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Yes, they very much are two different things. I loath products like Facebook, Messenger, Google Photos, etc. are turning their traditional "search" page/featur

Yes, they very much are two different things. I loath products like Facebook, Messenger, Google Photos, etc. are turning their traditional "search" page/feature into a one-stop AI slop shop. All I want to do is find a specific photo album by name.

the_snooze 2y ago
They're perfectly capable of implementing all the same search operators as 1990s Yahoo and 2000s Google. It's a solved problem. The issue is that they don't want to. They'd rather be a middleman offering you "useful recommendations" (that they or may not sell to the highest bidder) instead of offering you value.
- Arnt 2y ago
  Are you suggesting that 2000d Google codebase would do a decent job against today's SEO?
  - jgalt212 2y ago
    I think the search and ad code base may not be explicitly co-mingled, but they are implicitly co-mingled. And return worse search results than the early 2000s code base.
    - Arnt 2y ago
      Both are explicitly related to the web at large. Google sells ads on more than two million sites, and those mostly aim to be the kind of sites that feature in search results. I'd say that the two code bases are related, by virtue of operating on the same data structure. You remember the pagerank paper? It described how Google classifies each page on a scale from "something that links to good pages" to "informative page". Google and other search engines produces links to the latter. And since then, web site operators have had strong incentives to be on the "informative page" end of the range. Today I don't think the 2000s code can find a lot of pages of the former kind (well, outside Facebook). It produced very nice results back then. It was/is good code, but good results need more than just good code, it needs good input too.
  - ChocolateGod 2y ago
    Today's SEO isn't the reason, it's simply more profitable for Google to give you terrible search results. It makes no financial sense for Google to give you good search results and get you off Google as soon as possible. Instead, if they make you spend more time on Google due to having to go through more crappy results, they can sell more ads. Most people won't change search engine and will stomach it. Until ChatGPT happened and can save you the pain of having to use Googles search engine.
  - griomnib 2y ago
    The biggest reason SEO is profitable is because low quality sites run display ads. That is the lifeblood, and intrinsic motivation, for these sites to even exist. Google operates the largest display ads network. They literally *pay* websites for SEO spam, and take a very healthy cut off the top. I wish people would stop acting like Google has been in a noble battle against the spam sites, when those sites generate Google billions of dollars a year in revenue. The obvious question is, why would they ruin search for display? The answer is greed combined with hubris. They were able to double dip for years, but they killed the golden goose. Everybody with a brain knew this would happen when they bought Doubleclick, and it took longer than expected, but here we are.
- jostmey 2y ago
  Agreed. So many times I have to put Wikipedia or Reddit behind my search to get anything useful out of google. So it can work. Google is clearly prioritizing junk over value
  - masa331 2y ago
    Why don't you use Kagi?
    - fl0id 2y ago
      Probably because it costs money and it also likely also will quickly succumb to sloppification by experimenting with their own ai and having an unstable founder…
      - freediver 2y ago
        > having an unstable founder I can assure you that force is strong with me.
      - masa331 2y ago
        I'm using it for about two years and i haven't seen any sloppification. I see it as a feature that it is a paid service because i hope it will be a sustainable model for them to keep it as it is. I think it's a no brainer to pay for it instead of all the suffering people describe here. The founder remark i don't get
        NBJack 2y ago
        Not to discourage you, but note it took a while before Google succumbed. Hopefully Kagi will hold out.
        masa331 2y ago
        Right now Kagi is a better search engine than Google. Why should some eventual demise in the future discourage anyone? There is no cost of switching and you can start using it right away
TehCorwiz 2y ago
If they provided what you're asking for you'd leave the site and look at fewer ads.

the_snooze 2y ago

They're perfectly capable of implementing all the same search operators as 1990s Yahoo and 2000s Google. It's a solved problem. The issue is that they don't want to. They'd rather be a middleman offering you "useful recommendations" (that they or may not sell to the highest bidder) instead of offering you value.

Arnt 2y ago
Are you suggesting that 2000d Google codebase would do a decent job against today's SEO?
- jgalt212 2y ago
  I think the search and ad code base may not be explicitly co-mingled, but they are implicitly co-mingled. And return worse search results than the early 2000s code base.
  - Arnt 2y ago
    Both are explicitly related to the web at large. Google sells ads on more than two million sites, and those mostly aim to be the kind of sites that feature in search results. I'd say that the two code bases are related, by virtue of operating on the same data structure. You remember the pagerank paper? It described how Google classifies each page on a scale from "something that links to good pages" to "informative page". Google and other search engines produces links to the latter. And since then, web site operators have had strong incentives to be on the "informative page" end of the range. Today I don't think the 2000s code can find a lot of pages of the former kind (well, outside Facebook). It produced very nice results back then. It was/is good code, but good results need more than just good code, it needs good input too.
- ChocolateGod 2y ago
  Today's SEO isn't the reason, it's simply more profitable for Google to give you terrible search results. It makes no financial sense for Google to give you good search results and get you off Google as soon as possible. Instead, if they make you spend more time on Google due to having to go through more crappy results, they can sell more ads. Most people won't change search engine and will stomach it. Until ChatGPT happened and can save you the pain of having to use Googles search engine.
- griomnib 2y ago
  The biggest reason SEO is profitable is because low quality sites run display ads. That is the lifeblood, and intrinsic motivation, for these sites to even exist. Google operates the largest display ads network. They literally *pay* websites for SEO spam, and take a very healthy cut off the top. I wish people would stop acting like Google has been in a noble battle against the spam sites, when those sites generate Google billions of dollars a year in revenue. The obvious question is, why would they ruin search for display? The answer is greed combined with hubris. They were able to double dip for years, but they killed the golden goose. Everybody with a brain knew this would happen when they bought Doubleclick, and it took longer than expected, but here we are.
jostmey 2y ago
Agreed. So many times I have to put Wikipedia or Reddit behind my search to get anything useful out of google. So it can work. Google is clearly prioritizing junk over value
- masa331 2y ago
  Why don't you use Kagi?
  - fl0id 2y ago
    Probably because it costs money and it also likely also will quickly succumb to sloppification by experimenting with their own ai and having an unstable founder…
    - freediver 2y ago
      > having an unstable founder I can assure you that force is strong with me.
    - masa331 2y ago
      I'm using it for about two years and i haven't seen any sloppification. I see it as a feature that it is a paid service because i hope it will be a sustainable model for them to keep it as it is. I think it's a no brainer to pay for it instead of all the suffering people describe here. The founder remark i don't get
      - NBJack 2y ago
        Not to discourage you, but note it took a while before Google succumbed. Hopefully Kagi will hold out.
        masa331 2y ago
        Right now Kagi is a better search engine than Google. Why should some eventual demise in the future discourage anyone? There is no cost of switching and you can start using it right away

TehCorwiz 2y ago

If they provided what you're asking for you'd leave the site and look at fewer ads.