still be the top result for people searching up that particular company, but "micro soft" or "Microsift" among many others may lead to malicious sites in the top results.
I've identified a ton of these and frankly, neither GoDaddy, CloudFlare, or Google seem to give two fucks as the process for getting them scrubbed is laborious, slow, and often ineffective.
13I think I once installed an extension to filter out all pinterest content from searches. While I haven't switched to Kagi yet, I loved how they collect and collapse all the listicles together.
One thing I don't really understand are the websites that seem to have my exact search query word for word, but don't actually have any content when I click on them. I don't understand how that works, and they're annoying to deal with. It's usually when there aren't any results for what I'm looking for
12Learn how to fix wrong driver 0x000015F1 no sound in Warcraft on your computer!
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Google creates that problem though by continuing to use a ranking algorithm that promotes that type of content. It's been an issue for many years and they don't change it
1I'm sure it's a bit of a cat and mouse game, the algorithm was designed to get accurate results, they can't just change it completely to avoid SEO abusers without losing out on real results too. And even if they did change it, SEO abusers would just change to match resulting in the same issue with worse non-abuser results.
For all of google's search issues, they're still the best search engine when it comes to results (outside of a few topics that are censored by google but not other search engines). I use DDG most of the time, but it's bing-powered results are just straight up worse most of the time, especially on technical or more complicated topics. The fact that Google is still the best search engine tells me they're not being lazy with their search algorithms, but that there's a bigger reason why they can't just filter out SEO abuse.
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Isn't this standard enshitification?
Google started off like any new tech company years ago and they did have a superior product. Then they went public and Wall Street started expecting certain revenue numbers every quarter, growth slowed because they saturated the market, so the core product was pushed toward making money instead staying true to the original goals.
Typical stuff, really
110I still say that Google should just buy reddit and then leave it alone. Reddit gets to live it's life being what it is and becomes financially self-sustaining (though not hugely profitable) because spez won't be around to chase whatever Shiny has caught his eye now. And Google gets all of reddit's data to power both it's search results and it's AI work.
30This is the best summary I could come up with:
New documents revealed during the historic monopoly trial over the past week seem to lend more weight to the latter argument, and they could help explain why Google’s once dazzling search results anecdotally feel like they are getting worse for some.
Those comments are important because, as Bloomberg points out, Google was known for erecting clear barriers distancing the product side of search from the advertising wing so that the former can focus on constantly improving user experience.
Instead, he reportedly met with Raghavan and the two agreed to replace queries with a new metric measuring “groups of queries.” Still, the exchange highlights the inherent tensions that can arise between the product and advertising teams and their at times conflicting goals.
Internal Google notes of a meeting between Sundar Pichai and Apple CEO Tim Cook released Monday by the DOJ give an interesting insight into that relationship.
“I need monthly reports of all losses to key competitors on an ongoing basis and if anyone from search to Apple, please email me directly on every individual case.” Pichai wrote according to the recently released documents.
Diane Rulke, an organizational behavior professor at Carnegie Mellon recently told the New York Times she believed the public’s lack of access to relevant information was “unprecedented in antitrust trials.”
The original article contains 1,668 words, the summary contains 214 words. Saved 87%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
17Does anyone else find Google results seem to he favoring YouTube videos as well?
I dont want a god damn 10 minute video claiming to answer my question. I want the website that has the 2 sentences that would solve my problem or question.
So it's often a bunch of ads, then videos, then blog spam none of which quickly or properly address things.
15What about a search engine only for small sites and forums and the like?
I wonder how much data you need to harvest to make a search engine for just ordinary things, and not ad-related or news related (because you have to scrape often).
I mean a global (decebtralized like you do 'a' something sites, you do 'b' etc) attempt could make some sort of AI blob or just condensed data that everyone could use and let be used.
Torah I'm not at all high on this decentralized thing :-)
14Kagi offers a small web discovery website, apparently, and promotes smaller websites in search results, too: https://blog.kagi.com/small-web
16I've recently subscribed to kagi and love it. Would highly recommend!
5Thanks, will check it out!
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Google search has been unusable for a couple years now. I'm using DDG which isn't as good as Google used to be, but it's still better than the dumpster fire it is now.
I've even considered paying for Kagi but the idea of logging in and having my searches non-anonymous bugs the shit out of me.
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