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I've thought about this a lot over the past few years, and I've come to the slightly sad conclusion that Google isn't to blame. It's just that there isn't any g

I've thought about this a lot over the past few years, and I've come to the slightly sad conclusion that Google isn't to blame. It's just that there isn't any good quality information on the web anymore. Google does its best, but it's working with crappy data. No one wants to spend time and effort making a great website about <insert literally any topic here> unless they're in it for the money. That means Google will only ever return blogspam, affiliate websites, and SEO-optimized ecommerce websites for practically any search now. This is in contrast to the good old days when people made websites for fun and searches actually found the high quality content that was out there. These days searches don't find quality content because, on the whole, it doesn't exist. This isn't universally true of course. There is some good content. But it's never what you're searching for; it's only good when you stumble across it, or you find a link on HN/Reddit/etc. It's just interesting rather than specifically good or useful. To an extent Google is to blame because AdSense and DoubleClick drove the shift from people publishing what they love to people publishing for dollars, but, and this is somewhat cynical I know, I genuinely wonder if we're actually on the brink of realising the web as a publishing platform just isn't that great.

overkill28 5y ago
Yeah much of the quality content for recipes and product reviews have moved to video, and two of the most popular platforms to host it on (Instagram and TikTok) are walled gardens.
- Rastonbury 5y ago
  Really? I am immediately skeptical of random influencer recommendations especially on social media, its slightly better on youtube where respected creators/reviewers are transparent about sponsorships to maintain their credibility
christophilus 5y ago
There is good content, it just never shows up in search results. So yes, I blame Google. Their ability to ban obvious spam / copycat content is laughably bad.
o10449366 5y ago
I disagree with the notion that good quality content just doesn't exist anymore. Quality content will always exist and more quality content exists now on the internet than ever before now that it's become more accessible to more people than ever, but Google, Facebook, and Amazon have made this content more difficult to discover because their algorithms reward gamification with profit, incentivizing the production of high-volume and low-quality but highly-optimized content. People passionate about sharing and learning will always be driven to produce quality content, even if they don't have an audience. The issue is that Google will never discover these people because they're only interested in discovering the best marketers on the internet.
- onion2k 5y ago
  People passionate about sharing and learning will always be driven to produce quality content, even if they don't have an audience. Those people moved to content websites like YouTube and Udemy where they can cash in on what they do. They don't make websites any more, so Google doesn't find links to them.
  - OldTimeCoffee 5y ago
    While cash is probably some component of it, it's a lot more difficult today to make a professional looking 'modern' website than it was 20 years ago. Conversely, it's a lot easier to make and edit a professional looking video for YouTube than it was 20 years ago. Video will win out when it's the easiest solution. Google indexes and returns links to YouTube videos for queries now and will even point you to the relevant part if the video uses chapters.
    - TheRealDunkirk 5y ago
      > it's a lot more difficult today to make a professional looking 'modern' website than it was 20 years ago STRONGLY disagree. Wordpress is plenty professional looking and modern, and makes it dead simple to find a hosting service, create a site, choose a theme, and start writing content.
visarga 5y ago
It's true that we're drowning in shit, but at the same time there has never been more useful content online. Google is just incapable of ranking it, or it doesn't suit their financial interests.
EscargotCult 5y ago
> I've thought about this a lot over the past few years, and I've come to the slightly sad conclusion that Google isn't to blame. I don't know about that, at least in the realm of programming-related searches. It's ridiculously frustrating when I'm searching for a standard library function and the top 3 results are geeksforgeeks, w3schools, and tutorialspoint, while the canonical documentation for the language is only 4th or 5th in the results.
- impalallama 5y ago
  The fact that MDN Docs are never the first results when searching basic for most basic web stuff is very disappointing.
- vladf 5y ago
  Funny, I was just complaining about the exact same phenomenon (complaining with a fix!) a few days ago: https://twitter.com/FeinbergVlad/status/1475148590423023619 https://twitter.com/FeinbergVlad/status/1475148590423023619
  - roganartu 5y ago
    I’ve been doing this for a while, and it’s a neat trick. I noticed the same uptick in stackoverflow clones recently as some other commenters here have, and quickly blocked them too via this method. It’s worth pointing out, however, that the blocking happens client-side, and that these spam results often end up taking up multiple results slots. This means that sometimes you will get an empty or close-to-empty Google results page. Ideally, I’d like to be able to configure Google itself to never return me results from particular domains instead.
skinkestek 5y ago
> I've thought about this a lot over the past few years, and I've come to the slightly sad conclusion that Google isn't to blame. It's just that there isn't any good quality information on the web anymore. Have you tried marginalia and kagi? If not, come back after you have tried. Until I tried those I could have thought you were possibly right. After testing those I am again confident it is just Google and DuckDuckGo.com who fails, which has been my position since a decade or so ago.

overkill28 5y ago

Yeah much of the quality content for recipes and product reviews have moved to video, and two of the most popular platforms to host it on (Instagram and TikTok) are walled gardens.

Rastonbury 5y ago
Really? I am immediately skeptical of random influencer recommendations especially on social media, its slightly better on youtube where respected creators/reviewers are transparent about sponsorships to maintain their credibility

christophilus 5y ago

There is good content, it just never shows up in search results. So yes, I blame Google. Their ability to ban obvious spam / copycat content is laughably bad.

o10449366 5y ago

I disagree with the notion that good quality content just doesn't exist anymore. Quality content will always exist and more quality content exists now on the internet than ever before now that it's become more accessible to more people than ever, but Google, Facebook, and Amazon have made this content more difficult to discover because their algorithms reward gamification with profit, incentivizing the production of high-volume and low-quality but highly-optimized content. People passionate about sharing and learning will always be driven to produce quality content, even if they don't have an audience. The issue is that Google will never discover these people because they're only interested in discovering the best marketers on the internet.

onion2k 5y ago
People passionate about sharing and learning will always be driven to produce quality content, even if they don't have an audience. Those people moved to content websites like YouTube and Udemy where they can cash in on what they do. They don't make websites any more, so Google doesn't find links to them.
- OldTimeCoffee 5y ago
  While cash is probably some component of it, it's a lot more difficult today to make a professional looking 'modern' website than it was 20 years ago. Conversely, it's a lot easier to make and edit a professional looking video for YouTube than it was 20 years ago. Video will win out when it's the easiest solution. Google indexes and returns links to YouTube videos for queries now and will even point you to the relevant part if the video uses chapters.
  - TheRealDunkirk 5y ago
    > it's a lot more difficult today to make a professional looking 'modern' website than it was 20 years ago STRONGLY disagree. Wordpress is plenty professional looking and modern, and makes it dead simple to find a hosting service, create a site, choose a theme, and start writing content.

visarga 5y ago

It's true that we're drowning in shit, but at the same time there has never been more useful content online. Google is just incapable of ranking it, or it doesn't suit their financial interests.

EscargotCult 5y ago

> I've thought about this a lot over the past few years, and I've come to the slightly sad conclusion that Google isn't to blame. I don't know about that, at least in the realm of programming-related searches. It's ridiculously frustrating when I'm searching for a standard library function and the top 3 results are geeksforgeeks, w3schools, and tutorialspoint, while the canonical documentation for the language is only 4th or 5th in the results.

impalallama 5y ago
The fact that MDN Docs are never the first results when searching basic for most basic web stuff is very disappointing.
vladf 5y ago
Funny, I was just complaining about the exact same phenomenon (complaining with a fix!) a few days ago: https://twitter.com/FeinbergVlad/status/1475148590423023619 https://twitter.com/FeinbergVlad/status/1475148590423023619
- roganartu 5y ago
  I’ve been doing this for a while, and it’s a neat trick. I noticed the same uptick in stackoverflow clones recently as some other commenters here have, and quickly blocked them too via this method. It’s worth pointing out, however, that the blocking happens client-side, and that these spam results often end up taking up multiple results slots. This means that sometimes you will get an empty or close-to-empty Google results page. Ideally, I’d like to be able to configure Google itself to never return me results from particular domains instead.

skinkestek 5y ago

> I've thought about this a lot over the past few years, and I've come to the slightly sad conclusion that Google isn't to blame. It's just that there isn't any good quality information on the web anymore. Have you tried marginalia and kagi? If not, come back after you have tried. Until I tried those I could have thought you were possibly right. After testing those I am again confident it is just Google and DuckDuckGo.com who fails, which has been my position since a decade or so ago.