4 ms·

I think the theory of Google's death is that they are "killing the golden goose." The idea is that they are killing off all the independent websites on the inte

I think the theory of Google's death is that they are "killing the golden goose." The idea is that they are killing off all the independent websites on the internet. That is, all the sites besides Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/NetFlix/Reddit/etc. that people access directly (either through an app or a bookmark) and which (barring Reddit) block GoogleBot anyway. These are all the sites (like CNET) that Google indexes which are the entire reason to use search. They are having their rankings steadily eroded by an ever-rising tide of SEO spam. If they start dying off en masse and if LLMs emerge as a viable alternative for looking up information, we may see Google Search die along with them. As for why their revenues are still increasing? It's because all the SEO spam sites out there run Google Ads. This is how we close the loop on the "killing the golden goose" theory. Google uses legitimate sites to make their search engine a viable product and at the same time directs traffic away from those legitimate sites towards SEO spam to generate revenue. It's a transformation from symbiosis/mutualism to parasitism. Edit: I forgot to mention the last, and darkest, part of the theory. Many of these SEO spam sites engage in large-scale piracy by scraping all their content off legitimate sites. By allowing their ads to run on these sites, Google is essentially acting as an accessory to large-scale, criminal, commercial copyright infringement.

water-your-self 3y ago
Directs traffic away not to generate revenue but to generate revenue faster this quarter in time for the report. They could make billions without liquifying the internet but they would make billions slowly
Denzel 3y ago
> Google uses legitimate sites to make their search engine a viable product and at the same time directs traffic away from those legitimate sites towards SEO spam to generate revenue. [Disclosure: Google Search SWE; opinions and thoughts are my own and do not represent those of my employer] Why do you assume malicious intent? The balance between search ranking (Google) and search optimization (third-party sites) is an adversarial, dynamic game played between two sides with inverse incentives, taking place on an economic field (i.e. limited resources). There is no perfect solution; there’s only an evolutionary act-react cycle. Do you think content spammers spend more or less resources (people, time, money) than Google’s revenue? So then the problem becomes how do you win a battle with orders of magnitude less people, time, and money? Leverage, i.e., engineering. You try your best and watch the scoreboard. Some people think Google is doing a great job; some think we couldn’t be any worse. The truth probably lies across a spectrum in the middle. So it goes with a globally consumed product. Also, note, Ads and Search operate completely independent. There’s no signals going from Ads to Search, or vice versa, to inform rankings; Search can’t even touch a lot of the Ads data, and Ads can’t touch Search data. Which makes your theory misinformed.
- vasco 3y ago
  When I enter a search query, that goes into Ads so that half the page can be relevant Ads instead of search results. That's a signal.
- chongli 3y ago
  Also, note, Ads and Search operate completely independent That’s the mistake. They should be talking. Sites that engage in unethical SEO to game search rankings should be banned from Google’s ad platform. Why aren’t they? Because Google is profiting from the arrangement.
- beefield 3y ago
  > Why do you assume malicious intent? Not GP, but to me, admittably a complete non-expert on search, there are so many low-hanging fruits if search result quality was anywhere on Google's radar that it is really difficult not to assume malicious intent. Some examples: - why pinterest is flooding the image results with absolute nonesense? How difficult it would be to derank a single domain that manages to screw google's algorithm totally? - why there is no option for me to blacklist domains from the search result? Are there really some challenges that can't be practically solved in a couple of minutes of thinking? - Does google seriously claim they can't differentiate between stackoverflow and the content copying rip-off SEO spam sites?
  - pbmonster 3y ago
    > why there is no option for me to blacklist domains from the search result? You might already be aware of this, but you can use uBlock Origin to filter google search results. Click on the extension --> Settings --> My Filters. Paste in the bottom google.*##.g:has(a[href*="pinterest.com"]) Every time I get mislead on clicking onto an AI aggregator site, my filter list grows...
  - Aerbil313 3y ago
    The issues you pointed out might be due to a company policy of not manually manipulating search results and leaving it all to the algorithm. It can be argued that this leads them to improve their algorithm, although at this point I don't think any algorithm other than a good and big LLM/classifier-transformer can solve the ranking problem, and that is probably not economical or something. But OTOH they manually ban domains they deem to be not conformant to the views of the Party. (not CCP, 1984)
7speter 3y ago
I've also kinda been wondering if Google has been ruining it's search to bolster youtube content.

water-your-self 3y ago

Directs traffic away not to generate revenue but to generate revenue faster this quarter in time for the report. They could make billions without liquifying the internet but they would make billions slowly

Denzel 3y ago

> Google uses legitimate sites to make their search engine a viable product and at the same time directs traffic away from those legitimate sites towards SEO spam to generate revenue. [Disclosure: Google Search SWE; opinions and thoughts are my own and do not represent those of my employer] Why do you assume malicious intent? The balance between search ranking (Google) and search optimization (third-party sites) is an adversarial, dynamic game played between two sides with inverse incentives, taking place on an economic field (i.e. limited resources). There is no perfect solution; there’s only an evolutionary act-react cycle. Do you think content spammers spend more or less resources (people, time, money) than Google’s revenue? So then the problem becomes how do you win a battle with orders of magnitude less people, time, and money? Leverage, i.e., engineering. You try your best and watch the scoreboard. Some people think Google is doing a great job; some think we couldn’t be any worse. The truth probably lies across a spectrum in the middle. So it goes with a globally consumed product. Also, note, Ads and Search operate completely independent. There’s no signals going from Ads to Search, or vice versa, to inform rankings; Search can’t even touch a lot of the Ads data, and Ads can’t touch Search data. Which makes your theory misinformed.

vasco 3y ago
When I enter a search query, that goes into Ads so that half the page can be relevant Ads instead of search results. That's a signal.
chongli 3y ago
Also, note, Ads and Search operate completely independent That’s the mistake. They should be talking. Sites that engage in unethical SEO to game search rankings should be banned from Google’s ad platform. Why aren’t they? Because Google is profiting from the arrangement.
beefield 3y ago
> Why do you assume malicious intent? Not GP, but to me, admittably a complete non-expert on search, there are so many low-hanging fruits if search result quality was anywhere on Google's radar that it is really difficult not to assume malicious intent. Some examples: - why pinterest is flooding the image results with absolute nonesense? How difficult it would be to derank a single domain that manages to screw google's algorithm totally? - why there is no option for me to blacklist domains from the search result? Are there really some challenges that can't be practically solved in a couple of minutes of thinking? - Does google seriously claim they can't differentiate between stackoverflow and the content copying rip-off SEO spam sites?
- pbmonster 3y ago
  > why there is no option for me to blacklist domains from the search result? You might already be aware of this, but you can use uBlock Origin to filter google search results. Click on the extension --> Settings --> My Filters. Paste in the bottom google.*##.g:has(a[href*="pinterest.com"]) Every time I get mislead on clicking onto an AI aggregator site, my filter list grows...
- Aerbil313 3y ago
  The issues you pointed out might be due to a company policy of not manually manipulating search results and leaving it all to the algorithm. It can be argued that this leads them to improve their algorithm, although at this point I don't think any algorithm other than a good and big LLM/classifier-transformer can solve the ranking problem, and that is probably not economical or something. But OTOH they manually ban domains they deem to be not conformant to the views of the Party. (not CCP, 1984)

7speter 3y ago

I've also kinda been wondering if Google has been ruining it's search to bolster youtube content.