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No, I'm not complaining about SEO shit... The thing is the primordial google had the answer, but Google themselves buried it under 100+ links of Google-generat

by flomo 1y ago

No, I'm not complaining about SEO shit... The thing is the primordial google had the answer, but Google themselves buried it under 100+ links of Google-generated slopdiarrhea, most of which didn't even factually fit the question, and was not at all relevant to my automobile.

ben_w 1y ago
Indeed, this is part of the current monopoly abuse case they're facing — did Google deliberately choose to make search worse, because that causes people to return to the search results page and spend more time looking at ads, and they knew they could get away with it? e.g. bottom of first page, penultimate paragraph https://www.justice.gov/d9/2023-11/417557.pdf https://www.justice.gov/d9/2023-11/417557.pdf
- flomo 1y ago
  Yeah they definitely did that. But this AI diarrhea is so awful, I honestly can't see any angle in giving me tons of bad results about a minor feature of my car. (I should sell it and use waymo??) Maybe the really sharp monopolists ran for the hills when the DOJ sheriffs showed up, and now Google Search is being run by former Yahoo execs.
  - TeMPOraL 1y ago
    FWIW, two days later, I kinda changed my mind about AI in search - or at least, "AI answers". They're going to (and probably already are) cause a lot of issues for a lot of people. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44157837 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44157837 TL;DR: it's not the correctness that's the problem, but that AI is too good at making bad queries work. A regular person making underspecified query due to their ignorance, will get a sensible (and possibly correct) answer to a wrong question, and might try to act on it - where pre-AI, they'd get a mix of confusing result that would hopefully made them realize their query (and understanding) is wrong.
    - flomo 1y ago
      Late reply, but '[year] [make] [model] [feature]' has never been a bad query for as long as I've been using google. They used to be really good at that kind of thing, but now they are really bad. I can ignore the "AI results" at the top, the rest of the page is maybe more just Yahootardation than AI. But now they have some real competition.
      - ben_w 1y ago
        Perhaps for cars. For other topics, say apps? Well… A while back I was looking for interesting apps for my Apple Watch to see if I could find some real benefit to keeping it. Even before GenAI I was finding listicles like these that always have date stamps as if they are recent news: https://techidroid.com/10-best-apps-for-apple-watch/#5_ViewRanger https://techidroid.com/10-best-apps-for-apple-watch/#5_ViewR... (as I read it, it says "March 6, 2025" and lists ViewRanger app as number 5 on their list; I have no idea what it will say to anyone else). Now here's the important thing: I used to work at Augmentra, who made the ViewRanger app. They merged with OutdoorActive years ago and shut down the ViewRanger app in 2022. So, I've not trusted Google for a while now.
        flomo 1y ago
        HN had a story about Google removing the guy who cared about search quality a few years ago. Since then it's all about stuffing Google links on the top (like Yahoo did), and whatever SEO results has the most profitable google ads on it. Shame because it used to be good. Now the government is after them, and they might get lunch eaten.

by flomo 1y ago

ben_w 1y ago

Indeed, this is part of the current monopoly abuse case they're facing — did Google deliberately choose to make search worse, because that causes people to return to the search results page and spend more time looking at ads, and they knew they could get away with it? e.g. bottom of first page, penultimate paragraph https://www.justice.gov/d9/2023-11/417557.pdf https://www.justice.gov/d9/2023-11/417557.pdf

flomo 1y ago
Yeah they definitely did that. But this AI diarrhea is so awful, I honestly can't see any angle in giving me tons of bad results about a minor feature of my car. (I should sell it and use waymo??) Maybe the really sharp monopolists ran for the hills when the DOJ sheriffs showed up, and now Google Search is being run by former Yahoo execs.
- TeMPOraL 1y ago
  FWIW, two days later, I kinda changed my mind about AI in search - or at least, "AI answers". They're going to (and probably already are) cause a lot of issues for a lot of people. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44157837 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44157837 TL;DR: it's not the correctness that's the problem, but that AI is too good at making bad queries work. A regular person making underspecified query due to their ignorance, will get a sensible (and possibly correct) answer to a wrong question, and might try to act on it - where pre-AI, they'd get a mix of confusing result that would hopefully made them realize their query (and understanding) is wrong.
  - flomo 1y ago
    Late reply, but '[year] [make] [model] [feature]' has never been a bad query for as long as I've been using google. They used to be really good at that kind of thing, but now they are really bad. I can ignore the "AI results" at the top, the rest of the page is maybe more just Yahootardation than AI. But now they have some real competition.
    - ben_w 1y ago
      Perhaps for cars. For other topics, say apps? Well… A while back I was looking for interesting apps for my Apple Watch to see if I could find some real benefit to keeping it. Even before GenAI I was finding listicles like these that always have date stamps as if they are recent news: https://techidroid.com/10-best-apps-for-apple-watch/#5_ViewRanger https://techidroid.com/10-best-apps-for-apple-watch/#5_ViewR... (as I read it, it says "March 6, 2025" and lists ViewRanger app as number 5 on their list; I have no idea what it will say to anyone else). Now here's the important thing: I used to work at Augmentra, who made the ViewRanger app. They merged with OutdoorActive years ago and shut down the ViewRanger app in 2022. So, I've not trusted Google for a while now.
      - flomo 1y ago
        HN had a story about Google removing the guy who cared about search quality a few years ago. Since then it's all about stuffing Google links on the top (like Yahoo did), and whatever SEO results has the most profitable google ads on it. Shame because it used to be good. Now the government is after them, and they might get lunch eaten.