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Just researched good/quality crafting printers yesterday. Search results were mostly blogs and crappy websites that offered obviously no insights but were just

autokad 5y ago
Do a google image search for a strawberry. See how long it takes you to find actual pictures of strawberries that arn't from ecom sites and/or stock photos. I ran into this problem because I wanted to train an AI to recognize a strawberry. Also note, probably none of these are actual strawberries. they are probably fake plastic representations for sales
- hidden-spyder 5y ago
  I did this. Results 1 & 4 were from Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica respectively. Doesn't seem that bad to me.
a-dub 5y ago
yeah, had this experience myself while purchasing holiday gifts. amusingly, it made me pine for the days when you could walk into a shop and a knowledgeable salesperson would ask you a few questions and pick the right stuff for you. it's funny because internet shopping became popular in the face of salespeople becoming corrupt under commission and performance schemes, now a big part of the commerce related internet is worse for pretty much the same reasons.
- 1over137 5y ago
  >it made me pine for the days when you could walk into a shop and a knowledgeable salesperson would ask you a few questions and pick the right stuff for you. Uhhh, you can still do that, you know.
  - chana_masala 5y ago
    Yeah but it is not a good experience, except for a few types of products. I needed a car jump starter so I tried going to AutoZone instead of Amazon. The only one AutoZone had was 3x what I could find on Amazon.
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      I've had great success with the Gooloo jump starter. It has saved me from grief many times, most recently when I left the headlights on.
      - seanp2k2 5y ago
        The Noco ones are decent, but the Clore Automotive Jump-N-Carry is the only thing approaching a BIFL (buy it for life) quality jump starter that I’m aware of. User-replaceable sealed lead acid battery like a quality UPS (which if you’re looking, grab an Eaton 5PX off eBay for a couple hundred bucks shipped…my 3 have outlasted half a dozen consumer APC junk units).
        kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
        Lead acid batteries self-destruct after they've been left to discharge. Not something you want to keep in a trunk or store at home unplugged. The lithium jump starters have much more dependable passive storage life.
    - asciimov 5y ago
      Most auto parts stores are terrible places these days with low quality parts at high prices, and staff that are just competent enough to check out your items. It used to be (20-25 years ago) you could go in tell them what you were doing and they could tell you which brands to avoid, what other parts you might need, and any secrets that might help you get the job done faster or without having to remove quite as much stuff. These days, the people they hire are so incompetent if you asked them for Headlight Fluid they would take you over to the fluids aisle to look for it.
hinkley 5y ago
I use DDG which is backed by Bing and it’s much the same. Product reviews and some how to questions are just a couple pages of SEO garbage. Google used to measure engagement to try to get feedback on the quality of the links, but perhaps clickbait has broken that as well.
riazrizvi 5y ago
It's a policy problem, there's no easy fix. Design a system of rules to rank content. Watch as highly incentivized participants work harder than everyone else to game the system to their advantage. "But I can see these results are obviously bad, surely something can be done?". Leads to System-Amendment#5796 = Gather user feedback to alter results. Leads to highly incentivized users gaming the feedback system.
- littlecranky67 5y ago
  I wonder if we just would disallow affiliate links in general. I.e. you can still create your own webshop, take orders and forward to someone else (similar to dropshipping) but basically outlaw the process of collecting money/commission just for a single placement of links. Or at least, force those sites to correctly mark themselves as "Advertising".
  - mkr-hn 5y ago
    The people doing actual, good reviews/guides also use affiliate links. Getting rid of affiliate links to get rid of the bad actors gets rid of people trying to do it right. The bad actors will have another path in within a month while the person who was run out of their honest business is left hanging.
    - creato 5y ago
      I think affiliate links are positive for Amazon, because they crowdsource aggressive sales and marketing, but are negative for Google (and everyone else). I think if Google could somehow ban affiliate links, they would.
    - seventytwo 5y ago
      Right. A hypothetical honest reviewer would genuinely be recommending products to buy, and if affiliate links pay, then why not? Just like any other tool, it’s not the affiliate links, it’s the user.
  - riazrizvi 5y ago
PaulHoule 5y ago
In photography I have struggled to choose products, often I have to rely on my experience (e.g. it takes six months to discover that your Epson EcoTank printer makes prints that fade in six months) and specialized forums (DPReviews) You might find lightfastness rankings for some printers at http://wilhelm-research.com/ http://wilhelm-research.com/ if somebody paid them to do the research otherwise you might have rely on heuristic 'pigment based inks are relatively lightfast' and that at least one other person who does similar work, has similar skills, and uses similar method gets good results. That still doesn't help with problems like '90% of instances of this Sigma lens seem to be pretty good but 10% have defective autofocus'. I find online reviews are close to worthless because there are so many people who don't know how to use gear or have unrealistic expectations. At Best Buy I saw a review of a printer where somebody showed pictures of prints they made where they printed on the wrong side of photo paper and blamed the printer, for instance.
addaon 5y ago
At least in the past (haven't checked in years), the Amazon affiliate program rewarded the affiliate for the next purchase made (within a pretty long time window) after clicking an affiliate link, even if it's not of the product linked; so there's no downside to sending you to an arbitrary, unavailable, irrelevant product as long as you're clicking on links when you're in a shopping mode and likely to make a purchase soon.
- geerlingguy 5y ago
  24 hours, any purchases made, and it's still a thing. Though rates are much lower nowadays than they were 3+ years ago.
xxs 5y ago
The only reviews I respect nowadays are... tear downs. No innards, no fun. Unfortunately printers would be proper hard to tear down on a review.
- Mezzie 5y ago
  I'm just imagining this rule meaning the only printer you can buy is the one from Office Space. Beating the crap out of a machine counts as tearing it down, right?
chongli 5y ago
I am in the exact same quagmire trying to research water softeners and drinking water (RO) systems. I am having to pull fragments of information from many different sites / videos and having to discard large amounts of contradictory and misleading information. At this point, I’ve had to resort to reading scientific papers on how some of these technologies work (and how some don’t work) just to avoid the bad information. Unfortunately, the more I research the farther I get from making a purchase. This is not where I want to be, however, since the water in my area is very hard and everything gets scaled up all the time. I’m looking to purchase an espresso machine to get into the hobby but I’m not going to drop the money in expensive equipment until I can get access to water which will not damage it in short order.
- exhilaration 5y ago
  I bought my home water filter based on a Consumer Reports recommendation. I feel that's still a reliable source. I think you can sign up for online access for a month to do all your research. I also really like the Wirecutter but I know not everyone here agrees with me.
  - colechristensen 5y ago
    Wirecutter advice seems dubiously linked to how much they can get paid by their "winners". It's not all bad advice, it often seems quite good, but it has the same corruption as top SEO blogs.
- xtracto 5y ago
  Ha! I was searching for the same (water softening systems) for Mexico... the amount of signal to noise ratio is so small in google, that it's mostly unusable.
- tomrod 5y ago
  It isn't just me noticing this. I had a project take me into an unfamiliar knowledge space. Up until... 2018? I could have relied on Google to find the meaningful information. The reason people accepted Google was that it dramatically lowered information acquisition costs through the Internet. That benefit doesn't seem as common now. Back to webrings.
trevex 5y ago
I unfortunately share your experiences. However in Germany there is a foundation called “Stiftung Warentest” [1], which does independent testing of products. With reviews full of Amazon affiliate links dominating search results, I tend to purchase their tests for ~3 Euros more often than ever. However this only works for popular product categories, but less so for specialized equipment. My impression is also that affiliate links hurt consumers in the long run as they reduce the selection of products in reviews or blogs to those the authors can earn money with. This however leaves out potential alternatives. More often than not the winner of product categories (at least those I was researching) of independent tests were not available from sites running affiliate programs. For example a consumer-grade lawn mower from an otherwise professional gardening company or a tent from a Scandinavian brand. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiftung_Warentest https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiftung_Warentest
- cortesoft 5y ago
  The US has Consumer Reports, which is similar I think... but yeah, only works for major product categories.
  - vlovich123 5y ago
    There’s also the NYT WireCutter which tried to do a good job isolating it away as an independent review source that you can trust.
    - short12 5y ago
      That fell to complete shit a while back. They are not wrong but I would ignore their rankings and focus on the review aspects
      - ghaff 5y ago
        I find Wirecutter and Consumer Reports are pretty reasonable for product categories where I just want a reasonable choice and don't necessarily have deep knowledge and preferences myself. And, yes, it's worth reading why they picked something. But if I were buying an interchangeable lens camera or a computer I might read their recommendation but I'd look elsewhere also. For a sprayer for a hose? I'm sure their recommendation is fine.
Beta-7 5y ago
I've also had the same problem. For a while i could get good recommendations/reviews by adding "reddit" to the query as i could find good information there, however i think that the sites have caught up on that and now i only get 1-2 results from reddit.com and then the rest are other sites that reference reddit so they are in the results.
- ghostpepper 5y ago
  At the risk of any SEO-blogspam people reading this and adjusting their tactics, you can filter by domain, eg. product name review site:reddit.com
  - Beta-7 5y ago
    Great tip, thanks. Funny how much i used to do google dorks (that got introduce to me in a college course), but overtime i completely forgot about them. About the risk though: it's happened already. Remember the "to find any book free online just do "filetype:pdf book-name"" tips that were popular online a while ago? Now it's all just PDFs on public google drives with tons of book names and a single link leading to some sketchy site.
  - noizejoy 5y ago
    As long as only a few people use a successful white hat trick, that trick isn’t generally worthwhile for the darker hats to combat. So the problem isn’t so much that blog spam people will read your comment, but that many ordinary readers will start using the trick, and thus make it worthwhile for the dark hats to address. So the unfortunate side effect of kindness in information sharing is that it decreases the value of that information. Therefore, I don’t think there’s a practical way out of endless arms races between $good and $evil
  - throwitawayfam 5y ago
    The problem with using Reddit specifically is that you can't filter by date anymore. Reddit has poisoned their results to show old posts with new dates on Google.
ramraj07 5y ago
This is far worse in a place like india. It’s pretty much impossible to find anything technical or product related that’s localized. The only non blogspam source often is <vomit/> quora. For example. Most construction happening in india now uses something called M-Sand. I actually CANNOT find what the hell it is except from some company websites or random YouTubers blabbering non engineering garbage about it.
- ummonk 5y ago
  What is there to know about it? Looks like it's just sand that's produced by crushing stones in an industrial process, rather than relying on rivers to do it for you. It's probably used as an aggregate for concrete. Edit: a quick search on Google Scholar brings up papers like http://www.kresttechnology.com/krest-academic-projects/krest-mtech-projects/Civil/Civil%20M.tech%20Projects%202017/2.Concrete/Base%20Papers/3.Effect%20of%20replacement%20of%20natural%20sand%20by%20manufactured%20sand%20on%20the%20properties%20of%20cement%20mortar.pdf http://www.kresttechnology.com/krest-academic-projects/krest...
  - d0gsg0w00f 5y ago
    Could be due to the difficulty of getting sand in the region. I watched this fascinating Vice documentary about illegal sand mining in the region. I had no idea it was such a big deal. https://www.vice.com/en/article/4av9jm/illegal-sand-mining-is-creating-an-ecological-crisis-in-bangladesh https://www.vice.com/en/article/4av9jm/illegal-sand-mining-i...
    - zo1 5y ago
      Honestly disappointed at the documentary but curious about the topic. They kept repeating the exact same thing over and over and over again, dripping little bits of info.
    - iamacyborg 5y ago
      It was really fascinating watching the Grand Tour Vietnam special on Amazon, you could see all this sand mining happening in the Mekong river, though no one commented on it.
88913527 5y ago
You can't even search for GitHub issues anymore. You'll get some mirrored site that has the discussion, and from that webpage, you can't even get a direct link back to GitHub.
- fxtentacle 5y ago
  Yeah, I also noticed that for "tiptoi wiki" Google ranks https://github-wiki-see.page/m/entropia/tip-toi-reveng/wiki/Languages https://github-wiki-see.page/m/entropia/tip-toi-reveng/wiki/... higher than the actual GitHub wiki that all of the content was copied from https://github.com/entropia/tip-toi-reveng/wiki/Languages https://github.com/entropia/tip-toi-reveng/wiki/Languages BTW, building my own interactive book was a great thing to do over Christmas.
  - kelnos 5y ago
    That might be fixable, if people want to expend the effort. Wiki pages are almost certainly copyrightable, so the owners could send DMCA takedown notices to github-wiki-see.page. If they're not responsive, send the DMCA notices to Google, which should be required to delist them. Unfortunately you have to do it on a URL-by-URL basis, and you can only send notices for pages you actually own copyright for, so it would mean a big coordinated effort to get them brought down. I just don't understand why Google themselves allows this and doesn't rank these sorts of sites lower. They're clearly garbage sites with low utility.
    - crazysim 5y ago
      Please read my explanation at http://github-wiki-see.page/ http://github-wiki-see.page/ and observe why it exists. I believe it to be a site with extremely high utility. It has already recently convinced/defrosted GitHub to gradually change their policy to not let GitHub wiki pages be indexed since 2012. For at least 9 years, people were writing content into GitHub and not realizing it wasn't indexed at all. I'm happy to answer any questions or suggestions you have.
    - crazysim 5y ago
holoduke 5y ago
One thing what helps me getting better results is adding the keyword 'forum'. Usually still have okayish results. Forums are nowadays the only source information not spoiled by SEO etc
- aix1 5y ago
  That's a good tip. I too do this quite a lot; forums can be quite noisy but also a great source of first-hand experiences.
- tcoff91 5y ago
  Google used to have a great discussion search mode that only showed forum results. I miss it dearly.
- pxmpxm 5y ago
  Beat me to it
megablast 5y ago
Consumers laments the effect of consumers consuming too much stuff. Maybe buying more useless stuff isn't the solution???
freeqaz 5y ago
In the USA, Consumer Reports exists to help deal with this. It's a yearly fee to subscribe, but it's as unbiased of reviews as you can get!
- x0x0 5y ago
  Right, but the majority of folks on here squeal when consumer reports or wirecutter want to be paid for their recommendations. Buying the devices, comparing them, etc all cost money, and refusing to pay inevitably leads to the state we're in... I don't have a solution for this; I just think we're in the exact state we would expect.
  - freeqaz 5y ago
    I don't mind paying for my subscription, just like I don't mind donating to Firefox and Signal. But I get that I'm probably in the minority for that. I try to put my money where my mouth is, and not the other way around!
    - silexia 5y ago
      Consumer reports vehicle recommendations and sales process is just an affiliate scam like wire cutter. Same with Costco's vehicle sales program now. I think they use the same back end. That basically is an affiliate program. They give your contact info to tons of dealers who call you with prices higher than what they have on their lots listed.
- mthoms 5y ago
  Pro tip: You can often get free access to Consumer Reports paywalled website with a library membership.
seanp2k2 5y ago
Yep; a huge portion of Google results, especially for spicy searches like “best ______ 2021” are just lists of affiliate links to top 10 selling items on Amazon from made-up brand names that are rotated once a product receives a few bad reviews. It’s really hard to find legit review sites; at least Wirecutter seems to actually test things, but sites like SeriousEats, OutdoorGearLab, Carryology, DCRainMaker, SoundOnSound, Adventure Journal, Magnetic Magazine, The Loam Wolf, etc that are quite niche / domain-specific are where I go for actual trustworthy reviews. I agree that Google seems to be dominated by clickbait ad-riddled BS SEO sites now more than ever, and I can’t help but think that Google is allowing this to happen because it pays the bills. I’ve posted about this before, but at the end of the day, Google and FB are advertising companies trying to be more than that. The difference to me is that I’m willing to reward actual reviews and effort with rev share if I decide to buy something reviewed, but I’m super unimpressed with all the irrelevant ads we still get in 2021 despite having so much personalization data about users. Another thing that advertisers don’t seem to understand somehow: if I searched for a thing or even clicked through a FB ad and bought it, the chances that I’m also interested in buying a similar thing in the next few days / weeks are drastically reduced. They seem to be totally missing this signal, showing me ads for some category of thing I already purchased for a very long time after I don’t need any more suggestions. Lastly, I would literally pay per month for an Amazon search that filters out all the fake brands. If I search for “webcam”, there are half a dozen brands I want to see, yet instead I’m forced to sift through piles of junk that I would never even consider purchasing to find what I’m looking for. I’ve heard that Amazon knows this is a thing but chooses not to fix it due to some psychological allure of sifting through the junk to find the nuggets of gold. In the worst cases, I have to use Google to find stuff on Amazon because their own search is so horrendous, with the categories being an absolute joke.
- greggman3 5y ago
  > I can’t help but think that Google is allowing this to happen because it pays the bills Google is not that short sighted. They know that if people stop trusting it to give good results then they'll lose their market. I suspect the problem is just harder than it seems.
  - 5y ago
hubraumhugo 5y ago
Same experience here. Researching high-quality products on Google is very frustrating: - Results 1-3 are ads - Results 3-5 are blogs that get sponsored - Results 5-10 are full of astroturfed user reviews Finding trustworthy and consistent information is so hard that I mostly rely on Reddit for product research. There is a subreddit for literally every product category, and posting a request with your requirements takes much less time than cutting through all the noise on Google. To make this whole mess a better experience, I'm now working on my own startup that tries to solve these issues.
- hw 5y ago
  In the end search is about relevancy. Trustworthiness of a blog or article is hard to discern by machines. The blogs likely rank high because of relevancy as well as clicks. Sponsored doesnt always mean that the reviews are biased. Reviews on reddit aren’t exactly trustworthy too - there are always going to be competing arguments and reviews for a product, you just have to use your own judgment which plays into your personality, risk tolerance etc.
  - Karrot_Kream 5y ago
    Indeed but as to the linked thread's point, it's an opportunity for a startup to come in. A startup which could tackle the quality problem not just relevancy.
- baddash 5y ago
  Curious about your startup; how are you planning to solve these issues?
  - hubraumhugo 5y ago
    Here is what we do: - Let the community vote on the most trusted sources - Include results from enthusiasts that have little incentive to write biased reviews (Reddit, HN, expert forums) - Look at the ownership of the site and how transparent they are about it - Regularly reassess these criteria Curious to hear your thoughts on this.
DoreenMichele 5y ago
Just researched good/quality crafting printers yesterday. Search results were mostly blogs and crappy websites that offered obviously no insights but were just SEO optimized to direct you to their Amazon affiliate links. Especially sad since those affiliate links to Amazon mostly resulted in "This product is currently not available" site. I am going to remind people that this happens because that's the internet (and world) we designed. If you aren't a coder and you want to earn a living online, blogging is a way to do that and Amazon links are a way to make it pay. People use AdBlock and don't want to leave tips, support Patreon etc for a blog. Good jobs are hard to find. Telling someone "Get a real job" is often not a viable solution for various reasons. If you want a better internet, you might stop and think about the fact that it is built by people and people need to eat. De facto expecting slave labor from some people and then designing an internet where those people can hijack your search results to try to eat gets you this. I know no one actually wants to hear that. But I think that's the actual root cause of this stuff and you won't fix it if you don't address those issues. I've tried for years to take the high road, to not have ads or Amazon links on my sites, etc. The result is starvation and intractable poverty and everyone telling me to get a real job. (I tried. They didn't hire me and continue to cyber stalk me and steal my ideas.) Anyway, I know all replies to this comment will boil down to "Quit your bitching. No one gives one damn if you die on the streets of starvation and we are so bored with hearing about your whiny problems." Rest assured, I am not leaving this comment with any expectation whatsoever that it will in any way help me. But maybe after I die on the streets someone will pause and think "Maybe she had a point. Maybe we designed a shitty system with bad incentives and we are getting exactly the crap we pay people to give us." Because the "high road" where someone tries to add value and respect the fact that you folks don't want ads or affiliate links etc literally doesn't pay to the point of it will keep you underfed and either homeless or underhoused and then your poverty will be a new excuse to have no respect for your observations that "Hey, people, the system you designed is broken and this is why and how."
- no_wizard 5y ago
  I genuinely agree with you. People need to eat, and live comfortably and be able to afford things like medical care, a place to live safely etc. I also think the blanket of “all affiliates are bad” is a bit much. I love supporting people who just do a good job. SEO spam is not what I call a good job, it’s a sleazy exploitation of the average consumer. With that said, I have purchased many things based on what I consider honest good reviews who linked to affiliate programs and I do not regret this. I wish companies (Amazon for instance, as they’re rent biggest right now) simply policed their affiliate programs better to incentive good unbiased reviews sites that Specialize in high quality, and dropped the SEO spammers
hemloc_io 5y ago
When I do product research I generally search for whatever the enthusiast community lives and usually there are guides there. Blogs are exactly as you describe, either built in ads or useless. For common items it's kinda difficult, but still possible! (Printers had a pretty active subreddit/community for example.)
nicoffeine 5y ago
Buy a Brother Color Laser printer. $250 and the ink never dries. I haven't thought about printing other than pressing "print" in 6 months.
- NiceWayToDoIT 5y ago
  I have Brother printer, full can of paint and sensor saying that is empty, I cannot do anything with it, and that is just one in long list of issues I had with printer...
rejor121 5y ago
This is something I have a problem with as well. Search results typically include the first five results being paid ads. Everything else for the first couple pages are typically review sites that are not really reviews. YouTube isn’t much better. I’m trying to addresss this in my own way by making long term product reviews of stuff I own, but I wish other people and companies did the same thing.
- Volker_W 5y ago
  > I’m trying to addresss this in my own way by making long term product reviews of stuff I own, but I wish other people and companies did the same thing. Link?
ren_engineer 5y ago
Seibel doesn't seem to understand how affiliate ads work either, Google doesn't make money from them. Google would be better off just applying a ranking penalty for any page that has numerous Amazon affiliate links. 99% of dedicated affiliate sites are trash
- littlecranky67 5y ago
  Or at least allow us to block them in the search settings, but Google shows zero interest in doing so. Just as they do not want to have a flag "do not show paywalled content" which is often asked for.
h3mb3 5y ago
YouTube's latest brilliant "innovation" to hide the dislike count made this problem so much worse too. When e.g. trying to make a purchase decision, you can't quickly skim through a bunch of search results any longer. Instead you are forced to sit through so much bad content that you could've previously avoided. Maybe that was their real motivation too – to boost some watchtime metrics.
- Blackthorn 5y ago
  Even before that, I hate hate HATE how they don't have a way to say "don't ever display this channel in search results". So much spam.
  - asddubs 5y ago
    install the blocktube addon, it can do just that
- annadane 5y ago
  B-b-b-b-b-but I've been told that some people don't look at likes/dislikes and that makes it ok! Oh well, I'm sure some product manager got their raise for removing such a useless feature
ranit 5y ago
> Especially sad since those affiliate links to Amazon mostly resulted in "This product is currently not available" sites. This should not be considered "especially sad" in my view. It would be worse if these links worked, thus generating additional revenue for these "web players" (pun intended).
- littlecranky67 5y ago
  The problem is, they do. Once I clicked the link, all my purchases in the next 24h will be credited to the affiliate. They are incentivised not to remove content about products that are no longer manufactured.
ashtonkem 5y ago
This is been my experience with tool reviews as well. Searching for “best intro <power tool>“ yields a bunch of low quality SEO that’s just pulled from Amazon. I think the interesting question is this: why is this happening? There’s always been a battle between Google and SEO black hats, but I can’t remember the last time it got this bad. Is Google just temporarily losing, or have they lost the will to fix this at all?
- Volker_W 5y ago
  > This is been my experience with tool reviews as well. Searching for “best intro <power tool>“ yields a bunch of low quality SEO that’s just pulled from Amazon. Cannot reproduce.
- yourapostasy 5y ago
  I've given up using Google or any search engine for that matter when it comes to tools purchasing decisions (other product categories too, for that matter). First use, I buy from Hazard Fright. If it gets janky on first use or wears out with enough use, I search in the forums where the trades hang out in discussing what they use, wince while reaching into my wallet, and pay for a built-for-business grade tool. There are a few YouTube channels I refer to as well (examples are Project Farm and Mike Festiva) for tools and consumables recommendations. I always observe what tools trades carry when they work on my properties, and chat with them over the drinks and snacks I offer them, on what they like and don't like. That figures heavily into my decisions. Google's main purpose these days for me is non-mainstream, far niche searches. I've taken to looking into deploying my own ArchiveBox to just store my own curated search results that I like. When I initially noticed the SEO spam around 20 years ago, I began to prepare for it by manually saving into text files the page links off of search results that I used, and that has helped me a lot. Ironically, I'm building my own personal Yahoo Directory. I don't see any solution on the horizon to SEO pollution getting better, so I want to scale up my solution.
codingdave 5y ago
If you want to solve the problem of product research in an old-school way, Consumer Reports still exists. Their business model for almost a century has been to produce independent reviews of products, and charge for the reviews. It is also run as a non-profit. I'm honestly surprised how little I hear about them. Not that any organization is perfect, but they have been the poster child of success via paid content since the 1930s. It also makes me think that part of the problem is not only that Google's results are getting worse, it is that much of the population goes to the internet for all problems. Whether it is googling or asking on social media... the "front-line" information on the internet is simply not reliable anymore.
- fnord77 5y ago
  I don't trust consumer reports any longer. they have amazon affiliate links. I suspect the current CEO is selling them out, bit by bit. Also, their current web format makes it hard to find recommendations on used cars.
  - KarlKemp 5y ago
    You can buy most any product at Amazon, so the affiliate links are not an incentive for CR to rank one product better than the competitor they would otherwise also link to. Plus Amazon affiliate links are standardized and automated to such a degree that’s there’s no chance they would manually penalize or reward CR for editorial content.
    - kadoban 5y ago
      I would assume that Amazon affiliate links pay more for more expensive products, so there could easily be incentive to reward expensive over cheap.
- KB 5y ago
  Consumer Reports is my first stop whenever I look to purchase some non trivial item. I typically use the top five from their recommended list to quickly narrow down my initial result set. Then I'll cross reference with Wirecutter to see if they are in agreement (usually are). If I'm down to one or two choices at that point I'll try to find some unbiased reviews on YouTube. Not a perfect system, but I find it works pretty well compared to just going right to a Google search result.
thelittleone 5y ago
I've also noticed something similar when researching mobile phones. Device pages that are clearly automatically created with poor and often nonsensical sentences and repition created by some script. And ranking top of Google. Similarly on YouTube videos that are collection of still images with robot voice reading clearly copy texts with almost zero original content. Again ranking near the top for a topic.
fnord77 5y ago
> The web has become a crappy place to research products I'd say most people's interface to the web has become crappy.
- mcv 5y ago
  I'd say the web has just become a crappy place. It was better when everything didn't have to make money, but was just done for the love of it.
pxmpxm 5y ago
I find myself appending the word "forum" to a large percentage of my google queries these days, to avoid the dynamic you mentioned. This essentially filters the results for real/original content of other people that were looking for the same information as me.
rtpg 5y ago
Sorry but what do you expect apart from blogs and review sites? Like what’s the magical result here? I feel like the fallacy here is assuming that the problem is that Google isn’t finding the good websites. There’s also a simple explanation that the content simply doesn’t exist.
temp8964 5y ago
Also because YouTube removed downvotes, it becomes basically useless for searching product reviews.
schleck8 5y ago
Affiliate marketing reviewers are the internet's parasites
windexh8er 5y ago
> Repeated my search on Youtube to find reviews or unboxing. Most video search results were basically "Youtube SEO" again - the most viewed/top-ranked videos did never show a single actual print run or even the printer available. It was mostly marketing websites turned into video (slowly scrolling/moving over product description or pictures clearly taken from the web). And of course, affiliate links in the description. This. The web would be a much better place if Netizens didn't continue to monetize garbage like MKBHD, Unbox Therapy and others that provide absolutely no value in "reviews". They're all just shills for product placement at this point. And yet these paid for commercials rack up millions of views and get pushed to the top of YouTube results whether they're of value or not. YouTube doesn't want new creators - instead they've invested in a few that push the content they want based on the advertising dollars that are rolling in. Google isn't search comparative to the early days of the web. Now it's garbage results driven by SEO hackers. A world without Google would be a much better place IMO.
asddubs 5y ago
yup, I was compiling a wish list and searched for a list of good programming books and ran into the same issue. any website that promises a "list" like "top 10 programming books" is usually affiliate spam, with poor recommendations and grammatical errors
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
Spooky23 5y ago
I don’t blame google for this. The web is dead. Facebook and Twitter and Discord took over individual passion publishing, to the point that interesting people are forced to do hideous shit like post 30 post Twitter threads to make a point. Even in the tech space, while exceptions like Stackoverflow targeted google as an UI, lots of content is buried in unindexed GitHub issues, etc.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
  Github issues are cloned now by SEO sites.
BikiniPrince 5y ago
Try a few alternative search engines. Google has other priorities these days.
2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
For a couple of items I turned to Reddit for some guidance to narrow things down ...
costcofries 5y ago
I always just append the word "Reddit" to any review type searches, it's been tremendously helpful. The peer reviews on Reddit are top notch, give it a go and I bet you'll be pleased.
- sjs7007 5y ago
  I'm just amazed by how many people do this. I always do this too since it seems hard to find quality content just by searching on Google. I try to search HN too sometimes like this but the crowd and topics here a lot more narrow.
  - costcofries 5y ago
    Reddit has an API, sounds like a cool idea! Roogle - the best of Reddit + Google
sahaj 5y ago
We need a new Yahoo Directory.
d--b 5y ago
I have been consistently adding -amazon to any product search on google lately. These “blogs” are so annoying…
NetOpWibby 5y ago
You used Google Search and then used Google (Video) Search. The issue is an advertising company being the Internet’s default for information.
cokeandpepsi 5y ago
I wouldn't say the web is a crappy place just because of Google search kind of stinks and affiliate marketing ( which has been around forever anyway )
teh_klev 5y ago
> Most video search results were basically "Youtube SEO" again And the removal of the "Dislike" count so that you too can avoid non-informative content i.e. unbox spam, just furthers how shit this situation is getting.
1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
Giving Google more data about yourself will help. Improve relevance and Google revenues. Online advertising will make Google better and that will make you and the world better, too. Therefore, always support online advertising in every way you can. Look for the helpful crafting printer ads (after you purchase a crafting printer). In case the reader is unsure, this is sarcasm.
clarkmoody 5y ago
I've found that searching for a subreddit related to whatever hobby is a fine way to go. People are showing off their creations & results and chatting about recommendations for equipment & techniques. The "front door" of the Web has become the gift shop. It's time to find another way in :-)
systematical 5y ago
When I am researching something I often use this filter: site:reddit.com + "search phrase" At least if I want to hear from "real" people.
- noobermin 5y ago
  until reddit starts getting native content too. We already know people game that site as well. Also reddit can unfortunately be unsufferable.
Helmut10001 5y ago
Google could modify their ranking to include these biases: - affiliate links? Down ranked - affiliate links to Amazon? Down ranked further - page contains advertising? Down ranked - page contains extensive javascript? Down ranked - page contains links to Social Media? Down ranked - post _is_ on Social Media? Down ranked further - page contains duplicate text, found elsewhere? Down ranked - page contains many links? Down ranked - page contains grammatical errors or bad sentence structure? Down ranked But why would they do it, their whole business is built on these things to exist. Let's look at some things for upranking: - page uses a static site generator, e.g. jekyll, mkdocs, hugo? Upranked - page has a balanced ratio of pictures/text and the text actually refers to picture (+ pictures are not stock imagery): Up ranked - ... (you continue)
- jerrre 5y ago
  They could, but why would they? Perhaps you mean: a new incumbent could
- tdsamardzhiev 5y ago
  I'd pay for a search engine where I get to customize this kind of stuff.
  - freediver 5y ago
    This is exactly what we do at Kagi Search.
orthoxerox 5y ago
That's true. At least YT is still better than generic WWW search when you are looking for some specific model or some DIY technique. It's still harder to make a SEO-optimized video than a webpage.
whiskyant 5y ago
I almost always start my product searches by googling the term and then adding "reddit" nowadays.
8bitsrule 5y ago
This may help: [https://millionshort.com/search?keywords=crafting_printers&remove=0 https://millionshort.com/search?keywords=crafting_printers&r...]

autokad 5y ago

Do a google image search for a strawberry. See how long it takes you to find actual pictures of strawberries that arn't from ecom sites and/or stock photos. I ran into this problem because I wanted to train an AI to recognize a strawberry. Also note, probably none of these are actual strawberries. they are probably fake plastic representations for sales

hidden-spyder 5y ago
I did this. Results 1 & 4 were from Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica respectively. Doesn't seem that bad to me.

a-dub 5y ago

yeah, had this experience myself while purchasing holiday gifts. amusingly, it made me pine for the days when you could walk into a shop and a knowledgeable salesperson would ask you a few questions and pick the right stuff for you. it's funny because internet shopping became popular in the face of salespeople becoming corrupt under commission and performance schemes, now a big part of the commerce related internet is worse for pretty much the same reasons.

1over137 5y ago
>it made me pine for the days when you could walk into a shop and a knowledgeable salesperson would ask you a few questions and pick the right stuff for you. Uhhh, you can still do that, you know.
- chana_masala 5y ago
  Yeah but it is not a good experience, except for a few types of products. I needed a car jump starter so I tried going to AutoZone instead of Amazon. The only one AutoZone had was 3x what I could find on Amazon.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    I've had great success with the Gooloo jump starter. It has saved me from grief many times, most recently when I left the headlights on.
    - seanp2k2 5y ago
      The Noco ones are decent, but the Clore Automotive Jump-N-Carry is the only thing approaching a BIFL (buy it for life) quality jump starter that I’m aware of. User-replaceable sealed lead acid battery like a quality UPS (which if you’re looking, grab an Eaton 5PX off eBay for a couple hundred bucks shipped…my 3 have outlasted half a dozen consumer APC junk units).
      - kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
        Lead acid batteries self-destruct after they've been left to discharge. Not something you want to keep in a trunk or store at home unplugged. The lithium jump starters have much more dependable passive storage life.
  - asciimov 5y ago
    Most auto parts stores are terrible places these days with low quality parts at high prices, and staff that are just competent enough to check out your items. It used to be (20-25 years ago) you could go in tell them what you were doing and they could tell you which brands to avoid, what other parts you might need, and any secrets that might help you get the job done faster or without having to remove quite as much stuff. These days, the people they hire are so incompetent if you asked them for Headlight Fluid they would take you over to the fluids aisle to look for it.

hinkley 5y ago

I use DDG which is backed by Bing and it’s much the same. Product reviews and some how to questions are just a couple pages of SEO garbage. Google used to measure engagement to try to get feedback on the quality of the links, but perhaps clickbait has broken that as well.

riazrizvi 5y ago

It's a policy problem, there's no easy fix. Design a system of rules to rank content. Watch as highly incentivized participants work harder than everyone else to game the system to their advantage. "But I can see these results are obviously bad, surely something can be done?". Leads to System-Amendment#5796 = Gather user feedback to alter results. Leads to highly incentivized users gaming the feedback system.

littlecranky67 5y ago
I wonder if we just would disallow affiliate links in general. I.e. you can still create your own webshop, take orders and forward to someone else (similar to dropshipping) but basically outlaw the process of collecting money/commission just for a single placement of links. Or at least, force those sites to correctly mark themselves as "Advertising".
- mkr-hn 5y ago
  The people doing actual, good reviews/guides also use affiliate links. Getting rid of affiliate links to get rid of the bad actors gets rid of people trying to do it right. The bad actors will have another path in within a month while the person who was run out of their honest business is left hanging.
  - creato 5y ago
    I think affiliate links are positive for Amazon, because they crowdsource aggressive sales and marketing, but are negative for Google (and everyone else). I think if Google could somehow ban affiliate links, they would.
  - seventytwo 5y ago
    Right. A hypothetical honest reviewer would genuinely be recommending products to buy, and if affiliate links pay, then why not? Just like any other tool, it’s not the affiliate links, it’s the user.
- riazrizvi 5y ago

PaulHoule 5y ago

In photography I have struggled to choose products, often I have to rely on my experience (e.g. it takes six months to discover that your Epson EcoTank printer makes prints that fade in six months) and specialized forums (DPReviews) You might find lightfastness rankings for some printers at http://wilhelm-research.com/ http://wilhelm-research.com/ if somebody paid them to do the research otherwise you might have rely on heuristic 'pigment based inks are relatively lightfast' and that at least one other person who does similar work, has similar skills, and uses similar method gets good results. That still doesn't help with problems like '90% of instances of this Sigma lens seem to be pretty good but 10% have defective autofocus'. I find online reviews are close to worthless because there are so many people who don't know how to use gear or have unrealistic expectations. At Best Buy I saw a review of a printer where somebody showed pictures of prints they made where they printed on the wrong side of photo paper and blamed the printer, for instance.

addaon 5y ago

At least in the past (haven't checked in years), the Amazon affiliate program rewarded the affiliate for the next purchase made (within a pretty long time window) after clicking an affiliate link, even if it's not of the product linked; so there's no downside to sending you to an arbitrary, unavailable, irrelevant product as long as you're clicking on links when you're in a shopping mode and likely to make a purchase soon.

geerlingguy 5y ago
24 hours, any purchases made, and it's still a thing. Though rates are much lower nowadays than they were 3+ years ago.

xxs 5y ago

The only reviews I respect nowadays are... tear downs. No innards, no fun. Unfortunately printers would be proper hard to tear down on a review.

Mezzie 5y ago
I'm just imagining this rule meaning the only printer you can buy is the one from Office Space. Beating the crap out of a machine counts as tearing it down, right?

chongli 5y ago

I am in the exact same quagmire trying to research water softeners and drinking water (RO) systems. I am having to pull fragments of information from many different sites / videos and having to discard large amounts of contradictory and misleading information. At this point, I’ve had to resort to reading scientific papers on how some of these technologies work (and how some don’t work) just to avoid the bad information. Unfortunately, the more I research the farther I get from making a purchase. This is not where I want to be, however, since the water in my area is very hard and everything gets scaled up all the time. I’m looking to purchase an espresso machine to get into the hobby but I’m not going to drop the money in expensive equipment until I can get access to water which will not damage it in short order.

exhilaration 5y ago
I bought my home water filter based on a Consumer Reports recommendation. I feel that's still a reliable source. I think you can sign up for online access for a month to do all your research. I also really like the Wirecutter but I know not everyone here agrees with me.
- colechristensen 5y ago
  Wirecutter advice seems dubiously linked to how much they can get paid by their "winners". It's not all bad advice, it often seems quite good, but it has the same corruption as top SEO blogs.
xtracto 5y ago
Ha! I was searching for the same (water softening systems) for Mexico... the amount of signal to noise ratio is so small in google, that it's mostly unusable.
tomrod 5y ago
It isn't just me noticing this. I had a project take me into an unfamiliar knowledge space. Up until... 2018? I could have relied on Google to find the meaningful information. The reason people accepted Google was that it dramatically lowered information acquisition costs through the Internet. That benefit doesn't seem as common now. Back to webrings.

trevex 5y ago

I unfortunately share your experiences. However in Germany there is a foundation called “Stiftung Warentest” [1], which does independent testing of products. With reviews full of Amazon affiliate links dominating search results, I tend to purchase their tests for ~3 Euros more often than ever. However this only works for popular product categories, but less so for specialized equipment. My impression is also that affiliate links hurt consumers in the long run as they reduce the selection of products in reviews or blogs to those the authors can earn money with. This however leaves out potential alternatives. More often than not the winner of product categories (at least those I was researching) of independent tests were not available from sites running affiliate programs. For example a consumer-grade lawn mower from an otherwise professional gardening company or a tent from a Scandinavian brand. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiftung_Warentest https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiftung_Warentest

cortesoft 5y ago
The US has Consumer Reports, which is similar I think... but yeah, only works for major product categories.
- vlovich123 5y ago
  There’s also the NYT WireCutter which tried to do a good job isolating it away as an independent review source that you can trust.
  - short12 5y ago
    That fell to complete shit a while back. They are not wrong but I would ignore their rankings and focus on the review aspects
    - ghaff 5y ago
      I find Wirecutter and Consumer Reports are pretty reasonable for product categories where I just want a reasonable choice and don't necessarily have deep knowledge and preferences myself. And, yes, it's worth reading why they picked something. But if I were buying an interchangeable lens camera or a computer I might read their recommendation but I'd look elsewhere also. For a sprayer for a hose? I'm sure their recommendation is fine.

Beta-7 5y ago

I've also had the same problem. For a while i could get good recommendations/reviews by adding "reddit" to the query as i could find good information there, however i think that the sites have caught up on that and now i only get 1-2 results from reddit.com and then the rest are other sites that reference reddit so they are in the results.

ghostpepper 5y ago
At the risk of any SEO-blogspam people reading this and adjusting their tactics, you can filter by domain, eg. product name review site:reddit.com
- Beta-7 5y ago
  Great tip, thanks. Funny how much i used to do google dorks (that got introduce to me in a college course), but overtime i completely forgot about them. About the risk though: it's happened already. Remember the "to find any book free online just do "filetype:pdf book-name"" tips that were popular online a while ago? Now it's all just PDFs on public google drives with tons of book names and a single link leading to some sketchy site.
- noizejoy 5y ago
  As long as only a few people use a successful white hat trick, that trick isn’t generally worthwhile for the darker hats to combat. So the problem isn’t so much that blog spam people will read your comment, but that many ordinary readers will start using the trick, and thus make it worthwhile for the dark hats to address. So the unfortunate side effect of kindness in information sharing is that it decreases the value of that information. Therefore, I don’t think there’s a practical way out of endless arms races between $good and $evil
- throwitawayfam 5y ago
  The problem with using Reddit specifically is that you can't filter by date anymore. Reddit has poisoned their results to show old posts with new dates on Google.

ramraj07 5y ago

This is far worse in a place like india. It’s pretty much impossible to find anything technical or product related that’s localized. The only non blogspam source often is <vomit/> quora. For example. Most construction happening in india now uses something called M-Sand. I actually CANNOT find what the hell it is except from some company websites or random YouTubers blabbering non engineering garbage about it.

ummonk 5y ago
What is there to know about it? Looks like it's just sand that's produced by crushing stones in an industrial process, rather than relying on rivers to do it for you. It's probably used as an aggregate for concrete. Edit: a quick search on Google Scholar brings up papers like http://www.kresttechnology.com/krest-academic-projects/krest-mtech-projects/Civil/Civil%20M.tech%20Projects%202017/2.Concrete/Base%20Papers/3.Effect%20of%20replacement%20of%20natural%20sand%20by%20manufactured%20sand%20on%20the%20properties%20of%20cement%20mortar.pdf http://www.kresttechnology.com/krest-academic-projects/krest...
- d0gsg0w00f 5y ago
  Could be due to the difficulty of getting sand in the region. I watched this fascinating Vice documentary about illegal sand mining in the region. I had no idea it was such a big deal. https://www.vice.com/en/article/4av9jm/illegal-sand-mining-is-creating-an-ecological-crisis-in-bangladesh https://www.vice.com/en/article/4av9jm/illegal-sand-mining-i...
  - zo1 5y ago
    Honestly disappointed at the documentary but curious about the topic. They kept repeating the exact same thing over and over and over again, dripping little bits of info.
  - iamacyborg 5y ago
    It was really fascinating watching the Grand Tour Vietnam special on Amazon, you could see all this sand mining happening in the Mekong river, though no one commented on it.

88913527 5y ago

You can't even search for GitHub issues anymore. You'll get some mirrored site that has the discussion, and from that webpage, you can't even get a direct link back to GitHub.

fxtentacle 5y ago
Yeah, I also noticed that for "tiptoi wiki" Google ranks https://github-wiki-see.page/m/entropia/tip-toi-reveng/wiki/Languages https://github-wiki-see.page/m/entropia/tip-toi-reveng/wiki/... higher than the actual GitHub wiki that all of the content was copied from https://github.com/entropia/tip-toi-reveng/wiki/Languages https://github.com/entropia/tip-toi-reveng/wiki/Languages BTW, building my own interactive book was a great thing to do over Christmas.
- kelnos 5y ago
  That might be fixable, if people want to expend the effort. Wiki pages are almost certainly copyrightable, so the owners could send DMCA takedown notices to github-wiki-see.page. If they're not responsive, send the DMCA notices to Google, which should be required to delist them. Unfortunately you have to do it on a URL-by-URL basis, and you can only send notices for pages you actually own copyright for, so it would mean a big coordinated effort to get them brought down. I just don't understand why Google themselves allows this and doesn't rank these sorts of sites lower. They're clearly garbage sites with low utility.
  - crazysim 5y ago
    Please read my explanation at http://github-wiki-see.page/ http://github-wiki-see.page/ and observe why it exists. I believe it to be a site with extremely high utility. It has already recently convinced/defrosted GitHub to gradually change their policy to not let GitHub wiki pages be indexed since 2012. For at least 9 years, people were writing content into GitHub and not realizing it wasn't indexed at all. I'm happy to answer any questions or suggestions you have.
  - crazysim 5y ago

holoduke 5y ago

One thing what helps me getting better results is adding the keyword 'forum'. Usually still have okayish results. Forums are nowadays the only source information not spoiled by SEO etc

aix1 5y ago
That's a good tip. I too do this quite a lot; forums can be quite noisy but also a great source of first-hand experiences.
tcoff91 5y ago
Google used to have a great discussion search mode that only showed forum results. I miss it dearly.
pxmpxm 5y ago
Beat me to it

megablast 5y ago

Consumers laments the effect of consumers consuming too much stuff. Maybe buying more useless stuff isn't the solution???

freeqaz 5y ago

In the USA, Consumer Reports exists to help deal with this. It's a yearly fee to subscribe, but it's as unbiased of reviews as you can get!

x0x0 5y ago
Right, but the majority of folks on here squeal when consumer reports or wirecutter want to be paid for their recommendations. Buying the devices, comparing them, etc all cost money, and refusing to pay inevitably leads to the state we're in... I don't have a solution for this; I just think we're in the exact state we would expect.
- freeqaz 5y ago
  I don't mind paying for my subscription, just like I don't mind donating to Firefox and Signal. But I get that I'm probably in the minority for that. I try to put my money where my mouth is, and not the other way around!
  - silexia 5y ago
    Consumer reports vehicle recommendations and sales process is just an affiliate scam like wire cutter. Same with Costco's vehicle sales program now. I think they use the same back end. That basically is an affiliate program. They give your contact info to tons of dealers who call you with prices higher than what they have on their lots listed.
mthoms 5y ago
Pro tip: You can often get free access to Consumer Reports paywalled website with a library membership.

seanp2k2 5y ago

Yep; a huge portion of Google results, especially for spicy searches like “best ______ 2021” are just lists of affiliate links to top 10 selling items on Amazon from made-up brand names that are rotated once a product receives a few bad reviews. It’s really hard to find legit review sites; at least Wirecutter seems to actually test things, but sites like SeriousEats, OutdoorGearLab, Carryology, DCRainMaker, SoundOnSound, Adventure Journal, Magnetic Magazine, The Loam Wolf, etc that are quite niche / domain-specific are where I go for actual trustworthy reviews. I agree that Google seems to be dominated by clickbait ad-riddled BS SEO sites now more than ever, and I can’t help but think that Google is allowing this to happen because it pays the bills. I’ve posted about this before, but at the end of the day, Google and FB are advertising companies trying to be more than that. The difference to me is that I’m willing to reward actual reviews and effort with rev share if I decide to buy something reviewed, but I’m super unimpressed with all the irrelevant ads we still get in 2021 despite having so much personalization data about users. Another thing that advertisers don’t seem to understand somehow: if I searched for a thing or even clicked through a FB ad and bought it, the chances that I’m also interested in buying a similar thing in the next few days / weeks are drastically reduced. They seem to be totally missing this signal, showing me ads for some category of thing I already purchased for a very long time after I don’t need any more suggestions. Lastly, I would literally pay per month for an Amazon search that filters out all the fake brands. If I search for “webcam”, there are half a dozen brands I want to see, yet instead I’m forced to sift through piles of junk that I would never even consider purchasing to find what I’m looking for. I’ve heard that Amazon knows this is a thing but chooses not to fix it due to some psychological allure of sifting through the junk to find the nuggets of gold. In the worst cases, I have to use Google to find stuff on Amazon because their own search is so horrendous, with the categories being an absolute joke.

greggman3 5y ago
> I can’t help but think that Google is allowing this to happen because it pays the bills Google is not that short sighted. They know that if people stop trusting it to give good results then they'll lose their market. I suspect the problem is just harder than it seems.
- 5y ago

hubraumhugo 5y ago

Same experience here. Researching high-quality products on Google is very frustrating: - Results 1-3 are ads - Results 3-5 are blogs that get sponsored - Results 5-10 are full of astroturfed user reviews Finding trustworthy and consistent information is so hard that I mostly rely on Reddit for product research. There is a subreddit for literally every product category, and posting a request with your requirements takes much less time than cutting through all the noise on Google. To make this whole mess a better experience, I'm now working on my own startup that tries to solve these issues.

hw 5y ago
In the end search is about relevancy. Trustworthiness of a blog or article is hard to discern by machines. The blogs likely rank high because of relevancy as well as clicks. Sponsored doesnt always mean that the reviews are biased. Reviews on reddit aren’t exactly trustworthy too - there are always going to be competing arguments and reviews for a product, you just have to use your own judgment which plays into your personality, risk tolerance etc.
- Karrot_Kream 5y ago
  Indeed but as to the linked thread's point, it's an opportunity for a startup to come in. A startup which could tackle the quality problem not just relevancy.
baddash 5y ago
Curious about your startup; how are you planning to solve these issues?
- hubraumhugo 5y ago
  Here is what we do: - Let the community vote on the most trusted sources - Include results from enthusiasts that have little incentive to write biased reviews (Reddit, HN, expert forums) - Look at the ownership of the site and how transparent they are about it - Regularly reassess these criteria Curious to hear your thoughts on this.

DoreenMichele 5y ago

Just researched good/quality crafting printers yesterday. Search results were mostly blogs and crappy websites that offered obviously no insights but were just SEO optimized to direct you to their Amazon affiliate links. Especially sad since those affiliate links to Amazon mostly resulted in "This product is currently not available" site. I am going to remind people that this happens because that's the internet (and world) we designed. If you aren't a coder and you want to earn a living online, blogging is a way to do that and Amazon links are a way to make it pay. People use AdBlock and don't want to leave tips, support Patreon etc for a blog. Good jobs are hard to find. Telling someone "Get a real job" is often not a viable solution for various reasons. If you want a better internet, you might stop and think about the fact that it is built by people and people need to eat. De facto expecting slave labor from some people and then designing an internet where those people can hijack your search results to try to eat gets you this. I know no one actually wants to hear that. But I think that's the actual root cause of this stuff and you won't fix it if you don't address those issues. I've tried for years to take the high road, to not have ads or Amazon links on my sites, etc. The result is starvation and intractable poverty and everyone telling me to get a real job. (I tried. They didn't hire me and continue to cyber stalk me and steal my ideas.) Anyway, I know all replies to this comment will boil down to "Quit your bitching. No one gives one damn if you die on the streets of starvation and we are so bored with hearing about your whiny problems." Rest assured, I am not leaving this comment with any expectation whatsoever that it will in any way help me. But maybe after I die on the streets someone will pause and think "Maybe she had a point. Maybe we designed a shitty system with bad incentives and we are getting exactly the crap we pay people to give us." Because the "high road" where someone tries to add value and respect the fact that you folks don't want ads or affiliate links etc literally doesn't pay to the point of it will keep you underfed and either homeless or underhoused and then your poverty will be a new excuse to have no respect for your observations that "Hey, people, the system you designed is broken and this is why and how."

no_wizard 5y ago
I genuinely agree with you. People need to eat, and live comfortably and be able to afford things like medical care, a place to live safely etc. I also think the blanket of “all affiliates are bad” is a bit much. I love supporting people who just do a good job. SEO spam is not what I call a good job, it’s a sleazy exploitation of the average consumer. With that said, I have purchased many things based on what I consider honest good reviews who linked to affiliate programs and I do not regret this. I wish companies (Amazon for instance, as they’re rent biggest right now) simply policed their affiliate programs better to incentive good unbiased reviews sites that Specialize in high quality, and dropped the SEO spammers

hemloc_io 5y ago

When I do product research I generally search for whatever the enthusiast community lives and usually there are guides there. Blogs are exactly as you describe, either built in ads or useless. For common items it's kinda difficult, but still possible! (Printers had a pretty active subreddit/community for example.)

nicoffeine 5y ago

Buy a Brother Color Laser printer. $250 and the ink never dries. I haven't thought about printing other than pressing "print" in 6 months.

NiceWayToDoIT 5y ago
I have Brother printer, full can of paint and sensor saying that is empty, I cannot do anything with it, and that is just one in long list of issues I had with printer...

rejor121 5y ago

This is something I have a problem with as well. Search results typically include the first five results being paid ads. Everything else for the first couple pages are typically review sites that are not really reviews. YouTube isn’t much better. I’m trying to addresss this in my own way by making long term product reviews of stuff I own, but I wish other people and companies did the same thing.

Volker_W 5y ago
> I’m trying to addresss this in my own way by making long term product reviews of stuff I own, but I wish other people and companies did the same thing. Link?

ren_engineer 5y ago

Seibel doesn't seem to understand how affiliate ads work either, Google doesn't make money from them. Google would be better off just applying a ranking penalty for any page that has numerous Amazon affiliate links. 99% of dedicated affiliate sites are trash

littlecranky67 5y ago
Or at least allow us to block them in the search settings, but Google shows zero interest in doing so. Just as they do not want to have a flag "do not show paywalled content" which is often asked for.

h3mb3 5y ago

YouTube's latest brilliant "innovation" to hide the dislike count made this problem so much worse too. When e.g. trying to make a purchase decision, you can't quickly skim through a bunch of search results any longer. Instead you are forced to sit through so much bad content that you could've previously avoided. Maybe that was their real motivation too – to boost some watchtime metrics.

Blackthorn 5y ago
Even before that, I hate hate HATE how they don't have a way to say "don't ever display this channel in search results". So much spam.
- asddubs 5y ago
  install the blocktube addon, it can do just that
annadane 5y ago
B-b-b-b-b-but I've been told that some people don't look at likes/dislikes and that makes it ok! Oh well, I'm sure some product manager got their raise for removing such a useless feature

ranit 5y ago

> Especially sad since those affiliate links to Amazon mostly resulted in "This product is currently not available" sites. This should not be considered "especially sad" in my view. It would be worse if these links worked, thus generating additional revenue for these "web players" (pun intended).

littlecranky67 5y ago
The problem is, they do. Once I clicked the link, all my purchases in the next 24h will be credited to the affiliate. They are incentivised not to remove content about products that are no longer manufactured.

ashtonkem 5y ago

This is been my experience with tool reviews as well. Searching for “best intro <power tool>“ yields a bunch of low quality SEO that’s just pulled from Amazon. I think the interesting question is this: why is this happening? There’s always been a battle between Google and SEO black hats, but I can’t remember the last time it got this bad. Is Google just temporarily losing, or have they lost the will to fix this at all?

Volker_W 5y ago
> This is been my experience with tool reviews as well. Searching for “best intro <power tool>“ yields a bunch of low quality SEO that’s just pulled from Amazon. Cannot reproduce.
yourapostasy 5y ago
I've given up using Google or any search engine for that matter when it comes to tools purchasing decisions (other product categories too, for that matter). First use, I buy from Hazard Fright. If it gets janky on first use or wears out with enough use, I search in the forums where the trades hang out in discussing what they use, wince while reaching into my wallet, and pay for a built-for-business grade tool. There are a few YouTube channels I refer to as well (examples are Project Farm and Mike Festiva) for tools and consumables recommendations. I always observe what tools trades carry when they work on my properties, and chat with them over the drinks and snacks I offer them, on what they like and don't like. That figures heavily into my decisions. Google's main purpose these days for me is non-mainstream, far niche searches. I've taken to looking into deploying my own ArchiveBox to just store my own curated search results that I like. When I initially noticed the SEO spam around 20 years ago, I began to prepare for it by manually saving into text files the page links off of search results that I used, and that has helped me a lot. Ironically, I'm building my own personal Yahoo Directory. I don't see any solution on the horizon to SEO pollution getting better, so I want to scale up my solution.

codingdave 5y ago

If you want to solve the problem of product research in an old-school way, Consumer Reports still exists. Their business model for almost a century has been to produce independent reviews of products, and charge for the reviews. It is also run as a non-profit. I'm honestly surprised how little I hear about them. Not that any organization is perfect, but they have been the poster child of success via paid content since the 1930s. It also makes me think that part of the problem is not only that Google's results are getting worse, it is that much of the population goes to the internet for all problems. Whether it is googling or asking on social media... the "front-line" information on the internet is simply not reliable anymore.

fnord77 5y ago
I don't trust consumer reports any longer. they have amazon affiliate links. I suspect the current CEO is selling them out, bit by bit. Also, their current web format makes it hard to find recommendations on used cars.
- KarlKemp 5y ago
  You can buy most any product at Amazon, so the affiliate links are not an incentive for CR to rank one product better than the competitor they would otherwise also link to. Plus Amazon affiliate links are standardized and automated to such a degree that’s there’s no chance they would manually penalize or reward CR for editorial content.
  - kadoban 5y ago
    I would assume that Amazon affiliate links pay more for more expensive products, so there could easily be incentive to reward expensive over cheap.
KB 5y ago
Consumer Reports is my first stop whenever I look to purchase some non trivial item. I typically use the top five from their recommended list to quickly narrow down my initial result set. Then I'll cross reference with Wirecutter to see if they are in agreement (usually are). If I'm down to one or two choices at that point I'll try to find some unbiased reviews on YouTube. Not a perfect system, but I find it works pretty well compared to just going right to a Google search result.

thelittleone 5y ago

I've also noticed something similar when researching mobile phones. Device pages that are clearly automatically created with poor and often nonsensical sentences and repition created by some script. And ranking top of Google. Similarly on YouTube videos that are collection of still images with robot voice reading clearly copy texts with almost zero original content. Again ranking near the top for a topic.

fnord77 5y ago

> The web has become a crappy place to research products I'd say most people's interface to the web has become crappy.

mcv 5y ago
I'd say the web has just become a crappy place. It was better when everything didn't have to make money, but was just done for the love of it.

pxmpxm 5y ago

I find myself appending the word "forum" to a large percentage of my google queries these days, to avoid the dynamic you mentioned. This essentially filters the results for real/original content of other people that were looking for the same information as me.

rtpg 5y ago

Sorry but what do you expect apart from blogs and review sites? Like what’s the magical result here? I feel like the fallacy here is assuming that the problem is that Google isn’t finding the good websites. There’s also a simple explanation that the content simply doesn’t exist.

temp8964 5y ago

Also because YouTube removed downvotes, it becomes basically useless for searching product reviews.

schleck8 5y ago

Affiliate marketing reviewers are the internet's parasites

windexh8er 5y ago

> Repeated my search on Youtube to find reviews or unboxing. Most video search results were basically "Youtube SEO" again - the most viewed/top-ranked videos did never show a single actual print run or even the printer available. It was mostly marketing websites turned into video (slowly scrolling/moving over product description or pictures clearly taken from the web). And of course, affiliate links in the description. This. The web would be a much better place if Netizens didn't continue to monetize garbage like MKBHD, Unbox Therapy and others that provide absolutely no value in "reviews". They're all just shills for product placement at this point. And yet these paid for commercials rack up millions of views and get pushed to the top of YouTube results whether they're of value or not. YouTube doesn't want new creators - instead they've invested in a few that push the content they want based on the advertising dollars that are rolling in. Google isn't search comparative to the early days of the web. Now it's garbage results driven by SEO hackers. A world without Google would be a much better place IMO.

asddubs 5y ago

yup, I was compiling a wish list and searched for a list of good programming books and ran into the same issue. any website that promises a "list" like "top 10 programming books" is usually affiliate spam, with poor recommendations and grammatical errors

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

Spooky23 5y ago

I don’t blame google for this. The web is dead. Facebook and Twitter and Discord took over individual passion publishing, to the point that interesting people are forced to do hideous shit like post 30 post Twitter threads to make a point. Even in the tech space, while exceptions like Stackoverflow targeted google as an UI, lots of content is buried in unindexed GitHub issues, etc.

kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
Github issues are cloned now by SEO sites.

BikiniPrince 5y ago

Try a few alternative search engines. Google has other priorities these days.

2muchcoffeeman 5y ago

For a couple of items I turned to Reddit for some guidance to narrow things down ...

costcofries 5y ago

I always just append the word "Reddit" to any review type searches, it's been tremendously helpful. The peer reviews on Reddit are top notch, give it a go and I bet you'll be pleased.

sjs7007 5y ago
I'm just amazed by how many people do this. I always do this too since it seems hard to find quality content just by searching on Google. I try to search HN too sometimes like this but the crowd and topics here a lot more narrow.
- costcofries 5y ago
  Reddit has an API, sounds like a cool idea! Roogle - the best of Reddit + Google

sahaj 5y ago

We need a new Yahoo Directory.

d--b 5y ago

I have been consistently adding -amazon to any product search on google lately. These “blogs” are so annoying…

NetOpWibby 5y ago

You used Google Search and then used Google (Video) Search. The issue is an advertising company being the Internet’s default for information.

cokeandpepsi 5y ago

I wouldn't say the web is a crappy place just because of Google search kind of stinks and affiliate marketing ( which has been around forever anyway )

teh_klev 5y ago

> Most video search results were basically "Youtube SEO" again And the removal of the "Dislike" count so that you too can avoid non-informative content i.e. unbox spam, just furthers how shit this situation is getting.

1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago

Giving Google more data about yourself will help. Improve relevance and Google revenues. Online advertising will make Google better and that will make you and the world better, too. Therefore, always support online advertising in every way you can. Look for the helpful crafting printer ads (after you purchase a crafting printer). In case the reader is unsure, this is sarcasm.

clarkmoody 5y ago

I've found that searching for a subreddit related to whatever hobby is a fine way to go. People are showing off their creations & results and chatting about recommendations for equipment & techniques. The "front door" of the Web has become the gift shop. It's time to find another way in :-)

systematical 5y ago

When I am researching something I often use this filter: site:reddit.com + "search phrase" At least if I want to hear from "real" people.

noobermin 5y ago
until reddit starts getting native content too. We already know people game that site as well. Also reddit can unfortunately be unsufferable.

Helmut10001 5y ago

Google could modify their ranking to include these biases: - affiliate links? Down ranked - affiliate links to Amazon? Down ranked further - page contains advertising? Down ranked - page contains extensive javascript? Down ranked - page contains links to Social Media? Down ranked - post _is_ on Social Media? Down ranked further - page contains duplicate text, found elsewhere? Down ranked - page contains many links? Down ranked - page contains grammatical errors or bad sentence structure? Down ranked But why would they do it, their whole business is built on these things to exist. Let's look at some things for upranking: - page uses a static site generator, e.g. jekyll, mkdocs, hugo? Upranked - page has a balanced ratio of pictures/text and the text actually refers to picture (+ pictures are not stock imagery): Up ranked - ... (you continue)

jerrre 5y ago
They could, but why would they? Perhaps you mean: a new incumbent could
tdsamardzhiev 5y ago
I'd pay for a search engine where I get to customize this kind of stuff.
- freediver 5y ago
  This is exactly what we do at Kagi Search.

orthoxerox 5y ago

That's true. At least YT is still better than generic WWW search when you are looking for some specific model or some DIY technique. It's still harder to make a SEO-optimized video than a webpage.

whiskyant 5y ago

I almost always start my product searches by googling the term and then adding "reddit" nowadays.

8bitsrule 5y ago

This may help: [https://millionshort.com/search?keywords=crafting_printers&remove=0 https://millionshort.com/search?keywords=crafting_printers&r...]