New documents in the Google antitrust trial show how tension between product and advertising teams could lead to degraded experiences for consumers.
  • Fubarberry@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    41·
    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.

    • Cyrus Draegur@lemm.eeEnglish
      6·
      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.

    • miridius@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      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

      • Fubarberry@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        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.

    • livus@kbin.social
      1·
      1 year ago

      @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.

      • Lith@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        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.

        • livus@kbin.social
          1·
          1 year ago

          @Lith

          On a larger scale, it’s terrifying how much power over our culture via access to information this gives Google.

          It really is. For example, 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.

  • Valmond@lemmy.mindoki.comEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    What 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 :-)