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"Google is taking action against algorithmically generated spam. The search engine giant just announced upcoming changes, including a revamped spam policy, desi

"Google is taking action against algorithmically generated spam. The search engine giant just announced upcoming changes, including a revamped spam policy, designed in part to keep AI clickbait out of its search results." Even before the AI floodgates were opened, there was a huge problem with ads and SEO-optimized junk written by humans clogging up Google, and pushing the good stuff into the SERP netherworld. People complained for years (including here) with no discernible improvement. It's one of the reasons HN turned into one of my go-to places for finding the good stuff - obscure blog posts and social media threads and websites that share facts, recollections, opinions, and expert insights that can't be found anywhere else. However, HN and a few other high-quality discovery sites can only go so far in surfacing such content. Now it looks like Google, Amazon, and other Lords of the Internet are going to cause further damage with inevitable false positives as "AI spam detection" is unleashed on the Internet. Of course, there will be no recourse other than victims pleading for human intervention on a forum like this or hoping it goes viral on social media.

AtlasBarfed 3y ago
This is the opportunity old media has been waiting for. The only d tense against all this is an established name brand with some trust. Information networks will increase in value over people that are knowledgeable from aggregation of third hand sources. They'll drop the ball of course.
- setr 3y ago
  I mean they’ve had the opportunity for years, with spam and seo, already. They just chose to join in on the party and drive any reputation they did have into the ground. Then they tried to play the reputation game again by paywalling articles, but using the dumbest mechanism of free-article-views that basically just continues to incentive seo spam from their own writers. It remains unclear to me why they haven’t adopted a model like LWN — paywall freshness instead of content altogether, and rebuild their reputation and relevance
ornornor 3y ago
I can’t understand why they don’t apply the same mechanism as how they filter spam out of gmail and friends: why can’t I the user block/derank/prioritize domains in a custom search results ordering? Aggregating this data at google etc scale would give a pretty good idea as to which domains are junk and eventually automatically tweak results rank this way. Isn’t it how gmail spam « detection » works (or worked?) for the most part? Kagi already does that (minus the automated part) and it’s one of their best features imho.
- BizarroLand 3y ago
  1: Use Firefox. 2: Don't use Google anything. 3: If you can't do 2, at least do 1 and add a search blacklist extension like ublacklist. 4: Actually, use uBlacklist (or whatever) anyway, it will let you add other search engines, and block the annoying sites that clog the search results. Here is my current search result blocklist, these sites earned a position on the list by either being intrinsically unwanted, (i.e. news sites, social media), completely useless (learn.microsoft.com, a site specifically written so that you can't learn anything from it (Oh, I define a few of the function for a specific thing but can't be searched and only rarely show any examples, hope you have a dev DC to practice your poorly written powershell scripts on! of course, we never tell you that there is a book series that actually teaches you microsoft stuff because otherwise more people would understand how easy it is to operate windows), or SEO spam optimized BS that prevents me from finding what I am actually searching for. ://.yelp.com/* ://.cambridge.org/* ://.linkedin.com/* ://.williampitt.com/* ://.sothebysrealty.com/* ://.whitepages.com/* ://learn.microsoft.com/ ://.microsoft.com/* ://.reddit.com/* ://.glassdoor.com/* ://.facebook.com/* ://.pcmacstore.com/* ://.yellowpages.com/* ://.superpages.com/* ://.mowerrepairshops.com/* ://.angi.com/* ://.bbb.org/* ://.freeconvert.com/* ://.pdfcandy.com/* ://.cleverpdf.com/* ://.convertio.co/* ://.png2pdf.com/* ://.pngpdf.com/* ://.xodo.com/* ://.cloudconvert.com/* ://.usinsuranceonline.com/* ://.elsevier.com/* ://.clarivate.com/* ://.google.com/* ://.usask.ca/* ://.jpg2pdf.com/* ://.smallpdf.com/* ://.pdf24.org/* ://.ilovepdf.com/* ://.11zon.com/* ://.pdfresizer.com/* ://.freepdfconvert.com/* ://.sodapdf.com/* ://.pdfcrowd.com/* ://.pdfsimpli.com/* ://.axios.com/* ://.insider.com/* ://.bhg.com/* ://.windows101tricks.com/* ://.stellarinfo.com/* ://.nucleustechnologies.com/* ://.wondershare.com/* ://.getmailbird.com/* ://.clean.email/* ://.minitool.com/* ://.cch.com/* ://.product-reviews.net/* ://.gbatemp.net/* ://.macbookproslow.com/* ://.iu.edu/* ://.hubspot.com/* ://.getdroidtips.com/* ://.shotkit.com/* ://.citrix.com/* ://.gosunoob.com/* ://.belenjesuit.org/* ://.computerinfobits.com/* ://.appuals.com/* ://.drivereasy.com/* ://.techradar.com/* ://.betebt.com/* ://.webstick.blog/* ://.anysoftwaretools.com/* ://.contactmonkey.com/* ://.regainsoftware.com/* ://.gottabemobile.com/* ://.easeus.com/* ://.computerhope.com/* ://.splashtop.com/* ://.multcloud.com/* ://.ubackup.com/* ://.wintechlab.com/* ://.safetydetectives.com/* ://.guidingtech.com/* ://.bigxperts.com/* ://.techmaina.com/* ://.itechhacks.com/* ://.airtv.shop/* ://.spreadsheetpoint.com/* ://.bt.com/* ://.fasthosts.co.uk/* ://.technewstoday.com/* ://.windowsreport.com/* ://.msn.com/* ://.thewindowsclub.com/* ://.geekchamp.com/* ://.slipstick.com/* ://.aol.com/* ://.abc13.com/* ://.go.com/* ://.nypost.com/* ://.nbcnews.com/* ://.cnn.com/* ://.cbsnews.com/* ://.usatoday.com/* ://.g2.com/*

AtlasBarfed 3y ago

This is the opportunity old media has been waiting for. The only d tense against all this is an established name brand with some trust. Information networks will increase in value over people that are knowledgeable from aggregation of third hand sources. They'll drop the ball of course.

setr 3y ago
I mean they’ve had the opportunity for years, with spam and seo, already. They just chose to join in on the party and drive any reputation they did have into the ground. Then they tried to play the reputation game again by paywalling articles, but using the dumbest mechanism of free-article-views that basically just continues to incentive seo spam from their own writers. It remains unclear to me why they haven’t adopted a model like LWN — paywall freshness instead of content altogether, and rebuild their reputation and relevance

ornornor 3y ago

I can’t understand why they don’t apply the same mechanism as how they filter spam out of gmail and friends: why can’t I the user block/derank/prioritize domains in a custom search results ordering? Aggregating this data at google etc scale would give a pretty good idea as to which domains are junk and eventually automatically tweak results rank this way. Isn’t it how gmail spam « detection » works (or worked?) for the most part? Kagi already does that (minus the automated part) and it’s one of their best features imho.

BizarroLand 3y ago
1: Use Firefox. 2: Don't use Google anything. 3: If you can't do 2, at least do 1 and add a search blacklist extension like ublacklist. 4: Actually, use uBlacklist (or whatever) anyway, it will let you add other search engines, and block the annoying sites that clog the search results. Here is my current search result blocklist, these sites earned a position on the list by either being intrinsically unwanted, (i.e. news sites, social media), completely useless (learn.microsoft.com, a site specifically written so that you can't learn anything from it (Oh, I define a few of the function for a specific thing but can't be searched and only rarely show any examples, hope you have a dev DC to practice your poorly written powershell scripts on! of course, we never tell you that there is a book series that actually teaches you microsoft stuff because otherwise more people would understand how easy it is to operate windows), or SEO spam optimized BS that prevents me from finding what I am actually searching for. ://.yelp.com/* ://.cambridge.org/* ://.linkedin.com/* ://.williampitt.com/* ://.sothebysrealty.com/* ://.whitepages.com/* ://learn.microsoft.com/ ://.microsoft.com/* ://.reddit.com/* ://.glassdoor.com/* ://.facebook.com/* ://.pcmacstore.com/* ://.yellowpages.com/* ://.superpages.com/* ://.mowerrepairshops.com/* ://.angi.com/* ://.bbb.org/* ://.freeconvert.com/* ://.pdfcandy.com/* ://.cleverpdf.com/* ://.convertio.co/* ://.png2pdf.com/* ://.pngpdf.com/* ://.xodo.com/* ://.cloudconvert.com/* ://.usinsuranceonline.com/* ://.elsevier.com/* ://.clarivate.com/* ://.google.com/* ://.usask.ca/* ://.jpg2pdf.com/* ://.smallpdf.com/* ://.pdf24.org/* ://.ilovepdf.com/* ://.11zon.com/* ://.pdfresizer.com/* ://.freepdfconvert.com/* ://.sodapdf.com/* ://.pdfcrowd.com/* ://.pdfsimpli.com/* ://.axios.com/* ://.insider.com/* ://.bhg.com/* ://.windows101tricks.com/* ://.stellarinfo.com/* ://.nucleustechnologies.com/* ://.wondershare.com/* ://.getmailbird.com/* ://.clean.email/* ://.minitool.com/* ://.cch.com/* ://.product-reviews.net/* ://.gbatemp.net/* ://.macbookproslow.com/* ://.iu.edu/* ://.hubspot.com/* ://.getdroidtips.com/* ://.shotkit.com/* ://.citrix.com/* ://.gosunoob.com/* ://.belenjesuit.org/* ://.computerinfobits.com/* ://.appuals.com/* ://.drivereasy.com/* ://.techradar.com/* ://.betebt.com/* ://.webstick.blog/* ://.anysoftwaretools.com/* ://.contactmonkey.com/* ://.regainsoftware.com/* ://.gottabemobile.com/* ://.easeus.com/* ://.computerhope.com/* ://.splashtop.com/* ://.multcloud.com/* ://.ubackup.com/* ://.wintechlab.com/* ://.safetydetectives.com/* ://.guidingtech.com/* ://.bigxperts.com/* ://.techmaina.com/* ://.itechhacks.com/* ://.airtv.shop/* ://.spreadsheetpoint.com/* ://.bt.com/* ://.fasthosts.co.uk/* ://.technewstoday.com/* ://.windowsreport.com/* ://.msn.com/* ://.thewindowsclub.com/* ://.geekchamp.com/* ://.slipstick.com/* ://.aol.com/* ://.abc13.com/* ://.go.com/* ://.nypost.com/* ://.nbcnews.com/* ://.cnn.com/* ://.cbsnews.com/* ://.usatoday.com/* ://.g2.com/*