• Tigbitties@kbin.social
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    2 years ago

    Google SEO has homogenized the internet with vapid marketing content. The internet is one big commercial. The reason Reddit got popular was because communities found and shared good content and created more by talking about it. Now ads are disguised as posts and memes.

    The internet is getting as bad as radio.

  • CharAhNalaar@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    I like Google products but the search engine really has become shit. I’m not sure there’s anything they can do about it though.

      • magic_lobster_party@kbin.social
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        2 years ago

        I don’t think the algorithm is the problem. The problem is that sites started to capitalize on your attention. Everybody wants your sweet little attention so they can earn money from it. Internet also moved into walled gardens of money making machines (like Instagram, YouTube and TikTok).

        It doesn’t matter which algorithm is used. Somebody will crack it and abuse it for their own good.

        There’s no reversing this.

        • spongebue@lemmy.world
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          2 years ago

          It doesn’t matter which algorithm is used. Somebody will crack it and abuse it for their own good.

          If the algorithm gives a bigger shit about giving the answer people are actually looking for, and doesn’t emphasize length, formatting, and other bullshit… And people crack the algorithm by giving exactly that answer I’m looking for, I’d be ok with that.

          But it all starts with the algorithm

          • magic_lobster_party@kbin.social
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            2 years ago

            That’s easily abused. Search engines before Google were pure keyword search, but those were quickly abused. People just made websites with all types of keywords just to get on top of search results. Google’s PageRank fixed this - temporarily. People were quick to abuse it too.

            It doesn’t matter what you try to do. Somebody will figure out how to abuse it.

          • CharAhNalaar@lemmy.world
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            2 years ago

            But to do that, the algorithm has to know the right answer in the first place. Meaning a human has to tell it what’s right and what’s wrong.

            Have you seen Google’s generative AI tests? They’re trying to do exactly that and it’s mostly useless.

        • 0ddysseus@lemmy.world
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          2 years ago

          This is exactly right but assumes the nature of the internet must remain the same. The problem is the content and people wanting your sweet little attention. The internet described in the article - the blogosphere and Usenet and the rest, was an internet created by people for people and existed for its own sake. What google has access to now is 3 billion people all trying to scam the others for money. Its a fundamentally different user base and there’s no way a better algorithm can find content that isn’t there

      • CharAhNalaar@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        Most of the big ones. Gmail, calendar, maps, YouTube, YouTube music, photos, tasks, pixel…

        It’s more interesting to say the ones I don’t use tbh: Drive and Chrome.

  • o0joshua0o@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    I avoid Google products as much as possible these days, especially anything launched within the last 2-3 years, because it will soon be abandoned and unsupported. Their search results are worse than they have ever been. The only Google app I actually like is Google Maps.

  • ArghZombies@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    We had some good variety of search engines back in the day. Alta vista, Hotbot, Infoseek, Yahoo… Now it’s just Google, or slightly worse versions.

    I know people say to use DuckDuckGo but I never get as useful results there as on Google. I just have to scroll past a lot more ads on Google to get to the actual links.

    • CustodialTeapot@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      The fact you’re saying you’re still getting useful results on Google means you haven’t used Google for the past year to me.

      • Plopp@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        They said as useful as Google. Not that Google gives objectively very useful results. And I agree with them. I use DuckDuckGo every day and pretty much every time I have to add !g to send my query to Google because the DDG results are shit in comparison.

        I’m talking about on the desktop btw. With adblocking and script blocking. I accidentally used Google on my phone yesterday and I think I got cancer.

      • TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        Seriously. If I want to hope to get any result that is mildly useful, I’m obligated to add a specific site on the query, either wiki or reddit.

    • AVengefulAxolotl@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      There is brave search, which seemed pretty good to me, even though i am using kagi search now. And to be honest, so far kagi seems really solid, and if you go past the fact that you have to pay for it (on most other search engines you are the product) then give it a try, the first 100 searches are free.

  • olympus@kbin.social
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    2 years ago

    I hope it’s true, but honestly I don’t believe sites and opinions that have to do with google from sites like the verge.
    Because sites like the verge are in reality rivals to google. For example verge is owned by voxmedia which has an advertising company and a web advertsing platform. They are rivals to google which also is an advertising company. They hate google because they want google’s money lol. I seriously doubt they can be objective especially to google.

    • magic_lobster_party@kbin.social
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      2 years ago

      The point of the article is that whatever is replacing Google is not going to be better. It’s not Google that is broken. The entire web is.