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I was afraid of this. Now, it's a matter of time before Google search will get even worse as SEO hustlers push more of their useless crap to the top now that in

I was afraid of this. Now, it's a matter of time before Google search will get even worse as SEO hustlers push more of their useless crap to the top now that internal algorithm data has been published. Guess I should look into that Kagi thing people keep mentioning.

drivebycomment 2y ago
It doesn't look like this leak will do that. This doesn't have "algorithms" in any real sense of algorithms.
- Jensson 2y ago
  Before SEO communities argued what were part of the model, thinking some things like clicks didn't matter. Truth is Google did everything you can imagine, including clicks, now they all know it instead of having to guess. Still wont change much though, its very hard to game since Google has a lot of ways of mitigating click farms or it would have discovered a long time ago.
  - aaronwall 2y ago
    Back in the day a friend mentioned you could choose what version of a phrase you wanted to make the canonical for a search autocompletion by embedding a broken image call to a SERP page for the version of a keyword you wanted to be more popular. Google has tons of ways to identify real users versus fake users. And lots of the fake it until you make it efforts leave statistical outliers that can lead to ignoring or smoothing away much of the benefits, especially if there is no fire following the smoke trail.
disagree123 2y ago
[flagged]
- regnerba 2y ago
  Care to expand upon that? I have been using Kagi for just under a year so far and really enjoying it.
  - viraptor 2y ago
    It's a troll. Downvote, move on.
rnd0 2y ago
Isn't Kagi dependant on Google for their results? Doesn't seem tenable in the long-term to me.
- elromulous 2y ago
  Are you thinking of ddg? Afaik kagi runs their own independent engine from scratch.
  - jeroenhd 2y ago
    DDG uses Bing. Them blocking trackers except when they come from Microsoft (because of this search engine deal) is why I don't really care about using DDG. You can use bangs to search on Google, but that's not the default.
  - hoppyhoppy2 2y ago
    >Our own index of the finest results augmented by the results from the best search engines on the market. https://kagi.com/ https://kagi.com/
    - aaronwall 2y ago
      The design is too monochromatic.
  - SushiHippie 2y ago
    Kagi is a Meta Search engine (it uses other search engines API e.g. Google, Yandex, Brave Search, Marginalia, ...) + it has its own (tiny) index, their own index mostly consits of their "Small Web" pages.
altdataseller 2y ago
I doubt that will happen. One becsuse the leak didnt really disclose any major secrets that most marketers didnt already know. 2, even if some of this wasnt widely known, its not like you can take advantage of it overnight. Theres no quick hack to building a trustworthy domain or getting lots of trustworthy links for example
- bestnameever 2y ago
  > Theres no quick hack to building a trustworthy domain or getting lots of trustworthy links for example Sure, but there are other potential hacks that this leak exposes that marketers may now be focusing on more so now they would have otherwise based on the information in the leak.
tmaly 2y ago
What could be worse than recipe pages that are 20 pages worth of text with the recipe hiding somewhere among the text?
- dgellow 2y ago
  They could split it in multiple pages instead of a single page! Imagine having to click “next part” >10 times just to see if you eventually end up with a section that contains the actual recipe
  - cush 2y ago
    And unskippable ads after every third image. Then the moment you get to the final image there’s an email registration wall. It has a little X button that doesn’t work on iOS.
    - dgellow 2y ago
      I see that we have a connoisseur of the devil’s work here :)
  - BobaFloutist 2y ago
    The thing is, there's a limit to how many times the typical user would do that before just clicking back to google for a different recipe.
    - dgellow 2y ago
      Create a fake google page, inject it into their history, the users goes back, sees something google like, now you’re 100% evil, congrats! :)
    - brokenmachine 2y ago
      They also break the back button.
      - 2y ago
josefresco 2y ago
The leak essentially confirmed what SEO experts already suspected (knew) but Google denied. SEOs have spent 2+ decades observing Google search behavior and honestly I wasn't even a little bit surprised their observations were proven correct. At this point, the "garbage" on Google isn't SEO optimized organic results, it's the ads.
- aaronwall 2y ago
  For what it is worth, Google has favored macro-parasites over micro-parasites. The bigger companies have access to the ears of market regulators, etc. The average small publisher or affiliate site has almost nobody care if it disappears. Part of the most recent Google update was penalizing high authority trusted sites for publishing off topic content from third parties. There is a concept called "goog enough" explaining how the likes of Forbes ranked for just about everything. https://www.blindfiveyearold.com/its-goog-enough https://www.blindfiveyearold.com/its-goog-enough

drivebycomment 2y ago

It doesn't look like this leak will do that. This doesn't have "algorithms" in any real sense of algorithms.

Jensson 2y ago
Before SEO communities argued what were part of the model, thinking some things like clicks didn't matter. Truth is Google did everything you can imagine, including clicks, now they all know it instead of having to guess. Still wont change much though, its very hard to game since Google has a lot of ways of mitigating click farms or it would have discovered a long time ago.
- aaronwall 2y ago
  Back in the day a friend mentioned you could choose what version of a phrase you wanted to make the canonical for a search autocompletion by embedding a broken image call to a SERP page for the version of a keyword you wanted to be more popular. Google has tons of ways to identify real users versus fake users. And lots of the fake it until you make it efforts leave statistical outliers that can lead to ignoring or smoothing away much of the benefits, especially if there is no fire following the smoke trail.

disagree123 2y ago

[flagged]

regnerba 2y ago
Care to expand upon that? I have been using Kagi for just under a year so far and really enjoying it.
- viraptor 2y ago
  It's a troll. Downvote, move on.

rnd0 2y ago

Isn't Kagi dependant on Google for their results? Doesn't seem tenable in the long-term to me.

elromulous 2y ago
Are you thinking of ddg? Afaik kagi runs their own independent engine from scratch.
- jeroenhd 2y ago
  DDG uses Bing. Them blocking trackers except when they come from Microsoft (because of this search engine deal) is why I don't really care about using DDG. You can use bangs to search on Google, but that's not the default.
- hoppyhoppy2 2y ago
  >Our own index of the finest results augmented by the results from the best search engines on the market. https://kagi.com/ https://kagi.com/
  - aaronwall 2y ago
    The design is too monochromatic.
- SushiHippie 2y ago
  Kagi is a Meta Search engine (it uses other search engines API e.g. Google, Yandex, Brave Search, Marginalia, ...) + it has its own (tiny) index, their own index mostly consits of their "Small Web" pages.

altdataseller 2y ago

I doubt that will happen. One becsuse the leak didnt really disclose any major secrets that most marketers didnt already know. 2, even if some of this wasnt widely known, its not like you can take advantage of it overnight. Theres no quick hack to building a trustworthy domain or getting lots of trustworthy links for example

bestnameever 2y ago
> Theres no quick hack to building a trustworthy domain or getting lots of trustworthy links for example Sure, but there are other potential hacks that this leak exposes that marketers may now be focusing on more so now they would have otherwise based on the information in the leak.

tmaly 2y ago

What could be worse than recipe pages that are 20 pages worth of text with the recipe hiding somewhere among the text?

dgellow 2y ago
They could split it in multiple pages instead of a single page! Imagine having to click “next part” >10 times just to see if you eventually end up with a section that contains the actual recipe
- cush 2y ago
  And unskippable ads after every third image. Then the moment you get to the final image there’s an email registration wall. It has a little X button that doesn’t work on iOS.
  - dgellow 2y ago
    I see that we have a connoisseur of the devil’s work here :)
- BobaFloutist 2y ago
  The thing is, there's a limit to how many times the typical user would do that before just clicking back to google for a different recipe.
  - dgellow 2y ago
    Create a fake google page, inject it into their history, the users goes back, sees something google like, now you’re 100% evil, congrats! :)
  - brokenmachine 2y ago
    They also break the back button.
    - 2y ago

josefresco 2y ago

The leak essentially confirmed what SEO experts already suspected (knew) but Google denied. SEOs have spent 2+ decades observing Google search behavior and honestly I wasn't even a little bit surprised their observations were proven correct. At this point, the "garbage" on Google isn't SEO optimized organic results, it's the ads.

aaronwall 2y ago
For what it is worth, Google has favored macro-parasites over micro-parasites. The bigger companies have access to the ears of market regulators, etc. The average small publisher or affiliate site has almost nobody care if it disappears. Part of the most recent Google update was penalizing high authority trusted sites for publishing off topic content from third parties. There is a concept called "goog enough" explaining how the likes of Forbes ranked for just about everything. https://www.blindfiveyearold.com/its-goog-enough https://www.blindfiveyearold.com/its-goog-enough