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The problem isn’t solvable by modifying search queries. The fundamental issue is that the web has filled up with content designed to trick Google into sending i

The problem isn’t solvable by modifying search queries. The fundamental issue is that the web has filled up with content designed to trick Google into sending it visitors and to maximize ad revenue. So you have content that is thick with ranking signals and thin on useful and new data. You also have to scroll past many ads and filler to get to the answer to your search query. The fundamental problem is that Google and the SEO spammer’s interests are aligned. Google is both the search provider and ad network. I think this makes Google tremendously vulnerable to competitors who don’t have that conflict of interest, and presents a massive opportunity to those with enough courage and cash.

pixelgeek 5y ago
This pretty much sums it up. The amount of crap and plagiarized content in most searches is what is killing most search results. Google makes money regardless of the quality or 'originality' of the content your search comes up with so they currently have no motive to change things.
ankit219 5y ago
Agree with you. A lot of news publications tend to post about anything hoping searchers would land on their page for the answer. I google times for Football games, and the first link I get (in India) is from a news website, which does not even have the answer. I got so frustrated, I switched my region to US.
jccalhoun 5y ago
There has been a cat and mouse game between google and scammers for a long time. Results get scammy and Google updates to get rid of them. I just hope they update soon to get rid of the latest version. I'm sick of so many results for things like "how to fix a clogged sink" all being long pages with stuff like "first let's talk about what a clog is" then "how they get clogged" and then "history of sinks" and then after you have scrolled and scrolled and scrolled you get the answer.
blindmute 5y ago
But the search isn't profitable without the ads. What is the competitor's motivation to build a search engine?
- hedora 5y ago
  1) They can run display ads (linked to search terms, not users) on the results page, and nowhere else. This eliminates the conflict of interest where spammy results kick off ad auctions that the search engine profits from. At this point, revenue would be proportional to: market-share * expected-number-of-searches-before-success So, the dominant player (with market share near 100%) would be incentivized to make the first search or so produce crappy results. 2) This incentive can be eliminated by throttling the rate at which ads are delivered to a given user (such as by repeating the same ads for free on search refinements, or simply skipping ads on search refinements). DDG is still in step 1, where the upside on market share is much greater than the upside from spamming low quality results to increase incremental ad display rates.
Siira 5y ago
I don’t see how Google benefits from SEO ad spam; part of the money is going to the spam site, while Google could always put any ads it wants on the search result pages without paying these spammers.

pixelgeek 5y ago

This pretty much sums it up. The amount of crap and plagiarized content in most searches is what is killing most search results. Google makes money regardless of the quality or 'originality' of the content your search comes up with so they currently have no motive to change things.

ankit219 5y ago

Agree with you. A lot of news publications tend to post about anything hoping searchers would land on their page for the answer. I google times for Football games, and the first link I get (in India) is from a news website, which does not even have the answer. I got so frustrated, I switched my region to US.

jccalhoun 5y ago

There has been a cat and mouse game between google and scammers for a long time. Results get scammy and Google updates to get rid of them. I just hope they update soon to get rid of the latest version. I'm sick of so many results for things like "how to fix a clogged sink" all being long pages with stuff like "first let's talk about what a clog is" then "how they get clogged" and then "history of sinks" and then after you have scrolled and scrolled and scrolled you get the answer.

blindmute 5y ago

But the search isn't profitable without the ads. What is the competitor's motivation to build a search engine?

hedora 5y ago
1) They can run display ads (linked to search terms, not users) on the results page, and nowhere else. This eliminates the conflict of interest where spammy results kick off ad auctions that the search engine profits from. At this point, revenue would be proportional to: market-share * expected-number-of-searches-before-success So, the dominant player (with market share near 100%) would be incentivized to make the first search or so produce crappy results. 2) This incentive can be eliminated by throttling the rate at which ads are delivered to a given user (such as by repeating the same ads for free on search refinements, or simply skipping ads on search refinements). DDG is still in step 1, where the upside on market share is much greater than the upside from spamming low quality results to increase incremental ad display rates.

Siira 5y ago

I don’t see how Google benefits from SEO ad spam; part of the money is going to the spam site, while Google could always put any ads it wants on the search result pages without paying these spammers.