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> Even worse are image results. > The problem is that search engine results – especially on mobile – are not how you find that any longer. I think the biggest

> Even worse are image results. > The problem is that search engine results – especially on mobile – are not how you find that any longer. I think the biggest story of the web in the last decade is the slow but steady decline of Google. Google has fallen victim to spam. Goodhart's Law wins in the end. Almost every site on Google's front page is there because people have spent a lot of time and money optimizing it for search engine ranking. But just because a page is good at gaming Google's algorithm does not mean it is the most useful anymore. Google put up a good fight, but it seems like they have finally lost. It also seems like the company has lost it's way. I was recently using Yandex mobile browser to browse some Russian sites and it can translate text inside images and now even voice inside videos. Chrome on the other hand often fails to detect other languages and therefore does not translate even text. It feels like even 15 years ago (when I was becoming a Google fanboy, I have since grown out of it) I would have expected Google to get there before some obscure Russian company. I get it, Russian web is smaller than English web and therefore it is probably more useful for Yandex, but Google's revenues are many times that of Yandex, they should ideally be getting there by now.

secondaryacct 5y ago
You also maybe navigate a larger web with different needs. What knowledge cant be found with appending "wiki" to any keyword, what person cant you find with linkedin, what movie cant you find on a private bt tracker, what news cant you have from reddit ? I think people over estimate what the web was before Google and under estimate how much easier it s been to find anything. Name me one thing you struggled to find on google and Ill probably be able to describe you the nightmare it would have been 20 years ago
- habibur 5y ago
  > Name me one thing you struggled to find on google Ad less pages. That provide the content without trying to monetize it.
  - Swenrekcah 5y ago
    I don't even mind ads if I get the content. What I get now however is 90% ads and 10% content, and of those 10% about half of that is actually promoted content. Oh and the ads are also spying on me and selling my information to more ads.
- marginalia_nu 5y ago
  Google me up a review of a mechanical keyboard that isn't sponsored, doesn't have ads, isn't on reddit, doesn't have affiliate links, and isn't trying to sell me anything.
  - willmw101 5y ago
    Seems pretty useful and non-spammy to me: Edit: This is a better example: https://www.mechtype.com/category/reviews/ https://www.mechtype.com/category/reviews/
    - marginalia_nu 5y ago
      Would you expect someone selling a product to give an accurate review? They have a conflict of interest. Give me a review from someone who does not have a conflict of interest. I'll show you what I'm looking for: https://labs.tomasino.org/mechanical-keyboards/ https://labs.tomasino.org/mechanical-keyboards/ https://www.paritybit.ca/blog/vortex-vibe-keyboard https://www.paritybit.ca/blog/vortex-vibe-keyboard https://wiki.installgentoo.com/wiki/Mechanical_keyboards https://wiki.installgentoo.com/wiki/Mechanical_keyboards https://www.vegard.net/the-ultimate-keyboard-part-2-switches/ https://www.vegard.net/the-ultimate-keyboard-part-2-switches... http://boxbase.org/entries/2015/nov/30/ergodox/ http://boxbase.org/entries/2015/nov/30/ergodox/ Where are those types of search results?
      - willmw101 5y ago
        They have links for every single mechanical keyboard they review or list. What is their incentive to give better reviews to some than others? This is probably a better example: https://www.mechtype.com/xiaomi-yuemi-pro-mk02-review/#more-2640 https://www.mechtype.com/xiaomi-yuemi-pro-mk02-review/#more-... There are some basic economic realities underpinning why most people take the time to create content like this. I don't think it's reasonable to assume that just because someone expects to make a small amount of money from creating a review like that (with either affiliate links or buy links), that that person's opinion is inherently at conflict with honesty just because there's a monetary element. It may be true for many sites and many people, but it's pretty straightforward to parse whether someone is writing a review earnestly and passionately rather than for $.
- kaetemi 5y ago
  Reviews of recent consumer scanners with actual samples of scanned images at high resolutions.
- eloff 5y ago
  I recently had to research and compare analytics services for work. Type in Heap vs MixPanel and look at the results, the entire first page is garbage comparison sites. I really struggled to find any impartial, real reviews.
pessimizer 5y ago
> Google has fallen victim to spam. Google is intentionally dropping five year old results from the index and prioritizing five hour old results. They have complete control over whether they're doing this. Part of SEO is making five year old results look like five hour old results, which is something that Google did to spammers, not something that spammers did to google. Google has decided that it is more profitable to make sure that somebody who types "chicken" into the search box gets either chicken restaurants nearby, or listicles and video covering the story on the news today about a chicken that scared away a bear. They've given up on depth.
- remoquete 5y ago
  I’d love to agree with you, but are you sure the depth is there? Where is all the quality content about “chicken”? Where are the legions of chicken experts creating high quality content? We might be starting from the (slightly) false premise that the internet is full of quality content.
  - nappy 5y ago
    I honestly have no idea what the "best" results would be for chicken. Maybe the Wikipedia entry? Not sure what else. It's sort of just a lazy search.
    - remoquete 5y ago
      Well, if not all of humanity’s knowledge is freely and openly available on the web, how can we expect a search engine—any search engine—to provide a meaningful answer? I remember when Google aimed at scanning and indexing entire libraries, but then they had to stop due to copyright laws.
    - dylan604 5y ago
      >It's sort of just a lazy search. A bad search deserves a bad result. If you walked up to me and just said one word "chicken", I'd be insulted. If you said one word "chicken" while pointing at your mouth, I'd perhaps think you spoke little English and wanted a place to eat chicken. Providing a bit more info is useful to get decent results. As Jerry Maguire once said, "help me help you"

secondaryacct 5y ago

You also maybe navigate a larger web with different needs. What knowledge cant be found with appending "wiki" to any keyword, what person cant you find with linkedin, what movie cant you find on a private bt tracker, what news cant you have from reddit ? I think people over estimate what the web was before Google and under estimate how much easier it s been to find anything. Name me one thing you struggled to find on google and Ill probably be able to describe you the nightmare it would have been 20 years ago

habibur 5y ago
> Name me one thing you struggled to find on google Ad less pages. That provide the content without trying to monetize it.
- Swenrekcah 5y ago
  I don't even mind ads if I get the content. What I get now however is 90% ads and 10% content, and of those 10% about half of that is actually promoted content. Oh and the ads are also spying on me and selling my information to more ads.
marginalia_nu 5y ago
Google me up a review of a mechanical keyboard that isn't sponsored, doesn't have ads, isn't on reddit, doesn't have affiliate links, and isn't trying to sell me anything.
- willmw101 5y ago
  Seems pretty useful and non-spammy to me: Edit: This is a better example: https://www.mechtype.com/category/reviews/ https://www.mechtype.com/category/reviews/
  - marginalia_nu 5y ago
    Would you expect someone selling a product to give an accurate review? They have a conflict of interest. Give me a review from someone who does not have a conflict of interest. I'll show you what I'm looking for: https://labs.tomasino.org/mechanical-keyboards/ https://labs.tomasino.org/mechanical-keyboards/ https://www.paritybit.ca/blog/vortex-vibe-keyboard https://www.paritybit.ca/blog/vortex-vibe-keyboard https://wiki.installgentoo.com/wiki/Mechanical_keyboards https://wiki.installgentoo.com/wiki/Mechanical_keyboards https://www.vegard.net/the-ultimate-keyboard-part-2-switches/ https://www.vegard.net/the-ultimate-keyboard-part-2-switches... http://boxbase.org/entries/2015/nov/30/ergodox/ http://boxbase.org/entries/2015/nov/30/ergodox/ Where are those types of search results?
    - willmw101 5y ago
      They have links for every single mechanical keyboard they review or list. What is their incentive to give better reviews to some than others? This is probably a better example: https://www.mechtype.com/xiaomi-yuemi-pro-mk02-review/#more-2640 https://www.mechtype.com/xiaomi-yuemi-pro-mk02-review/#more-... There are some basic economic realities underpinning why most people take the time to create content like this. I don't think it's reasonable to assume that just because someone expects to make a small amount of money from creating a review like that (with either affiliate links or buy links), that that person's opinion is inherently at conflict with honesty just because there's a monetary element. It may be true for many sites and many people, but it's pretty straightforward to parse whether someone is writing a review earnestly and passionately rather than for $.
kaetemi 5y ago
Reviews of recent consumer scanners with actual samples of scanned images at high resolutions.
eloff 5y ago
I recently had to research and compare analytics services for work. Type in Heap vs MixPanel and look at the results, the entire first page is garbage comparison sites. I really struggled to find any impartial, real reviews.

pessimizer 5y ago

> Google has fallen victim to spam. Google is intentionally dropping five year old results from the index and prioritizing five hour old results. They have complete control over whether they're doing this. Part of SEO is making five year old results look like five hour old results, which is something that Google did to spammers, not something that spammers did to google. Google has decided that it is more profitable to make sure that somebody who types "chicken" into the search box gets either chicken restaurants nearby, or listicles and video covering the story on the news today about a chicken that scared away a bear. They've given up on depth.

remoquete 5y ago
I’d love to agree with you, but are you sure the depth is there? Where is all the quality content about “chicken”? Where are the legions of chicken experts creating high quality content? We might be starting from the (slightly) false premise that the internet is full of quality content.
- nappy 5y ago
  I honestly have no idea what the "best" results would be for chicken. Maybe the Wikipedia entry? Not sure what else. It's sort of just a lazy search.
  - remoquete 5y ago
    Well, if not all of humanity’s knowledge is freely and openly available on the web, how can we expect a search engine—any search engine—to provide a meaningful answer? I remember when Google aimed at scanning and indexing entire libraries, but then they had to stop due to copyright laws.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    >It's sort of just a lazy search. A bad search deserves a bad result. If you walked up to me and just said one word "chicken", I'd be insulted. If you said one word "chicken" while pointing at your mouth, I'd perhaps think you spoke little English and wanted a place to eat chicken. Providing a bit more info is useful to get decent results. As Jerry Maguire once said, "help me help you"