There was a pre-Google search that was really bad. Then Google raised the standard by optimising for good results. The trick was to stay one move ahead of SEO devs. First people spammed keywords, then people spammed backlinks, etc.
The issue is now that it’s very outdated and the best thing for websites to do is go spam AI articles about everything. The obvious move would be to move websites with higher specificity to the search query up.
The problem is that Google can do that and optimise for fewest actual clicks on links instead of needing to click 3 to get a result. Instead it’s better to click 3 pages with 3 sets of ads then hopefully do it in the goldilocks “enough to be interested but not to stop”. More screentime is more ads, more ads is more money.
This is peak capitalism guuuys
AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 8 months ago
It sucked back then, but it sucked happily. Now it’s just sad.
Back then it was messy, you couldn’t find anything, but at least everything worked as intended. Hell you could do a whois on something and actually get data back. You could email the netadmin of whatever place you had trouble with. Now it’s just a wasteland of content free corpo sites.
grrgyle@slrpnk.net 8 months ago
I think it works as intended now, but it’s just that the intended audience has changed. We all work for advertisers now.
At least if you follow the mainstream web experience. Luckily there are still nice places like this! :)
Dozzi92@lemmy.world 8 months ago
The Internet has been gentrified. Sure, there were some tough places that you had to be careful about wandering into, but there were great experiences. Now it’s this homogenous, cultivated experience.
FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Although at least your computer doesn’t slow to a crawl every time you go to the wrong Geocities or Tripod page with a million gifs and a custom cursor. Also, would you like to install Bonzi Buddy?
Also, for all of you who lived through the Eternal September, “me too!”
rottingleaf@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
Power corrupts. And those corrupted by power then redirect it to corrupt all they don’t outright conquer.