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Ive wanted to share this similar sentiment but I had no idea where! Google search results are terrible lately. I'm frustrated by it. Im not sure how I feel abou

by tayo42 5y ago

Ive wanted to share this similar sentiment but I had no idea where! Google search results are terrible lately. I'm frustrated by it. Im not sure how I feel about his categories though. I have mixed opinions on recipes. The recipes that do show up are generally not great and seem to be there because of seo. And seo is really ruining the recipes pages them selves (extra content, misleading cook times) At the same time I don't really expect google searches to be a curator of good recipes. There is to much taste involved I think. But reputable site like serious eats almost never show up in results unless I search for it. Health is a big topic, but health has been full of snake oils salesmens forever too, so its not surprising. You should probably talk with a doctor in most cases anyway? Going on google for anything related to illegal drug use is a pita, it just brings you too like addiction sites and other useless info ime. I also don't think that people are creating websites anymore? Where is there supposed to be info for the search engine to crawl? All real user content is on reddit, instagram, twitter and youtube. Maybe medium sometimes. All of that is easier for people to set up but not really set up for search engine to include as a good result. Instagram and twitter are especially bad, black holes of information. For better or for worse, I usually use google to search to search reddit, then i can at least get some better starting point and return back to google with better terms. I don't really like this because reddit is a bit of a echo chamber. Ive also stopped trusting searches in fields Im not familiar with because I know how bad the results are in fields I am familiar with. But i don't really know where else to go.

tome 5y ago
> Ive also stopped trusting searches in fields Im not familiar with because I know how bad the results are in fields I am familiar with. The Gell-Mann amnesia of the 2020s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#GellMannAmnesiaEffect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#GellMannAmnes...
Nextgrid 5y ago
> I don't really expect google searches to be a curator of good recipes I don't expect Google (or any automated service) to be able to rank recipes from a culinary point of view. I absolutely expect Google to be able to detect someone's SEO life story bullshit at the top of a recipe and penalize that for ranking purposes. And if detecting SEO bullshit life stories is hard, the presence of ads or other marketing-style element is usually a good proxy for weeding out shitty commercial content. > Health is a big topic, but health has been full of snake oils salesmens forever too, so its not surprising Most countries have national health services that have no (or at the very least less) bias to sell you something. Given the amount of these is finite, a list of their domains can be manually maintained to boost their results and outrank the other garbage. > I know how bad the results are in fields I am familiar with. But i don't really know where else to go. Same here unfortunately and I have yet to find a solution.
- luma 5y ago
  > I absolutely expect Google to be able to detect someone's SEO life story bullshit at the top of a recipe and penalize that for ranking purposes. Agreed, but those life stories are there because Google penalized the site if they weren't. A whole lot of this is a problem of Google's own creation along with people adapting their behavior to fit how Google works.
  - Nextgrid 5y ago
    In this case, Google should adapt but they are not.
  - themacguffinman 5y ago
    SEO is not the reason recipes have life stories, the reason is that the life story part of the recipe adds copyright protection because the story is a "substantial literary expression". Recipes by themselves are not copyright-able as they are considered to be basic facts/ideas. And Google won't penalize these sites because these sites are useful and contain useful recipes that many people want to find despite your particular annoyances you have about it. I do not want a search engine that filters out all these recipes.
    - _vertigo 5y ago
      Why would including a story with a recipe make a non-copyrightable recipe copyrightable? Every recipe I can find on Google that isn't from a super-site with already strong SEO includes some sort of life anecdote. I find it hard to believe that: 1) This purported copyright trick even works, and 2) Everyone who publishes recipes online got the copyright trick memo, and 3) Everyone who publishes recipes online is interested in copyrighting their recipes as opposed to just having good ad revenue I find it much easier to believe one of the following: 1) The life story section significantly improves SEO somehow, even if incidental. I'm not saying Google rewards life stories, but somehow there is a mechanism there that improves SEO, and people have cottoned on. Every recipe you're going find on Google has strong SEO, and hence every recipe you find has an SEO-improving life story attached to it. 2) Food bloggers include the stories for differentiation, to "build a stronger connection with their audience", and once a couple big ones started doing it, the rest followed. 3) Some sort of combination of 1 and 2.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
epolanski 5y ago
> Where is there supposed to be info for the search engine to crawl? You actually make me realize how rarely I end up on websites I haven't seen, and how different it is compared to two decades rego.
ssl232 5y ago
Shout out to Plain Old Recipe [1] when it comes to getting rid of the filler/keywords on recipes. [1] https://plainoldrecipe.com/ https://plainoldrecipe.com/
- sparkling 5y ago
  Honorable mention also: https://based.cooking/ https://based.cooking/
mcv 5y ago
> Google search results are terrible lately. Just lately? I've had the feeling Google search results have been terrible for years now. Someone should really build a better search engine, and preferably one that gives the user more control. Although frankly it's baffling that Google hasn't implemented some sort of up/downvoting on search results. That sounds like exactly the sort of thing they would love.
srcreigh 5y ago
Re; recipes, look for the "Jump to recipe" button. It's always there, you don't have to scroll.
- tayo42 5y ago
  Thats not really my issue with them. its site like all recipes is always in the top, or the same few websites always dominate results and that low quality recipes are in the top because they seem to game the system by doing that. the 1st result for me for pad thai recipes is a recipe that includes bell peppers and peanut butter.
nullc 5y ago
I'm not sure the recipes are entirely google's fault. There are jerks which are mechanically generating infinity recipes and polluting the internet with them. Resulting in non-viable recipes that no one has ever made and cannot possibly work. It's not even a matter of taste, the results are mostly just nonsense.

by tayo42 5y ago

tome 5y ago

> Ive also stopped trusting searches in fields Im not familiar with because I know how bad the results are in fields I am familiar with. The Gell-Mann amnesia of the 2020s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#GellMannAmnesiaEffect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#GellMannAmnes...

Nextgrid 5y ago

> I don't really expect google searches to be a curator of good recipes I don't expect Google (or any automated service) to be able to rank recipes from a culinary point of view. I absolutely expect Google to be able to detect someone's SEO life story bullshit at the top of a recipe and penalize that for ranking purposes. And if detecting SEO bullshit life stories is hard, the presence of ads or other marketing-style element is usually a good proxy for weeding out shitty commercial content. > Health is a big topic, but health has been full of snake oils salesmens forever too, so its not surprising Most countries have national health services that have no (or at the very least less) bias to sell you something. Given the amount of these is finite, a list of their domains can be manually maintained to boost their results and outrank the other garbage. > I know how bad the results are in fields I am familiar with. But i don't really know where else to go. Same here unfortunately and I have yet to find a solution.

luma 5y ago
> I absolutely expect Google to be able to detect someone's SEO life story bullshit at the top of a recipe and penalize that for ranking purposes. Agreed, but those life stories are there because Google penalized the site if they weren't. A whole lot of this is a problem of Google's own creation along with people adapting their behavior to fit how Google works.
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  In this case, Google should adapt but they are not.
- themacguffinman 5y ago
  SEO is not the reason recipes have life stories, the reason is that the life story part of the recipe adds copyright protection because the story is a "substantial literary expression". Recipes by themselves are not copyright-able as they are considered to be basic facts/ideas. And Google won't penalize these sites because these sites are useful and contain useful recipes that many people want to find despite your particular annoyances you have about it. I do not want a search engine that filters out all these recipes.
  - _vertigo 5y ago
    Why would including a story with a recipe make a non-copyrightable recipe copyrightable? Every recipe I can find on Google that isn't from a super-site with already strong SEO includes some sort of life anecdote. I find it hard to believe that: 1) This purported copyright trick even works, and 2) Everyone who publishes recipes online got the copyright trick memo, and 3) Everyone who publishes recipes online is interested in copyrighting their recipes as opposed to just having good ad revenue I find it much easier to believe one of the following: 1) The life story section significantly improves SEO somehow, even if incidental. I'm not saying Google rewards life stories, but somehow there is a mechanism there that improves SEO, and people have cottoned on. Every recipe you're going find on Google has strong SEO, and hence every recipe you find has an SEO-improving life story attached to it. 2) Food bloggers include the stories for differentiation, to "build a stronger connection with their audience", and once a couple big ones started doing it, the rest followed. 3) Some sort of combination of 1 and 2.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

epolanski 5y ago

> Where is there supposed to be info for the search engine to crawl? You actually make me realize how rarely I end up on websites I haven't seen, and how different it is compared to two decades rego.

ssl232 5y ago

Shout out to Plain Old Recipe [1] when it comes to getting rid of the filler/keywords on recipes. [1] https://plainoldrecipe.com/ https://plainoldrecipe.com/

sparkling 5y ago
Honorable mention also: https://based.cooking/ https://based.cooking/

mcv 5y ago

> Google search results are terrible lately. Just lately? I've had the feeling Google search results have been terrible for years now. Someone should really build a better search engine, and preferably one that gives the user more control. Although frankly it's baffling that Google hasn't implemented some sort of up/downvoting on search results. That sounds like exactly the sort of thing they would love.

srcreigh 5y ago

Re; recipes, look for the "Jump to recipe" button. It's always there, you don't have to scroll.

tayo42 5y ago
Thats not really my issue with them. its site like all recipes is always in the top, or the same few websites always dominate results and that low quality recipes are in the top because they seem to game the system by doing that. the 1st result for me for pad thai recipes is a recipe that includes bell peppers and peanut butter.

nullc 5y ago

I'm not sure the recipes are entirely google's fault. There are jerks which are mechanically generating infinity recipes and polluting the internet with them. Resulting in non-viable recipes that no one has ever made and cannot possibly work. It's not even a matter of taste, the results are mostly just nonsense.