8 ms·

From what I see the old Google is dead from self inflicted wounds. In an effort to destroy spam they removed lots of good sites and changed things for the futur

From what I see the old Google is dead from self inflicted wounds. In an effort to destroy spam they removed lots of good sites and changed things for the future webmasters and users. sadly the only game in town for new sites these days is likely facebook traffic, snapchat and youtube. Google has been looking more and more like the yellow pages in my experience. They serve fast local results because so many people crowd source the info as it's used a lot. As far as finding useful things outside of local results, the quality varies and the things that are censored are more due to their war on spam than any regulations. The good thing is that people can still share cool things via snapchat, fbook and their future replacements. The need for google is not the same as it once was. Sure people will continue to use it as it's convenient for many local searches and accurate enough for that, and its default choice on many mobile devices. as for web sites and their creators, trying to please google's changing pleasure zones is an unending game without clear rules, taking time and money without an end in sight. Their war an spam has crushed many that were not trying to fight it. Between mysterious penalties (algorithmic of course, the manual ones are not so mysterious unless it's the google plus network), negative seo, and competition that uses inside info, there is little hope for new sites in many categories to get top placement. I suggest to either establish local brick and mortar to get those kind of local results with google, or give up fighting google's algorithm and the competition - just buy some ads with them, but consider that you'll likely get more quality visitors with ads and engagement with fbook, snap and others. Given the search results I had today when looking for a particular model of samsung cell phone - I would guess that page rank is playing a bigger role than one might have guessed - even though it said results effected by your neighborhood location (my neighborhood listed) - I sure had lots of results for phone companies in the UK and other abroad places that offered no helpful information to me about the unlocked phone and how it worked with various lte bands here. Of course, selection bias and all that, other people's experience will vary. If most of your searches are for stack exchange info you might feel they are relevant and awesome. I prefer to use search engines to search for multiple different sources of info about things to get a bigger picture.

SubiculumCode 8y ago
I feel like I find fewer interesting (or odd) little websites these days through Google..Either they no longer exist, or Google ignores them. It is strange and disheartening.
- metildaa 8y ago
  Google is ignoring these sites, using Bing, Qwant or DuckDuckGo works much better for queries where uour looking for that obscure site thst is a treasure trove of info. Part # are another area where Google Search has notably gotten worse over the past half decade. I've emailed multiple Googlers who claim to want to fix these crap results, but I have yet to have one bother to respond (despite them replying to my comments asking me to contact them!)
  - Semaphor 8y ago
    Obscure searches is what I use "!g" for. DDG is horrible with them, especially with the change of ignoring forced terms.
    - metildaa 8y ago
      Ah, its been a while since I tried forced terms on DDG. Been using Qwant for a while now...
      - SubiculumCode 8y ago
        I haven't heard of that. Any good?
        metildaa 8y ago
        Its sufficent to keep me off Google, which neither DDG or Bing could ever achieve. I do occasionally get imposter syndrome, and search something on Google too, but the results are generally more accurate on Qwant (for me at least). Where Google kills it is built-in currency conversion, wikipedia previews and such.
googlemike 8y ago
> but consider that you'll likely get more quality visitors with ads and engagement with fbook, snap and others. Was there not a recent scandal of Facebook metrics being inflated, and erring positively in their favor? top of mind example: https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/17/17989712/facebook-inaccurate-video-metrics-inflation-lawsuit https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/17/17989712/facebook-inaccu...
- stevenicr 8y ago
  It should be a scandal many places inflating engagement. The amount of times my brother has left the house with a new tab open for some web site that keeps playing videos and video ads - so many place purposely inflating video and other usage just to game the advertisers - it's sick. It's especially bothersome the fbook would be doing this considering they get so much money from ads and have so many talented maths and code people.
Angostura 8y ago
> sadly the only game in town for new sites these days is likely facebook traffic, snapchat and youtube. I disagree. I started a new site last year for work, it's an educational site that contains resources for teachers and parents supporting children with a variety of special educational needs. SEO isn't a big deal for us, but I did all the basics, made sure pages were structured properly and the content is good. 12 months later virtually all our traffic is from organic search, and we don't use Facebook, Snapchat and only use Youtube to host a few videos. It seems to me like Google is still doing its job OK.
- jacquesm 8y ago
  > 12 months later virtually all our traffic is from organic search That is a very dangerous position to be in. If all your traffic comes from a single source you are essentially one algorithm change or a penalty away from non-existence.
  - AstralStorm 8y ago
    Sure, just like university pages die out because students stop visiting them... Oh wait they don't. Despite most being terrible and badly indexed. See, there are secondary deeper sources like word of mouth, aggregators like reddit etc. They do not direct a lot of traffic but they will make a good site (esp. specialist) resurface every now and again. There are also mailing lists and forums which are too diffuse to count in many cases. This is opposed to relatively less worthy news sites or ones depending on ad income to run. Or perhaps the page has very specific content, requiring specific search which means there is little competition except from junk like Quora...
    - jacquesm 8y ago
      He said that virtually all his traffic is organic search through Google. That means you are arguing with yourself here.
  - dazc 8y ago
    If you're not gaming the system there is very little risk.
josh2600 8y ago
Phone arena has all of the details about every phone.
- stevenicr 8y ago
  Thanks for the tip - they do have the network numbers for the a6 and a8 on there. I wish they had colored bars showing the amount of network coverage for each 2g 3g 4g etc like BHphoto has for the phones - it would be easier than trying to remember the megaherts and two digit numbers I need for tmobile and my friend needs for att and I need to consider with a move that may require verizon. Noticed they have a site search at the top, so if they have details about every phone I can just skip google which is bringing me lots of info about the phone in Europe, go straight here and search within. thanks
SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
> The good thing is that people can still share cool things via snapchat, fbook and their future replacements. The need for google is not the same as it once was. These platforms are also overrun with spam and users are rapidly becoming disinterested in them, too.
- stevenicr 8y ago
  Considering that, which is why I said "and their future replacements" Hopefully someone makes a new fbook that allows people to choose their own level of filtering / moderation / censoring. And actually gives you the chronological feed of stuff from your friends and family instead of trying to space out the stuff you want with stuff you don't and more ads. Snapchat could stay the way it was, prioritize friends added instead of distant friends, keep the ads minimal and probably keep usage for a long time. I still believe people needed yahoo and google more some years ago. These days more people are getting most of their online content directly from facebook (which I abhor by the way) - but I'm pretty sure that's true. If that is true and google is giving instant answers without the need to click over to a result, it seems that it is also true that users and webmasters don't have the same need for google as they once did. Unless fbook goes offline, I don't see that reversing anytime soon.

SubiculumCode 8y ago

I feel like I find fewer interesting (or odd) little websites these days through Google..Either they no longer exist, or Google ignores them. It is strange and disheartening.

metildaa 8y ago
Google is ignoring these sites, using Bing, Qwant or DuckDuckGo works much better for queries where uour looking for that obscure site thst is a treasure trove of info. Part # are another area where Google Search has notably gotten worse over the past half decade. I've emailed multiple Googlers who claim to want to fix these crap results, but I have yet to have one bother to respond (despite them replying to my comments asking me to contact them!)
- Semaphor 8y ago
  Obscure searches is what I use "!g" for. DDG is horrible with them, especially with the change of ignoring forced terms.
  - metildaa 8y ago
    Ah, its been a while since I tried forced terms on DDG. Been using Qwant for a while now...
    - SubiculumCode 8y ago
      I haven't heard of that. Any good?
      - metildaa 8y ago
        Its sufficent to keep me off Google, which neither DDG or Bing could ever achieve. I do occasionally get imposter syndrome, and search something on Google too, but the results are generally more accurate on Qwant (for me at least). Where Google kills it is built-in currency conversion, wikipedia previews and such.

googlemike 8y ago

> but consider that you'll likely get more quality visitors with ads and engagement with fbook, snap and others. Was there not a recent scandal of Facebook metrics being inflated, and erring positively in their favor? top of mind example: https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/17/17989712/facebook-inaccurate-video-metrics-inflation-lawsuit https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/17/17989712/facebook-inaccu...

stevenicr 8y ago
It should be a scandal many places inflating engagement. The amount of times my brother has left the house with a new tab open for some web site that keeps playing videos and video ads - so many place purposely inflating video and other usage just to game the advertisers - it's sick. It's especially bothersome the fbook would be doing this considering they get so much money from ads and have so many talented maths and code people.

Angostura 8y ago

> sadly the only game in town for new sites these days is likely facebook traffic, snapchat and youtube. I disagree. I started a new site last year for work, it's an educational site that contains resources for teachers and parents supporting children with a variety of special educational needs. SEO isn't a big deal for us, but I did all the basics, made sure pages were structured properly and the content is good. 12 months later virtually all our traffic is from organic search, and we don't use Facebook, Snapchat and only use Youtube to host a few videos. It seems to me like Google is still doing its job OK.

jacquesm 8y ago
> 12 months later virtually all our traffic is from organic search That is a very dangerous position to be in. If all your traffic comes from a single source you are essentially one algorithm change or a penalty away from non-existence.
- AstralStorm 8y ago
  Sure, just like university pages die out because students stop visiting them... Oh wait they don't. Despite most being terrible and badly indexed. See, there are secondary deeper sources like word of mouth, aggregators like reddit etc. They do not direct a lot of traffic but they will make a good site (esp. specialist) resurface every now and again. There are also mailing lists and forums which are too diffuse to count in many cases. This is opposed to relatively less worthy news sites or ones depending on ad income to run. Or perhaps the page has very specific content, requiring specific search which means there is little competition except from junk like Quora...
  - jacquesm 8y ago
    He said that virtually all his traffic is organic search through Google. That means you are arguing with yourself here.
- dazc 8y ago
  If you're not gaming the system there is very little risk.

josh2600 8y ago

Phone arena has all of the details about every phone.

stevenicr 8y ago
Thanks for the tip - they do have the network numbers for the a6 and a8 on there. I wish they had colored bars showing the amount of network coverage for each 2g 3g 4g etc like BHphoto has for the phones - it would be easier than trying to remember the megaherts and two digit numbers I need for tmobile and my friend needs for att and I need to consider with a move that may require verizon. Noticed they have a site search at the top, so if they have details about every phone I can just skip google which is bringing me lots of info about the phone in Europe, go straight here and search within. thanks

SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago

> The good thing is that people can still share cool things via snapchat, fbook and their future replacements. The need for google is not the same as it once was. These platforms are also overrun with spam and users are rapidly becoming disinterested in them, too.

stevenicr 8y ago
Considering that, which is why I said "and their future replacements" Hopefully someone makes a new fbook that allows people to choose their own level of filtering / moderation / censoring. And actually gives you the chronological feed of stuff from your friends and family instead of trying to space out the stuff you want with stuff you don't and more ads. Snapchat could stay the way it was, prioritize friends added instead of distant friends, keep the ads minimal and probably keep usage for a long time. I still believe people needed yahoo and google more some years ago. These days more people are getting most of their online content directly from facebook (which I abhor by the way) - but I'm pretty sure that's true. If that is true and google is giving instant answers without the need to click over to a result, it seems that it is also true that users and webmasters don't have the same need for google as they once did. Unless fbook goes offline, I don't see that reversing anytime soon.