Comment on New Google Trial Docs May Explain Why Search Sucks So Bad Now
Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz 1 year ago
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.
@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.
This 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.
On a larger scale, it’s terrifying how much power over our culture via access to information this gives Google.
It really is. I know Google algorithm targeting is the reason why the Do yOuR oWn ReSeaRch crowd seem to think that the weird anti science conspiracy theories are actually the main conclusions researchers would come to.
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.
I 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
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Beyond 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.
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
I’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.
Draegur@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Honestly 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.
noodlejetski@lemm.ee 1 year ago
addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/…/ublacklist/
Draegur@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Mah man.
Teon@kbin.social 1 year ago
Just a warning: when you blacklist a site it will disappear from search and images pages, however if you are in google images and expand an image (which opens on your right in desktop), all the additional images below that one are not blocked by uBlacklist, and there is no link in the results to block any of those images. It's the only short cumming they have.
GARlactic@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Please tell me more.
nuzzlerat@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I’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
Taleya@aussie.zone 1 year ago
-site: pinterest.*
Draegur@lemm.ee 1 year ago
But one of many examples and I’m not looking to keep a notepad document open at all times to paste sixty -site: args from every time I run a search y’know
lemming741@lemmy.world 1 year ago
There was an extension called uninterested that you could toggle it on and off