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I hope this is finally a wakeup call to Google to try to start to prioritize non reddit user content on the internet again. Web forums have been suppressed by

I hope this is finally a wakeup call to Google to try to start to prioritize non reddit user content on the internet again. Web forums have been suppressed by their results for ages now and Google's choice to do that has been a big part of what killed the internet.

delfinom 3y ago
They didn't suppress web forums, they instead went to prioritize SEO factors that of course SEO spammers maximized to abuse. Of course the Google solution was to prioritize reddit because people were searching for "<topic> reddit" due to said SEO spam.
- bioemerl 3y ago
  They definitely suppress web forums. There are a few I frequent that are prevalent on bing but nowhere to be seen on Google. Maybe it's just a difference in phrasing. Promoting clean SEO companies is suppressing web forums.
  - NineStarPoint 3y ago
    I think the primary issue is that no matter what Google prioritizes for, the SEO "blogs" will always switch over to attempting to look like it. Forums, whose goal is just people talking to each other, are never going to end up at the top of the list compared to people actively attempting to game the algorithm. Even if Google started actively promoting things that look like forums, SEO people would just make things that look like forums but are hyper optimized for whatever Google was looking for. The only way around this is for google to start making a white list of known good forums, but people get (understandably) really pissed when a company of google's size starts actively choosing winners and losers instead of just tuning their algorithm.
  - rfgmendoza 3y ago
    bing accounts for your history in promoting search results. and has a different algorithm to google, inevitable really because google's algorithm is secret and unknowable. the problem is that google WANTs to promote forums because forums are reliable sources of truth, but with automation all they can do is look for subject authority markers (incoming link count, keywords, text references on other highly authoritative pages, etc) SEO as an industry is about optimizing those markers to appear above "organic" results in a search page. changing the markers only means the SEO industry will adjust to target the new priorities, but forum operators are always the last to optimize. it's a fundamentally unwinnable game
  - costco 3y ago
    Maybe another factor is that (almost) no one is optimizing to be at the top of the Bing results.
- samstave 3y ago
  I posted this a few days ago, and in-line with your thoughts ; - I use OLD+RES for MY consumption and data density - if you dont know how to configure these together to create a much faster, and more aesthetically pleasing (to me) UX - then that sucks. https://i.imgur.com/gdDawWz.png https://i.imgur.com/gdDawWz.png https://i.imgur.com/jlTJGaT.png https://i.imgur.com/jlTJGaT.png So much more pleasant and quicker - especially with hover - I dont even need to click links https://i.imgur.com/jDvjQwM.jpg https://i.imgur.com/jDvjQwM.jpg Which of the following do you find pleasing, its personal opinion, so choose what you like - I prefer old. These are the same page, the only diff is old. vs www. https://i.imgur.com/mnl5pCb.png https://i.imgur.com/mnl5pCb.png <-- www https://i.imgur.com/JfFZMQX.png https://i.imgur.com/JfFZMQX.png <-- old --- So I just tested this again ; This is just btwn www.reddit and old.reddit, just now - notice the difference in content placement? https://i.imgur.com/HtJhXqQ.png https://i.imgur.com/HtJhXqQ.png <-- www (notice the first story [ad]) https://i.imgur.com/xm6DAP3.png https://i.imgur.com/xm6DAP3.png <-- old (ads more subtle - but still there) none of that click-puke in the UI though.
skilled 3y ago
They apparently[0] have plans to do this for their next "Helpful" content update. And that update should happen soon if we go by the current update metrics[1]. (I also manage sites myself and they've been doing some heavy A/B testing the last couple of weeks, but we have to wait and see how big of an impact it will actually have.) [0]: https://twitter.com/searchliaison/status/1656362551456993288 https://twitter.com/searchliaison/status/1656362551456993288 [1]: https://status.search.google.com/products/rGHU1u87FJnkP6W2GwMi/history https://status.search.google.com/products/rGHU1u87FJnkP6W2Gw... For people who don't want to click the Twitter link: > We're also improving how we rank results in Search overall. Helpful information can often live in unexpected or hard-to-find places: a comment in a forum thread, a post on a little-known blog, or an article with unique expertise on a topic. Our helpful content ranking system will soon show more of these “hidden gems” on Search, particularly when we think they’ll improve the results.
jwestbury 3y ago
Many years ago, one of the search options on Google, alongside Images, News, etc., was "Discussions." It would explicitly show results from web forums. I defaulted to this when I was looking for, e.g., product reviews -- because it would bypass the endless SEO spam where someone found some highly-rated products on Amazon and published an article "reviewing" them. Unfortunately, Google killed that search type. There are some browser extensions and bookmarklets that help, mostly by creating a very complicated search query that looks for specific things in the URL, but the discussion search is something I still mourn. For what it's worth, my technique these days is to find a forum which has a large amount of discussion, then add a site filter to my Google query and only search that site. For something like product reviews, I can usually find the lesser-known products that don't show up on the SEO lists, at which point I now have a good keyword to find other enthusiast discussions online, which begins to open a lot of doors. Unfortunately, I haven't quite refined the method for anything other than product reviews. At this point, I've started just using ChatGPT for factual questions before trying Google. :(
- the_pwner224 3y ago
  Simply adding "forum" onto the search query has worked pretty well for me. Of course, when I am aware of a specific forum which exists for that topic, site:... works well too.
  - owlninja 3y ago
    Same, if I am done reading reddit discussions I will just switch to 'forum' and occasionally stumble into some forum threads. Most are dead now though!
    - Gloomily3819 3y ago
      I wonder how much more active would forum websites be today if Google hadn't shut down the discussion search mode.
  - denimnerd42 3y ago
    I used to frequently add vbulletin onto searches about 10 years ago.
dylan604 3y ago
>I hope this is finally a wakeup call to Google Google checks it's bank account, hits the snooze button, and goes back to sleep
samstave 3y ago
Similarly with Quora. I ditched Quora when they had a similar policy change as Reddit, which I disagreed with (honestly, I cannot recall what the kerfuffle was about, but I deleted my Quora account and never went back.) I hate when quora pops up in results. But google has engineered themselves, deliberately so, into the "black-box behometh in the corner nobody can poke or question, and it just does its damn thing despite any of your riff-raff's ramblings"
- soundsgoodtome 3y ago
  Quora content is so blatantly useless these days. I haven’t seen a single useful piece of information on that site in years.
stainablesteel 3y ago
i never get reddit results in my google searches, i have to add the word reddit to it if i want that

delfinom 3y ago

They didn't suppress web forums, they instead went to prioritize SEO factors that of course SEO spammers maximized to abuse. Of course the Google solution was to prioritize reddit because people were searching for "<topic> reddit" due to said SEO spam.

bioemerl 3y ago
They definitely suppress web forums. There are a few I frequent that are prevalent on bing but nowhere to be seen on Google. Maybe it's just a difference in phrasing. Promoting clean SEO companies is suppressing web forums.
- NineStarPoint 3y ago
  I think the primary issue is that no matter what Google prioritizes for, the SEO "blogs" will always switch over to attempting to look like it. Forums, whose goal is just people talking to each other, are never going to end up at the top of the list compared to people actively attempting to game the algorithm. Even if Google started actively promoting things that look like forums, SEO people would just make things that look like forums but are hyper optimized for whatever Google was looking for. The only way around this is for google to start making a white list of known good forums, but people get (understandably) really pissed when a company of google's size starts actively choosing winners and losers instead of just tuning their algorithm.
- rfgmendoza 3y ago
  bing accounts for your history in promoting search results. and has a different algorithm to google, inevitable really because google's algorithm is secret and unknowable. the problem is that google WANTs to promote forums because forums are reliable sources of truth, but with automation all they can do is look for subject authority markers (incoming link count, keywords, text references on other highly authoritative pages, etc) SEO as an industry is about optimizing those markers to appear above "organic" results in a search page. changing the markers only means the SEO industry will adjust to target the new priorities, but forum operators are always the last to optimize. it's a fundamentally unwinnable game
- costco 3y ago
  Maybe another factor is that (almost) no one is optimizing to be at the top of the Bing results.
samstave 3y ago
I posted this a few days ago, and in-line with your thoughts ; - I use OLD+RES for MY consumption and data density - if you dont know how to configure these together to create a much faster, and more aesthetically pleasing (to me) UX - then that sucks. https://i.imgur.com/gdDawWz.png https://i.imgur.com/gdDawWz.png https://i.imgur.com/jlTJGaT.png https://i.imgur.com/jlTJGaT.png So much more pleasant and quicker - especially with hover - I dont even need to click links https://i.imgur.com/jDvjQwM.jpg https://i.imgur.com/jDvjQwM.jpg Which of the following do you find pleasing, its personal opinion, so choose what you like - I prefer old. These are the same page, the only diff is old. vs www. https://i.imgur.com/mnl5pCb.png https://i.imgur.com/mnl5pCb.png <-- www https://i.imgur.com/JfFZMQX.png https://i.imgur.com/JfFZMQX.png <-- old --- So I just tested this again ; This is just btwn www.reddit and old.reddit, just now - notice the difference in content placement? https://i.imgur.com/HtJhXqQ.png https://i.imgur.com/HtJhXqQ.png <-- www (notice the first story [ad]) https://i.imgur.com/xm6DAP3.png https://i.imgur.com/xm6DAP3.png <-- old (ads more subtle - but still there) none of that click-puke in the UI though.

skilled 3y ago

They apparently[0] have plans to do this for their next "Helpful" content update. And that update should happen soon if we go by the current update metrics[1]. (I also manage sites myself and they've been doing some heavy A/B testing the last couple of weeks, but we have to wait and see how big of an impact it will actually have.) [0]: https://twitter.com/searchliaison/status/1656362551456993288 https://twitter.com/searchliaison/status/1656362551456993288 [1]: https://status.search.google.com/products/rGHU1u87FJnkP6W2GwMi/history https://status.search.google.com/products/rGHU1u87FJnkP6W2Gw... For people who don't want to click the Twitter link: > We're also improving how we rank results in Search overall. Helpful information can often live in unexpected or hard-to-find places: a comment in a forum thread, a post on a little-known blog, or an article with unique expertise on a topic. Our helpful content ranking system will soon show more of these “hidden gems” on Search, particularly when we think they’ll improve the results.

jwestbury 3y ago

Many years ago, one of the search options on Google, alongside Images, News, etc., was "Discussions." It would explicitly show results from web forums. I defaulted to this when I was looking for, e.g., product reviews -- because it would bypass the endless SEO spam where someone found some highly-rated products on Amazon and published an article "reviewing" them. Unfortunately, Google killed that search type. There are some browser extensions and bookmarklets that help, mostly by creating a very complicated search query that looks for specific things in the URL, but the discussion search is something I still mourn. For what it's worth, my technique these days is to find a forum which has a large amount of discussion, then add a site filter to my Google query and only search that site. For something like product reviews, I can usually find the lesser-known products that don't show up on the SEO lists, at which point I now have a good keyword to find other enthusiast discussions online, which begins to open a lot of doors. Unfortunately, I haven't quite refined the method for anything other than product reviews. At this point, I've started just using ChatGPT for factual questions before trying Google. :(

the_pwner224 3y ago
Simply adding "forum" onto the search query has worked pretty well for me. Of course, when I am aware of a specific forum which exists for that topic, site:... works well too.
- owlninja 3y ago
  Same, if I am done reading reddit discussions I will just switch to 'forum' and occasionally stumble into some forum threads. Most are dead now though!
  - Gloomily3819 3y ago
    I wonder how much more active would forum websites be today if Google hadn't shut down the discussion search mode.
- denimnerd42 3y ago
  I used to frequently add vbulletin onto searches about 10 years ago.

dylan604 3y ago

>I hope this is finally a wakeup call to Google Google checks it's bank account, hits the snooze button, and goes back to sleep

samstave 3y ago

Similarly with Quora. I ditched Quora when they had a similar policy change as Reddit, which I disagreed with (honestly, I cannot recall what the kerfuffle was about, but I deleted my Quora account and never went back.) I hate when quora pops up in results. But google has engineered themselves, deliberately so, into the "black-box behometh in the corner nobody can poke or question, and it just does its damn thing despite any of your riff-raff's ramblings"

soundsgoodtome 3y ago
Quora content is so blatantly useless these days. I haven’t seen a single useful piece of information on that site in years.

stainablesteel 3y ago

i never get reddit results in my google searches, i have to add the word reddit to it if i want that