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This is an old problem that LLM-generated content only accelerated. LMGTFY died when Google tripled down on growing their ad revenue and adtech dominance and SE
by nunez 3y ago
This is an old problem that LLM-generated content only accelerated. LMGTFY died when Google tripled down on growing their ad revenue and adtech dominance and SEO ran rampant throughout search results. It is fairly difficult to get non-biased factual information from a naked query these days, which is why I try to search for info on Reddit first.
This isn't a panacea either given that it's been chock-ful of astroturfed content for the last few years, but older threads from when Reddit was less popular and manipulatable or threads from small communities are usually good bets.
- larodi 3y agoone thing to always remember, which may also easily repulse you from ever using google search again - it does not give search results. it generates a carefully crafted page which caters to your bubble. so does FB, so does Twitter, etc. just using different algos. Google search does not return the same results for the same query for different people, which a) makes it so different from AltaVista and historical search engines (from ElasticSearch if you want); and b) this is enough to NOT treat it as a search engine, even though is still billed as one....but as a personal wall of ad-designated BS.
- htrp 3y agoWell I feel like that would be ok if 1) they told you this 2) it actually gave you those relevant results It does make troubleshooting officially impossible, can't tell people its the 3rd link on this specific query in google.
- larodi 3y ago> Well I feel like that would be ok if 1) they told you this 2) it actually gave you those relevant results indeed, and the fact they don't tell you many things like... common ethics would require to, makes the whole service even more... despicable.
- causal 3y agoFinally switched to Kagi when I realized Google could not find a particular ThreeJS class doc page for me no matter what keywords I used, I had to paste the very URL of the page for it to appear at the top of my search results. Kagi got it first try using the class name. Paid search is the way, ad incentives are at odds with search. Made Kagi my address bar default search and it's been great.
- Gibson_v1 3y agoMaybe I'll try Kagi. I've had a hell of a time googling docs lately. I've been experimenting with different libraries on somde side projects and it feels like I'm always scrolling past stuff like GeeksForGeeks and various sites that look like some sort of AI generated stuff just to get to official docs or github links.
- IanCal 3y agoIt's great. I find Google better when I'm actually looking for products, though that's partly it's not as good as localizing results. The nice thing is you can just whack g! in front of the query and it'll bump you over to Google. It's fast, nice, no ads. Lack of history is a pro or a con or both depending on personal preference.
- jhgorrell 3y agoI have been happy with Kagi -- Like that I can change the site rankings on the results.
- schoenobates 3y agoI've been a happy Kagi user for a few months now. As someone else has already mentioned, shopping etc is often better elsewhere, but for 95% of my search I use Kagi exclusively.
- worldsayshi 3y agoSo does that mean that the free (as in beer) internet is dying and ad-tech killed it?
- rvba 3y agoYou think that spammers dont use AI to write on reddit now?
- jeremyjh 3y ago"re"-read GP's last sentence.