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I effectively stopped searching Google as is. It's become completely useless. Recently I got FIVE sponsored results before even getting to the SEO-gamed results

I effectively stopped searching Google as is. It's become completely useless. Recently I got FIVE sponsored results before even getting to the SEO-gamed results. I have to: * Add "reddit" to get any sort of non-promoted human-driven knowledge * Select "Past Year" from Tools Recently I started getting really old search results. Not sure if I just never noticed, or they finally totally screwed up their algorithm.

alexdunmow 3y ago
I have definitely noticed that the search results are often old now. I constantly have to set "past year". Something that was otherwise rare not even a year or two ago. I would like to pay for Kagi. But with this economy I'm belt tightening and adding another subscription seems crazy. Even if the experience is 100x better than Google's.
- freediver 3y ago
  > I'm belt tightening and adding another subscription seems crazy. Even if the experience is 100x better than Google's. Search is one of the most complex and sophisticated products in the world. Genuinely curious, what other subscriptions are more important than access to high quality information that makes you even just 2x more productive and competitive in the world?
  - AlbertCory 3y ago
    If you asked this in court, lawyers would stand up and say, "Objection! Leading!" That's an argument, not a question.
    - freediver 3y ago
      Fair, I was interested in whether the argument was overlooked or already acknowledged and there is no way? to probe without inserting it.
      - AlbertCory 3y ago
        (Side note: on TV, the lawyer says, "Objection, your Honor! Counsel is leading the witness!" I've been to real trials. They don't bother with all that verbiage. "Leading!" is all they have to say.)
  - alexdunmow 3y ago
    I don't disagree with you. But I've been slashing all of my subscriptions. At least to test whether I truly need said product. For instance I cancelled Intellij and used VS Code for 1.5 months. Went back after proving it was worth the sub. It's hard to justify adding a new subscription when I'm getting by just fine without it.
dmoy 3y ago
> Add "reddit" to get any sort of non-promoted human-driven knowledge Do note that depending on which sub you venture in to, it might be very much promoted stuff Random video game subs tend to be pretty good though
- kredd 3y ago
  I'll add a quick note, basically every brand that knows what SEO is (and in today's age it's every company) has figured out the Reddit astroturfing. I've had bar chats with people in NA, and some of them would talk how they work for marketing departments of random companies. Apparently Reddit is their "free passive advertisement" spot for potential funnel targeting Gen Z + millennials. So searching for reviews on there is basically useless. At the same level as Amazon at this point. There will be some exceptions, but anonymity and very easy vote manipulation ability makes every review questionable at best. That being said, it is still very good for a quick "general question"-esque searches.
  - LesZedCB 3y ago
    yep reddit is now either bots or people so banal they may as well be bots
  - potatolicious 3y ago
    Yeah, Reddit isn't perfect, but for many kinds of subjective research it's still better than the SEO-fest that's the Google SRP. It's more "90% spam" vs. "40% spam". At least there's some signal within the noise, whereas for many topics the Google search is just 3 pages of ChatGPT pablum before you get to 5 more pages of manually-written SEO bait, with a small smattering of actual valuable information.
  - MostlyStable 3y ago
    Stand alone comments or posts on reddit are often not that useful. But if you can find users getting into a discussion about a product or category, that is generally the goldmine. A) It's long enough that it's much less likely to be inorganic, B) Provides enough context for more informed decision, and C) in an ideal world if the parties disagree you get the advantage of adversarial discussion (hopefully still relatively friendly) Admittedly, this is pretty uncommon, but I'm more likely to find it on reddit than anywhere else.
ilrwbwrkhv 3y ago
Even Yandex now gives better results. Now while I love Russian engineering, Yandex never worked well for English searches and if that is beating Google I'm not sure about Google's future.
- fooker 3y ago
  Yeah this is the surprising part to me, I have managed to use Yandex successfully to track down specific documents and videos when Google failed. Google search tries and fails to interpret what you want to search for, where there was no interpretation needed in the first place.
  - ilrwbwrkhv 3y ago
    I think what recently google has started doing is over index on Forbes, medium etc to fight spam which means all the articles are just that typical forbes-y and medium-y lacking any human element or insight. The problem with spam is so much that they are kinda using these large well known sites as a filter which means the whole point of a search engine is lost as the rest of the internet is not available.
liendolucas 3y ago
> Recently I started getting really old search results. Good to see a confirmation of this. I'm getting old results as well and I can be pretty sure that at least one year ago the quality of the search was much much higher than it is today. Last year I also remember seeing intermittenlty for a brief period of time some sort of feedback popup from Google to rate the quality of the search.
rvba 3y ago
> Add "reddit" to get any sort of non-promoted human-driven knowledge you realize that now comments on reddit are SEO spam too?

alexdunmow 3y ago

I have definitely noticed that the search results are often old now. I constantly have to set "past year". Something that was otherwise rare not even a year or two ago. I would like to pay for Kagi. But with this economy I'm belt tightening and adding another subscription seems crazy. Even if the experience is 100x better than Google's.

freediver 3y ago
> I'm belt tightening and adding another subscription seems crazy. Even if the experience is 100x better than Google's. Search is one of the most complex and sophisticated products in the world. Genuinely curious, what other subscriptions are more important than access to high quality information that makes you even just 2x more productive and competitive in the world?
- AlbertCory 3y ago
  If you asked this in court, lawyers would stand up and say, "Objection! Leading!" That's an argument, not a question.
  - freediver 3y ago
    Fair, I was interested in whether the argument was overlooked or already acknowledged and there is no way? to probe without inserting it.
    - AlbertCory 3y ago
      (Side note: on TV, the lawyer says, "Objection, your Honor! Counsel is leading the witness!" I've been to real trials. They don't bother with all that verbiage. "Leading!" is all they have to say.)
- alexdunmow 3y ago
  I don't disagree with you. But I've been slashing all of my subscriptions. At least to test whether I truly need said product. For instance I cancelled Intellij and used VS Code for 1.5 months. Went back after proving it was worth the sub. It's hard to justify adding a new subscription when I'm getting by just fine without it.

dmoy 3y ago

> Add "reddit" to get any sort of non-promoted human-driven knowledge Do note that depending on which sub you venture in to, it might be very much promoted stuff Random video game subs tend to be pretty good though

kredd 3y ago
I'll add a quick note, basically every brand that knows what SEO is (and in today's age it's every company) has figured out the Reddit astroturfing. I've had bar chats with people in NA, and some of them would talk how they work for marketing departments of random companies. Apparently Reddit is their "free passive advertisement" spot for potential funnel targeting Gen Z + millennials. So searching for reviews on there is basically useless. At the same level as Amazon at this point. There will be some exceptions, but anonymity and very easy vote manipulation ability makes every review questionable at best. That being said, it is still very good for a quick "general question"-esque searches.
- LesZedCB 3y ago
  yep reddit is now either bots or people so banal they may as well be bots
- potatolicious 3y ago
  Yeah, Reddit isn't perfect, but for many kinds of subjective research it's still better than the SEO-fest that's the Google SRP. It's more "90% spam" vs. "40% spam". At least there's some signal within the noise, whereas for many topics the Google search is just 3 pages of ChatGPT pablum before you get to 5 more pages of manually-written SEO bait, with a small smattering of actual valuable information.
- MostlyStable 3y ago
  Stand alone comments or posts on reddit are often not that useful. But if you can find users getting into a discussion about a product or category, that is generally the goldmine. A) It's long enough that it's much less likely to be inorganic, B) Provides enough context for more informed decision, and C) in an ideal world if the parties disagree you get the advantage of adversarial discussion (hopefully still relatively friendly) Admittedly, this is pretty uncommon, but I'm more likely to find it on reddit than anywhere else.

ilrwbwrkhv 3y ago

Even Yandex now gives better results. Now while I love Russian engineering, Yandex never worked well for English searches and if that is beating Google I'm not sure about Google's future.

fooker 3y ago
Yeah this is the surprising part to me, I have managed to use Yandex successfully to track down specific documents and videos when Google failed. Google search tries and fails to interpret what you want to search for, where there was no interpretation needed in the first place.
- ilrwbwrkhv 3y ago
  I think what recently google has started doing is over index on Forbes, medium etc to fight spam which means all the articles are just that typical forbes-y and medium-y lacking any human element or insight. The problem with spam is so much that they are kinda using these large well known sites as a filter which means the whole point of a search engine is lost as the rest of the internet is not available.

liendolucas 3y ago

> Recently I started getting really old search results. Good to see a confirmation of this. I'm getting old results as well and I can be pretty sure that at least one year ago the quality of the search was much much higher than it is today. Last year I also remember seeing intermittenlty for a brief period of time some sort of feedback popup from Google to rate the quality of the search.

rvba 3y ago

> Add "reddit" to get any sort of non-promoted human-driven knowledge you realize that now comments on reddit are SEO spam too?