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I tried their "Best toaster" query and one thing I want to say is just how hilarious it is that "best x"-of-anything webpage HAS to have $CURRENT_YEAR in the ti
by usui 5y ago
I tried their "Best toaster" query and one thing I want to say is just how hilarious it is that "best x"-of-anything webpage HAS to have $CURRENT_YEAR in the title. Yelp does something similar to its Google search results.
As if nothing good or the best in its breed ever came out from $PREVIOUS_YEAR or any previous years before that!
Tell me you're a garbage SEO website without telling me, just slap on "in $CURRENT_YEAR" or use some capital letters, I love how easy it is to tell the wheat from the chaff!
edit: someone with a more negative outlook/rant than my glee https://reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/qowtws/cmv_seo_and_clickbaitish_headlinestitles_have/ https://reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/qowtws/cmv_seo_an...
- mkr-hn 5y agoBest toaster: https://shop.panasonic.com/kitchen-and-home/kitchen-appliances/toaster-ovens/nb-g110p https://shop.panasonic.com/kitchen-and-home/kitchen-applianc... It is, in fact, a 20+ year old design that's had some minor updates but is still essentially the same as the one it replaced.
- Akronymus 5y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OfxlSG6q5Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OfxlSG6q5Y Toasters were IMO a basically solved problem.
- edgyquant 5y agoI just have one of the bread toasters with two slots. It was like 12$ and I can’t imagine a better toaster. What you’ve linked to is a toaster oven, which isn’t what Americans tend to think of when we hear “toaster.”
- mkr-hn 5y agoI'm American and don't think I know anyone who uses that kind of toaster. Lots of variety of experience in this country.
- noahtallen 5y agoAs an American with a toaster oven, I still call it a toaster colloquially. (As do others I know with toaster ovens.)
- edgyquant 5y agoI will say sometime I want the date in the title. For instance when looking up JavaScript topics where things move so fast, or even C++ where the year standArd can mean the difference between a language I want to use and not.
- usui 5y agoYup, I agree to that! Helpful for the newest JavaScript libraries/Ecmascript features/best practices in $CURRENT_YEAR. But, wow! Who knew that the landscape of toastering moves this quickly and changes so much from year to year?!
- prox 5y agoOr doing the reverse were you need info for a very specific version, and it’s absolutely obliterated by results of newer versions.
- dataflow 5y ago> As if nothing good or the best in its breed ever came out from $PREVIOUS_YEAR or any previous years before that! Try to apply this to software (e.g., "I want the December 2018 version of Chrome, it was the best version of Chrome so far.") and observe the reaction you get.
- HWR_14 5y agoNot for minor builds, but it's trivial to find posts saying older versions of Windows/OS X/Firefox/Chrome are better. But you might have to go to a more substantive change like, with Chrome, Manifest3
- Semaphor 5y ago> As if nothing good or the best in its breed ever came out from $PREVIOUS_YEAR or any previous years before that! That older one could still be the best, but this way you (or that’s how it’d be in a perfect world) know that they at least checked if anything better came out.
- usui 5y agoEven better are the articles that were written last year or whichever period SEO abuse started skyrocketing, except slapped on with [Updated $CURRENT_YEAR]! So fresh, so new! Except when you click, you realize the article is dated and was barely updated at all from when it was written!
- Semaphor 5y agoSome sites have changelogs for those articles. I always want to give them a hug for that ;)
- 0cVlTeIATBs 5y agoAnd searching for "best toaster 2020" gives plenty sites with a year in the title, not 2020, though...
- userbinator 5y agoSpeaking of the "best toaster", this and related HN discussion comes to mind: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29342936 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29342936
- Spivak 5y agoI mean it’s just spam evolving to users realizing that, for a time, you could get better results by putting the year in the query.
- antifa 5y agoHonestly I just don't want Google giving me a list from 2015 with entirely discontinued products...
- executesorder66 5y ago> As if nothing good or the best in its breed ever came out from $PREVIOUS_YEAR or any previous years before that! I know most of these are blogspam sites and I hate them too, but the way I understand the rationale behind the year, and the way I would do it too is this: Best $PRODUCT $CURRENT_YEAR can include products that were manufactured in $PREVIOUS_YEAR or $LONG_TIME_AGO. The $CURRENT_YEAR is saying that the list is up to date, not that all the items in the list were made in $CURRENT_YEAR.
- zaSmilingIdiot 5y agoI understand the point being made, but this is solved trivially by including a published date, eg: Best $product - published $exact_date (or alternatively, instead of "published" use "updated"). This has the added benefit that those searching for $product towards the end of a year can decide whether such lists published/updated near the beginning of the year are relevant or not.
- noahtallen 5y agoTotally. When I’m searching for the best option for some random thing, I’ll often add 2021 or 2022 to make sure the results are recent. And, inevitably, when I need to add “Reddit” to the search query, adding the year is still helpful to avoid showing 10 year old posts. I’m looking for recent recommendations in these types of searches, normally,
- richardfey 5y agoSo of I could filter out all search results with a year in the title, perhaps I'll get something more "authentically organic"?
- kingcharles 5y ago8 Best Toasters of 2022 - Good Housekeeping Published: Dec 9, 2021 Best toaster 2022: 12 toasters for every kitchen Published: Jan 12, 2022 For a laugh I tried "best toaster 2023" and there are already two worthy pages.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]