3 ms·

Independent publishers are being demoted to give way to big sites on Google

42 points by adamcarson 2y ago

gnabgib 2y ago
Related: Big media publishers are inundating the web with subpar product recommendations [0](699 points, 72 days ago, 348 comments) [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39433451 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39433451
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
holoduke 2y ago
The big publishers are always first in row. The circle of Google is simple. Spend a lot of ad money and you will be ranked high. Even the shitietst sites and apps from publishers like UEFA, Redbull etc are listed as top apps/sites. Their reviews are often super bad. Yet they are ranked high. Its because they spend money on Google ads.
- fsckboy 2y ago
  yes, and the great thing about sites like HN is that they provide an outlet for the products' complaints about the customers!
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
xhkkffbf 2y ago
I've seen this with two sites I work with. Google pretty much dropped the ban hammer on them. It's sad for the dream of an open web.
skilled 2y ago
Reddit, LinkedIn, and Quora have seen a roughly 2,000% combined visibility increase in Google Search in the last 12 months. All three sites amount to around ~3 billion search traffic as estimated by tools like Semrush and Ahrefs (the total combined traffic is more in the ~5-7 billion range by my estimates). All three sites get manipulated with AI - Reddit for product reviews, and LinkedIn and Quora do it by pre-generating millions of topics (they disclose it is done with AI) and then inviting users to "contribute". Forbes recently started blocking sections of their sites[0] because in the next few days Google will release an update[1] that is intended to address the authority abuse talked about in the HouseFresh article. But I don't get the first part, the blatant AI spam and search result manipulation that is hurting the average blogger who can get thrown out entirely because an algorithm deemed it so. But that same algorithm rewards the bullshit I mention above. Can someone explain the logic here? [0]: https://www.seroundtable.com/forbes-coupon-directory-google-block-37269.html https://www.seroundtable.com/forbes-coupon-directory-google-... [1]: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-site-reputation-abuse-spam-37231.html https://www.seroundtable.com/google-site-reputation-abuse-sp...
nhggfu 2y ago
yep. Aside from organic search, Google News also rekt - with some queries returning 100% spam results.
sitkack 2y ago
This is because Google is double dealing, they are selling both side of the transaction, on the search side they have side bar ads and in search result ads, but on the destination, they also sell the ad impressions. So they are using their monopoly power to make money on both search and the display on the destination. So they have a huge incentive to push sites with lots of pages, more opps to get ad clicks on those big site than the small ones.
- Arnt 2y ago
  I'd guess it's more because Google's search is heavily pressured by the AI-generated sites, and Google is trying to depress anything which might be described as "a small superset of the AI-generated sites".
JohnFen 2y ago
The extreme favoring of large and commercial sites isn't a new thing. It's one of the reasons why Google search results became so unhelpful to me years ago.
wuj 2y ago
...hence why its becoming a habit for me to add a "reddit" after anything I'm searching on Google now.

42 points by adamcarson 2y ago

Related: Big media publishers are inundating the web with subpar product recommendations [0](699 points, 72 days ago, 348 comments) [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39433451 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39433451

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

holoduke 2y ago

The big publishers are always first in row. The circle of Google is simple. Spend a lot of ad money and you will be ranked high. Even the shitietst sites and apps from publishers like UEFA, Redbull etc are listed as top apps/sites. Their reviews are often super bad. Yet they are ranked high. Its because they spend money on Google ads.

fsckboy 2y ago
yes, and the great thing about sites like HN is that they provide an outlet for the products' complaints about the customers!

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

xhkkffbf 2y ago

I've seen this with two sites I work with. Google pretty much dropped the ban hammer on them. It's sad for the dream of an open web.

skilled 2y ago

Reddit, LinkedIn, and Quora have seen a roughly 2,000% combined visibility increase in Google Search in the last 12 months. All three sites amount to around ~3 billion search traffic as estimated by tools like Semrush and Ahrefs (the total combined traffic is more in the ~5-7 billion range by my estimates). All three sites get manipulated with AI - Reddit for product reviews, and LinkedIn and Quora do it by pre-generating millions of topics (they disclose it is done with AI) and then inviting users to "contribute". Forbes recently started blocking sections of their sites[0] because in the next few days Google will release an update[1] that is intended to address the authority abuse talked about in the HouseFresh article. But I don't get the first part, the blatant AI spam and search result manipulation that is hurting the average blogger who can get thrown out entirely because an algorithm deemed it so. But that same algorithm rewards the bullshit I mention above. Can someone explain the logic here? [0]: https://www.seroundtable.com/forbes-coupon-directory-google-block-37269.html https://www.seroundtable.com/forbes-coupon-directory-google-... [1]: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-site-reputation-abuse-spam-37231.html https://www.seroundtable.com/google-site-reputation-abuse-sp...

nhggfu 2y ago

yep. Aside from organic search, Google News also rekt - with some queries returning 100% spam results.

sitkack 2y ago

This is because Google is double dealing, they are selling both side of the transaction, on the search side they have side bar ads and in search result ads, but on the destination, they also sell the ad impressions. So they are using their monopoly power to make money on both search and the display on the destination. So they have a huge incentive to push sites with lots of pages, more opps to get ad clicks on those big site than the small ones.

Arnt 2y ago
I'd guess it's more because Google's search is heavily pressured by the AI-generated sites, and Google is trying to depress anything which might be described as "a small superset of the AI-generated sites".

JohnFen 2y ago

The extreme favoring of large and commercial sites isn't a new thing. It's one of the reasons why Google search results became so unhelpful to me years ago.

wuj 2y ago

...hence why its becoming a habit for me to add a "reddit" after anything I'm searching on Google now.