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I suspect a bunch of people might jump on the bandwagon that this is Google repackaging others' content into search snippets and robbing their sites of traffic.

I suspect a bunch of people might jump on the bandwagon that this is Google repackaging others' content into search snippets and robbing their sites of traffic. No doubt there's some truth to that, but I'd like to indulge in a slightly different flavour of Google bashing on this occasion. The reason I often don't click through on search results is that the search results are garbage - either irrelevant or poor quality. I'm in the midst of refurbing and redecorating my house. Often I'll need to do some research on topics related to that, and when I do that I often find I need to refine my search query to find anything of relevance, even sometimes digging through several pages of results manually to find a really useful page. And then there's work: I still haven't found any answers on this, but one of the things that's on my mind about becoming a more senior business leader is that I feel like I'm changing as a person. I feel like the way I think about problems and people is changing. That's to some extent to be expected, but the issue is I'm feeling ambivalent about some of the changes I perceive. So it's about the effect that leadership has on the leader (selfish, I realise). But when I start searching around this topic, what does Google want to show me? Pages and pages of results about change management or, when it's being marginally less of a village idiot, pages and pages of results about leadership styles and changing leadership style. Neither of these is what I'm talking about. A human will understand that, but Google doesn't, and I'm finding that increasingly to be a problem when I'm looking for information: either, (i) my results are overwhelmed with low-grade spammy SEO'd to hell and back content, or (ii) Google's AI is too bloody stupid and pig-ignorant to understand what I'm talking about. Hence I don't click through on the search results the majority of the time.

jsight 6y ago
I'm seeing very similar issues. Google seems to heavily favor sending people to the sites with the highest content volume instead of the highest quality content. The worst thing is that content creators are manipulating this to build content farms full of low quality content and overwhelming ad volumes. I miss the old web where Google was really great at finding that one guy's blog post that was actually useful.
- judge2020 6y ago
  > instead of the highest quality content That's a tall order - Google doesn't know the quality of the content, only how popular it is. Right now it's based on data science pooled from existing search result clicks, but originally it was based on the amount of backlinks each site had - so instead of user viewership and satisfaction, it was dependant on the amount of nerds at the time who had already found the site/article useful. The internet has grown enough to mean that everyone else vastly outweighs nerds in terms of backlinks and clicks for any particular topic.
  - jsight 6y ago
    > That's a tall order - Google doesn't know the quality of the content, only how popular it is. True, and I suspect that is why noone really does it better.
    - bartread 6y ago
      And we're back to my original point that, where it's used, the AI powering search simply isn't very good.
abecedarius 6y ago
> about becoming a more senior business leader is that I feel like I'm changing as a person. I feel like the way I think about problems and people is changing. Dunno, but this might be the sort of perspective you're seeking: there's a book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Mazes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Mazes about the culture of managers at large corporations. And a series of posts on it -- I'd start with the one near the top that's just quotes from the book, to see if it's you're after: https://www.lesswrong.com/s/kNANcHLNtJt5qeuSS https://www.lesswrong.com/s/kNANcHLNtJt5qeuSS

jsight 6y ago

I'm seeing very similar issues. Google seems to heavily favor sending people to the sites with the highest content volume instead of the highest quality content. The worst thing is that content creators are manipulating this to build content farms full of low quality content and overwhelming ad volumes. I miss the old web where Google was really great at finding that one guy's blog post that was actually useful.

judge2020 6y ago
> instead of the highest quality content That's a tall order - Google doesn't know the quality of the content, only how popular it is. Right now it's based on data science pooled from existing search result clicks, but originally it was based on the amount of backlinks each site had - so instead of user viewership and satisfaction, it was dependant on the amount of nerds at the time who had already found the site/article useful. The internet has grown enough to mean that everyone else vastly outweighs nerds in terms of backlinks and clicks for any particular topic.
- jsight 6y ago
  > That's a tall order - Google doesn't know the quality of the content, only how popular it is. True, and I suspect that is why noone really does it better.
  - bartread 6y ago
    And we're back to my original point that, where it's used, the AI powering search simply isn't very good.

abecedarius 6y ago

> about becoming a more senior business leader is that I feel like I'm changing as a person. I feel like the way I think about problems and people is changing. Dunno, but this might be the sort of perspective you're seeking: there's a book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Mazes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Mazes about the culture of managers at large corporations. And a series of posts on it -- I'd start with the one near the top that's just quotes from the book, to see if it's you're after: https://www.lesswrong.com/s/kNANcHLNtJt5qeuSS https://www.lesswrong.com/s/kNANcHLNtJt5qeuSS