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Something I have felt for a couple years (that I continually feel more strongly) is that over time all the independent content, high-quality bloggers and forum
by tumblen 8y ago
Something I have felt for a couple years (that I continually feel more strongly) is that over time all the independent content, high-quality bloggers and forum discussions have gotten pushed out of the top results.
They're replaced with nothing but top, recognizable brands like yelp, pinterest, thewirecutter, forbes, usatoday, etc.
I miss when I'd google something and find a bunch of actual, normal human beings' experiences.
I think that they probably got bumped out as they triggered some blog-spam filters, but the alternative of just having results full of brand after brand isn't really any better.
- QasimK 8y agoI've been having the same thoughts recently, to the extent where I've wanted to post "Ask HN: How do you search for independent bloggers and forum discussions?". I may as well throw that out here now, how do I find individuals and their thoughts/comments/articles/websites rather than the typical results which are full of big companies?
- bcoughlan 8y agoThey got bumped out as part of a deliberate strategy by Google to promote the results of trusted brands like newspaper and magazine websites, which have become low quality content farms. Eric Schmidt said in 2008 "Brands are the solution, not the problem… Brands are how you sort out the cesspool"
- Rjevski 8y agoMaybe this was true back in 2008. Nowadays brands are the cesspool itself.
- pranay01 8y agoYes, this is my primary pain point also. I want to see independent bloggers, forum discussions, people's views, detailed articles. As you pointed correctly, the top results are brands or heavily optimised sites - which you can figure out by looking has been optimised for SEO. They hardly have any useful insights.