Comment on Google Search Really Has Gotten Worse, Researchers Find

• pycorax@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Doesn’t Google provide search results based on your search history? It’s algorithm probably worked against them or something. I’ve heard that anonymous searches usually get better results.

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  • Carighan@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I have had similar experiences constantly.

    I have a feeling that people who frequently bemoan bad search results fall into one of two categories:

    • They have all kinds of tracking, and constantly watch Youtube Shorts or TikTok videos. Meaning their learned behavior is “This person enjoys low-quality spam content and lots of ads”, because let’s face it, portrait-mode shortform videos are primarily that, a vessel to push ads pretending to be genuinely content hidden among content barely better than ads in the first place.
    • They have tracking entirely supressed and their browser so hardened that Google can’t even know that if this user puts in “needle”, they don’t mean a physical object. They don’t even know the language the user is searching in, basically. As a result virtually no weighting happens which allows spam content to rise to the top based on its built-in SEO efforts.

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    • EmergMemeHologram@startrek.website ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I tried this in chrome and in Firefox with hardening enabled and VPN. I got relevant resumes each time but pretty different from each other.

      Entirely shopping links for parts on Firefox vs short videos on chrome.

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• eating3645@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Since myself and others had no issues with your float needle example, mind sharing what you searched for, and what Google returned?

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• workerONE@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Yeah if you Google “what is a float needle” the first result on a napa website has a great description

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  • Carighan@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Just putting in “float needle” gets me only relevant results, those being a mix of what a float needle is, what it does, and a few shop results for places where I can buy one.

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• rottingleaf@lemmy.zip ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Anyone who creates genuine good content has a healthy and mutually beneficial relationship with Google.

  I’ve switched to Ecosia and while it’s not perfect, I now find what I look for, which became impossible with Google somewhere about 2014-2016, I think?

  I know it’s a “secondary” search engine.

  But the thing is that no, hundred times no, anyone who generates ad revenue has a healthy and mutually beneficial relationship with Google. Everyone else gets screwed.

  Switching to Ecosia alone made me much more comfortable with using Web.

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  • Carighan@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I’ve switched to Ecosia and while it’s not perfect, I now find what I look for, which became impossible with Google somewhere about 2014-2016, I think?

    Ecosia’s results are pulled from Bing, and as the very paper linked here shows, Bing’s results are significantly worse than Google’s, even accounting for Google’s deteriorating result quality. Notice in particular the percentage of spam.

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    • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Worse for whom?

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      • Carighan@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Did you read the paper this thread here is ultimately all about?

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