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There's a whole class of searches that no longer have value because of SEO. Try "best exercise bike" or anything that can be similarly monetized and you will of

by zinxq 5y ago

There's a whole class of searches that no longer have value because of SEO. Try "best exercise bike" or anything that can be similarly monetized and you will of course end up at a well-crafted page designed to monetize you. My deepest apologies for saying this, but for any type of query that has a monetization angle, I now add "site:www.reddit.com" to the query to find actual discussion about it. Normal Reddit disclaimers apply as much of what you find is garbage but at least if you search "best exercise bike" confined to reddit you'll get real opinion not hellbent on monetizing you.

agentdrtran 5y ago
It's staggering how much the results for any product query that isn't from Reddit or a site like Wirecutter is just unusable. I was recently looking for thin winter gloves and literally every page was an SEO referral scam.
- blt 5y ago
  Yeah, it's been happening for so long that it's easy to forget it wasn't always this way.
jdgoesmarching 5y ago
I use this so often that I have it bound to a keyboard text replacement on all my devices. Recently Google has started inserting non-reddit posts to the top of my results even when I include this. Weirdly I’d be less upset if they were ads, but they aren’t. Just some articles that Google thought I wanted to see more than the website I specified. It’s infuriating.
- ichydkrsrnae 5y ago
  Do you know what infuriates me most about this? It's that Google hasn't addressed it when it's clear as fucking day that their search results have gone in the tank. But now that I've typed that, I can see exactly why they haven't responded: a search company telling the world that its search results are f**ed. That would do wonders for the stock
  - seniorivn 5y ago
    if they are so bad, why competitors don't get a bigger market share? And if you think there are no competitors, you should know that there are bing, duckduckgo, that are basically the same engine and foreign search engines that successfully compete with Google is their domestic markets(yandex in Russia, Baidu in China and a few less successful others) all of them would be able to get at least some US market share in case google slipped
    - skinkestek 5y ago
      > if they are so bad, why competitors don't get a bigger market share? Two things: 1. https://duckduckgo.com/traffic https://duckduckgo.com/traffic DDG has seen exponential adoption(yes actually mathematical exponential it seems) until last year. Now its traffic just increases at steady rate that most growth hackers would envy. 2. this happens despite their search results being just as bad as Googles: they (pr probably Bing) also sends me tons of completely irrelevant results because they ignore what I write in favour of what they think I write or want me to search for. DuckDuckGo.com is my go to not because it is better but because: - it is equally good now - moving from DDG to Google is faster (just add !g) - they don't have a history of showing me irrelevant and insulting ads.
      - ichydkrsrnae 5y ago
        That's a fair characterization. I think DDG is almost the nostalgia play. What's the David Byrne lyric? You got what you wanted, but you lost what you had.
        skinkestek 5y ago
        > I think DDG is almost the nostalgia play. Good point. Also their main focus seems to be privacy, not quality. The privacy problems of Google just recently (i.e. last 5 years) started to bother me, their complete inability to fix their broken search operators has bothered me for a decade. My guess is if DDG provided the same quality as the old Google instead of just this nostalgia play it could possibly rise even faster.
Trufa 5y ago
I really don't get what people are talking about, first three results for best exercise bikes: https://www.tomsguide.com/best-picks/best-exercise-bikes https://www.tomsguide.com/best-picks/best-exercise-bikes https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/best-exercise-bikes-407424 https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/best-exercise-bikes-40742... https://www.menshealth.com/fitness/g23064646/best-exercise-bikes/ https://www.menshealth.com/fitness/g23064646/best-exercise-b... Not sure if they are amazing results but it's decent for such a generic query.
- asdff 5y ago
  These are all monetized results. Brands send bikes to these places to review. It's an advertisement. If you want an organic result like a personal blog post from someone or a niche interest forum like you might have found on google search 15 years ago or so, it's just not really there. Everything you see has been paid for to be seen by you. Once you realize that, a lot of the web feel like this uncanny potemkin internet because that's all it really is these days.
  - gausswho 5y ago
    Four years old now, but here's a good long read on how an entire industry's review sites may be acquired or strongarmed into being invisible shills: https://www.fastcompany.com/3065928/sleepopolis-casper-bloggers-lawsuits-underside-of-the-mattress-wars https://www.fastcompany.com/3065928/sleepopolis-casper-blogg...
  - rhines 5y ago
    You're not going to find people doing unpaid work reviewing the best exercise bikes, or other expensive items. Very few people can afford to go out and buy 10-20 exercise bikes, and fewer still people can afford to do so every time a new bike is released. And yet fewer will then go and write up their experiences and keep their list updated over time. For stuff like this you will only get spec comparison articles or comparison articles from big sites who get gear sent to them or make so much from affiliate sales that they can afford to rent/buy gear. It's simply not likely for anyone to put so much time and effort into it for a passion project. However, where you can still find independent reviews is if you look up a specific item. Granted, they may still put an affiliate link in, because why not try to make some money when you've put in the work of making a good review, but at least they'll have bought the gear themselves and are using it because it's what they like best, and can speak to the pros and cons of the equipment in detail. So the big lists are still useful - check out a couple "top 10" lists, read the specs, and get an idea of what's suitable. Then look up the promising candidates individually, and find more "real" content about them. I find this usually gives results which are better than just reading Reddit discussions, at least for higher value items.
650REDHAIR 5y ago
Most of those "real opinions" are not real opinions. I've been on both sides of paid reviews on Reddit. I still do the same thing because in some subs you'll get actual conversation in the comments, but it's definitely being manipulated.
- thedorkknight 5y ago
  You mean you've been paid to put fake comments about products on Reddit?
hotpotamus 5y ago
You know, I cleaned out my grandparent's old house recently and came across a Schwin exercise bike from probably the 70's. It has some sort of speedometer/dynomometer thing, a resistance adjustment, and a mechanical timer. You know what? I got up on it and went for 10 minutes and my heart was beating faster and my legs felt like they were getting a workout. What more do you need in a bike? Especially now - I had my phone to listen to a podcast and watch to monitor heartrate if I'd like - what else does a bike need to do?
- asdff 5y ago
  >what else does a bike need to do? I feel like this exact question was asked in a meeting then peloton appeared. It turns out a bike also needs to have an ipad strapped to the front with a fitness instructor reading your name off a list of connected users and offering personalized praise. That'll be $1500 up front then $40 a month please. I slightly worry when I have some product I rely on in my daily life that just does its job well. How long until the corporate race to the bottom hits this industry too?
- AwaAwa 5y ago
  Phone home what your heart rate was, what you smell like, and how old you were when your first born was conceived.

by zinxq 5y ago

agentdrtran 5y ago

It's staggering how much the results for any product query that isn't from Reddit or a site like Wirecutter is just unusable. I was recently looking for thin winter gloves and literally every page was an SEO referral scam.

blt 5y ago
Yeah, it's been happening for so long that it's easy to forget it wasn't always this way.

jdgoesmarching 5y ago

I use this so often that I have it bound to a keyboard text replacement on all my devices. Recently Google has started inserting non-reddit posts to the top of my results even when I include this. Weirdly I’d be less upset if they were ads, but they aren’t. Just some articles that Google thought I wanted to see more than the website I specified. It’s infuriating.

ichydkrsrnae 5y ago
Do you know what infuriates me most about this? It's that Google hasn't addressed it when it's clear as fucking day that their search results have gone in the tank. But now that I've typed that, I can see exactly why they haven't responded: a search company telling the world that its search results are f**ed. That would do wonders for the stock
- seniorivn 5y ago
  if they are so bad, why competitors don't get a bigger market share? And if you think there are no competitors, you should know that there are bing, duckduckgo, that are basically the same engine and foreign search engines that successfully compete with Google is their domestic markets(yandex in Russia, Baidu in China and a few less successful others) all of them would be able to get at least some US market share in case google slipped
  - skinkestek 5y ago
    > if they are so bad, why competitors don't get a bigger market share? Two things: 1. https://duckduckgo.com/traffic https://duckduckgo.com/traffic DDG has seen exponential adoption(yes actually mathematical exponential it seems) until last year. Now its traffic just increases at steady rate that most growth hackers would envy. 2. this happens despite their search results being just as bad as Googles: they (pr probably Bing) also sends me tons of completely irrelevant results because they ignore what I write in favour of what they think I write or want me to search for. DuckDuckGo.com is my go to not because it is better but because: - it is equally good now - moving from DDG to Google is faster (just add !g) - they don't have a history of showing me irrelevant and insulting ads.
    - ichydkrsrnae 5y ago
      That's a fair characterization. I think DDG is almost the nostalgia play. What's the David Byrne lyric? You got what you wanted, but you lost what you had.
      - skinkestek 5y ago
        > I think DDG is almost the nostalgia play. Good point. Also their main focus seems to be privacy, not quality. The privacy problems of Google just recently (i.e. last 5 years) started to bother me, their complete inability to fix their broken search operators has bothered me for a decade. My guess is if DDG provided the same quality as the old Google instead of just this nostalgia play it could possibly rise even faster.

Trufa 5y ago

I really don't get what people are talking about, first three results for best exercise bikes: https://www.tomsguide.com/best-picks/best-exercise-bikes https://www.tomsguide.com/best-picks/best-exercise-bikes https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/best-exercise-bikes-407424 https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/best-exercise-bikes-40742... https://www.menshealth.com/fitness/g23064646/best-exercise-bikes/ https://www.menshealth.com/fitness/g23064646/best-exercise-b... Not sure if they are amazing results but it's decent for such a generic query.

asdff 5y ago
These are all monetized results. Brands send bikes to these places to review. It's an advertisement. If you want an organic result like a personal blog post from someone or a niche interest forum like you might have found on google search 15 years ago or so, it's just not really there. Everything you see has been paid for to be seen by you. Once you realize that, a lot of the web feel like this uncanny potemkin internet because that's all it really is these days.
- gausswho 5y ago
  Four years old now, but here's a good long read on how an entire industry's review sites may be acquired or strongarmed into being invisible shills: https://www.fastcompany.com/3065928/sleepopolis-casper-bloggers-lawsuits-underside-of-the-mattress-wars https://www.fastcompany.com/3065928/sleepopolis-casper-blogg...
- rhines 5y ago
  You're not going to find people doing unpaid work reviewing the best exercise bikes, or other expensive items. Very few people can afford to go out and buy 10-20 exercise bikes, and fewer still people can afford to do so every time a new bike is released. And yet fewer will then go and write up their experiences and keep their list updated over time. For stuff like this you will only get spec comparison articles or comparison articles from big sites who get gear sent to them or make so much from affiliate sales that they can afford to rent/buy gear. It's simply not likely for anyone to put so much time and effort into it for a passion project. However, where you can still find independent reviews is if you look up a specific item. Granted, they may still put an affiliate link in, because why not try to make some money when you've put in the work of making a good review, but at least they'll have bought the gear themselves and are using it because it's what they like best, and can speak to the pros and cons of the equipment in detail. So the big lists are still useful - check out a couple "top 10" lists, read the specs, and get an idea of what's suitable. Then look up the promising candidates individually, and find more "real" content about them. I find this usually gives results which are better than just reading Reddit discussions, at least for higher value items.

650REDHAIR 5y ago

Most of those "real opinions" are not real opinions. I've been on both sides of paid reviews on Reddit. I still do the same thing because in some subs you'll get actual conversation in the comments, but it's definitely being manipulated.

thedorkknight 5y ago
You mean you've been paid to put fake comments about products on Reddit?

hotpotamus 5y ago

You know, I cleaned out my grandparent's old house recently and came across a Schwin exercise bike from probably the 70's. It has some sort of speedometer/dynomometer thing, a resistance adjustment, and a mechanical timer. You know what? I got up on it and went for 10 minutes and my heart was beating faster and my legs felt like they were getting a workout. What more do you need in a bike? Especially now - I had my phone to listen to a podcast and watch to monitor heartrate if I'd like - what else does a bike need to do?

asdff 5y ago
>what else does a bike need to do? I feel like this exact question was asked in a meeting then peloton appeared. It turns out a bike also needs to have an ipad strapped to the front with a fitness instructor reading your name off a list of connected users and offering personalized praise. That'll be $1500 up front then $40 a month please. I slightly worry when I have some product I rely on in my daily life that just does its job well. How long until the corporate race to the bottom hits this industry too?
AwaAwa 5y ago
Phone home what your heart rate was, what you smell like, and how old you were when your first born was conceived.