4 ms·

Search results are only useful for product searches these days. Everything else is low-quality, bot-generated content designed to maximize ad clicks or affiliat

Search results are only useful for product searches these days. Everything else is low-quality, bot-generated content designed to maximize ad clicks or affiliate earnings. Web search was a waste of time long before the AIpocalypse. These so called SEO experts who ruined the web for the last 10 years are now complaining that AI is ruining their business. Good riddance.

whatevsmate 1y ago
Exactly my sentiment. The web being crummy is not because of AI. The mainstream web - Google search and ad-infested web sites - was already crummy. AI has a higher tolerance for the sea of detritus than I do, so I lean on it to avoid that garbage.
transcriptase 1y ago
Yep. Nowadays even if you try to do your research on something like a foam mattress/bed in a box… be aware that the same company owns virtually all the ranking and review sites as well as all of the dozen brands they’re pretending to compare. Even the old method of appending Reddit to search queries hasn’t returned genuine results for the last few years since companies know to use aged and otherwise organic looking accounts to subtly name drop themselves and reply in agreement throughout threads alongside keywords that will bring in google traffic and upweight their odds of LLM mention.
- jfengel 1y ago
  Mattress stores have been famously dubious since before the Web. I'm still not exactly sure why they're always going out of business but never actually go away. One near me has been having a bankruptcy sale for three decades.
  - blakblakarak 1y ago
    Money laundering.
    - xnx 1y ago
      Are mattress stores a good mechanism for that? I didn't think most of their transactions would be in cash.
      - VladVladikoff 1y ago
        The cash comes from criminal sources and is put on their books as mattress sales so they can deposit it and get it into the banking system.
    - tharmas 1y ago
      Lol!
- VladVladikoff 1y ago
  As a side note on this, I’m a huge fan of pure latex mattresses. Just a solid slab of latex. Maybe a few slabs of different densities if you want to get fancy. I’m 4 years in on mine and it still holds up really well, no sag issues etc. if you’re in Canada there is MFC (memory comfort Canada) this is the cheapest place I could find, but there might be a better deal if you dig deep enough.
  - yojo 1y ago
    Agree with this. I’m done with anything with springs. Before bed in a box was a thing I built my own. 4” of high density foam base, 3” of med density latex, 2” of low density latex on top. I swapped out the top layer a few years back, but the core is still going strong ~14 years in, and it’s still my favorite bed I’ve slept on. One tip is you’ll want some kind of cover for your latex, since long term exposure to air will cause it to degrade.
    - VladVladikoff 1y ago
      What sort of cover are you using for the air degradation issue?
      - yojo 1y ago
        I got one of these: https://www.thefoamfactory.com/mattress/polycottonknitcover.html https://www.thefoamfactory.com/mattress/polycottonknitcover.... Again, this was 14 years ago, no idea if the product quality has fallen off or there’s a better place to get it now.
- chrismorgan 1y ago
  Also the reviews will be rigidly milquetoast, deferential nonsense, giving every product a participation award in a tailored category of its own, and refusing to ever call one superior to another, because the word “better” is so judgemental and might hurt someone’s feelings.
  - xnx 1y ago
    > because the word “better” is so judgemental and might hurt someone’s feelings. Being truly critical of any product would reduce their chances of getting merch, trips, and other gifts from brands.
    - transcriptase 1y ago
      This becomes very apparent when a new game is given to big name streamers early to generate hype, and they’re visibly frustrated and hating the game while pretending it’s great and being careful not to say anything the publisher wouldn’t like.
croes 1y ago
But it won’t help the real useful sites either. So we just get more losers and no winners
- jasonsb 1y ago
  The fact that we have a lot of AI alternatives instead of a Google Search monopoly is a win in my book. Probably not the win you'd like to see, but a win nonetheless.
  - croes 1y ago
    Short term win, long term loss for the user. No win for the website creators
datavirtue 1y ago
Exactly. Every time I follow a link to a link to a source I'm rewarded with a huge wall of text that finds ways to keep repeating the same phrases over and over to MAYBE reveal a little nugget that you need. Talk about having your dignity robbed.
JeanMarcS 1y ago
I would add the search of an error message while developing. Mostly using the search engines for that. But hey ! Now you can ask ChatGPT, Copilot or whatever for the same thing ! We are surounded
spacemadness 1y ago
The only good outcome of LLM content generation for society so far it seems. I remember some recipe site folks were here on HN complaining about ad blockers and it was hilarious following their reasoning. It’s ok to manipulate the entire internet if you’re a business but you’re not allowed any control individually as a consumer I guess. I’m sorry, but filling the internet with 90% fluff garbage doesn’t entitle you to any sympathy.
OptionOfT 1y ago
This is a great observation. Google established rules that would increase your website's pagerank. In response to that SEO was created, and with that the experts. Tags, inbound links, and then more content. A good example of how this spawned articles that are absolutely useless: https://www.partitionwizard.com/news/ https://www.partitionwizard.com/news/ All those articles have nothing to do with application they're trying to sell, but they do (did) bump the pagerank. Many companies do this, which has polluted search results for issues to the most common denominator, making it impossible to find that 1 post that actually has a working solution. And now we've reached the next stage, those pages are no longer written by humans, but entire websites are being generated for the purpose of selling you stuff. I was searching for the name of the bitter part in a peanut, and stumbled upon this website: https://www etprotein com/parts-of-a-peanut-anatomy-of-a-nutty-snack/ (URL is missing a dot after the www and before the com) We have entered a situation where there is no longer 'no answer', there is always some answer out there, simply to sell you stuff. In the past if you searched for Brand X at Retailer Y, and they didn't carry it, you'd get no results. Now they autocomplete Brand X's name, and show you a whole bunch of products related to Brand X, with no indication that they don't carry it.
mvdtnz 1y ago
It also impacts normal people putting human content on the web. It's not just SEO "experts" whose businesses or projects are being buried.
1vuio0pswjnm7 1y ago
"Web search was a waste of time long before the Apocalypse." Difficult to find anyoone who will acknowledge this given the amount of mooney involved. One search engine website pitched itself as having a mission to "organize the world's information". However search != organisation. The information the company was searching did not belong to them. It was outside their control. It generally remains disorganised. The mission was actually to copy the world's information, intermediate access to it and sell advertising services. The company did not sell "organising services" to information publishers. It sold online advertising services to advertisers. Intermediating access to information was nothing more than a tactic to asemble audiences for advertising. The mission was to sell online advertising services. Organising information for web publication is still an unsolved problem. (The problem of vast amount of disorganised information on the web remains unsolved.) Information that is organised is more easily searched. If organised well-enough, it can be generally be browsed without searching. Utrustworthy, unethical coomputer nerds found ways to make money from the disorganisation. They became wealthy and were celebrated as being "successful". ^1 As such, it is difficult to find anyone who will acknowledge that relying on "search", where the algorithm is properietary, secret and can be still gamed by "SEO", etc., was deeply flawed. Flawed not in the sense of it offered no opportunity for making money. Flawed in the sense it ultimately does not work well for locating the information sought by the searcher. If the wealth from intermediating access to information via "search" begins to dry up, then perhaps the fundamental flaws of web search will (again^2) be acknowledged. 1. NB. No one has been successful in organising the information published on the web. 2. As they were in the 1990s when one search project claimed (falsely) it wanted to counter the effects of advertising on "search" and remain in "the academic realm" only to then become the dominant web advertising services company. It makes sense that product searches might be effective because product infomation tends to be organised.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 1y ago
  https://deskthority.net/wiki/Chatter https://deskthority.net/wiki/Chatter

whatevsmate 1y ago

Exactly my sentiment. The web being crummy is not because of AI. The mainstream web - Google search and ad-infested web sites - was already crummy. AI has a higher tolerance for the sea of detritus than I do, so I lean on it to avoid that garbage.

transcriptase 1y ago

Yep. Nowadays even if you try to do your research on something like a foam mattress/bed in a box… be aware that the same company owns virtually all the ranking and review sites as well as all of the dozen brands they’re pretending to compare. Even the old method of appending Reddit to search queries hasn’t returned genuine results for the last few years since companies know to use aged and otherwise organic looking accounts to subtly name drop themselves and reply in agreement throughout threads alongside keywords that will bring in google traffic and upweight their odds of LLM mention.

jfengel 1y ago
Mattress stores have been famously dubious since before the Web. I'm still not exactly sure why they're always going out of business but never actually go away. One near me has been having a bankruptcy sale for three decades.
- blakblakarak 1y ago
  Money laundering.
  - xnx 1y ago
    Are mattress stores a good mechanism for that? I didn't think most of their transactions would be in cash.
    - VladVladikoff 1y ago
      The cash comes from criminal sources and is put on their books as mattress sales so they can deposit it and get it into the banking system.
  - tharmas 1y ago
    Lol!
VladVladikoff 1y ago
As a side note on this, I’m a huge fan of pure latex mattresses. Just a solid slab of latex. Maybe a few slabs of different densities if you want to get fancy. I’m 4 years in on mine and it still holds up really well, no sag issues etc. if you’re in Canada there is MFC (memory comfort Canada) this is the cheapest place I could find, but there might be a better deal if you dig deep enough.
- yojo 1y ago
  Agree with this. I’m done with anything with springs. Before bed in a box was a thing I built my own. 4” of high density foam base, 3” of med density latex, 2” of low density latex on top. I swapped out the top layer a few years back, but the core is still going strong ~14 years in, and it’s still my favorite bed I’ve slept on. One tip is you’ll want some kind of cover for your latex, since long term exposure to air will cause it to degrade.
  - VladVladikoff 1y ago
    What sort of cover are you using for the air degradation issue?
    - yojo 1y ago
      I got one of these: https://www.thefoamfactory.com/mattress/polycottonknitcover.html https://www.thefoamfactory.com/mattress/polycottonknitcover.... Again, this was 14 years ago, no idea if the product quality has fallen off or there’s a better place to get it now.
chrismorgan 1y ago
Also the reviews will be rigidly milquetoast, deferential nonsense, giving every product a participation award in a tailored category of its own, and refusing to ever call one superior to another, because the word “better” is so judgemental and might hurt someone’s feelings.
- xnx 1y ago
  > because the word “better” is so judgemental and might hurt someone’s feelings. Being truly critical of any product would reduce their chances of getting merch, trips, and other gifts from brands.
  - transcriptase 1y ago
    This becomes very apparent when a new game is given to big name streamers early to generate hype, and they’re visibly frustrated and hating the game while pretending it’s great and being careful not to say anything the publisher wouldn’t like.

croes 1y ago

But it won’t help the real useful sites either. So we just get more losers and no winners

jasonsb 1y ago
The fact that we have a lot of AI alternatives instead of a Google Search monopoly is a win in my book. Probably not the win you'd like to see, but a win nonetheless.
- croes 1y ago
  Short term win, long term loss for the user. No win for the website creators

datavirtue 1y ago

Exactly. Every time I follow a link to a link to a source I'm rewarded with a huge wall of text that finds ways to keep repeating the same phrases over and over to MAYBE reveal a little nugget that you need. Talk about having your dignity robbed.

JeanMarcS 1y ago

I would add the search of an error message while developing. Mostly using the search engines for that. But hey ! Now you can ask ChatGPT, Copilot or whatever for the same thing ! We are surounded

spacemadness 1y ago

The only good outcome of LLM content generation for society so far it seems. I remember some recipe site folks were here on HN complaining about ad blockers and it was hilarious following their reasoning. It’s ok to manipulate the entire internet if you’re a business but you’re not allowed any control individually as a consumer I guess. I’m sorry, but filling the internet with 90% fluff garbage doesn’t entitle you to any sympathy.

OptionOfT 1y ago

This is a great observation. Google established rules that would increase your website's pagerank. In response to that SEO was created, and with that the experts. Tags, inbound links, and then more content. A good example of how this spawned articles that are absolutely useless: https://www.partitionwizard.com/news/ https://www.partitionwizard.com/news/ All those articles have nothing to do with application they're trying to sell, but they do (did) bump the pagerank. Many companies do this, which has polluted search results for issues to the most common denominator, making it impossible to find that 1 post that actually has a working solution. And now we've reached the next stage, those pages are no longer written by humans, but entire websites are being generated for the purpose of selling you stuff. I was searching for the name of the bitter part in a peanut, and stumbled upon this website: https://www etprotein com/parts-of-a-peanut-anatomy-of-a-nutty-snack/ (URL is missing a dot after the www and before the com) We have entered a situation where there is no longer 'no answer', there is always some answer out there, simply to sell you stuff. In the past if you searched for Brand X at Retailer Y, and they didn't carry it, you'd get no results. Now they autocomplete Brand X's name, and show you a whole bunch of products related to Brand X, with no indication that they don't carry it.

mvdtnz 1y ago

It also impacts normal people putting human content on the web. It's not just SEO "experts" whose businesses or projects are being buried.

1vuio0pswjnm7 1y ago

"Web search was a waste of time long before the Apocalypse." Difficult to find anyoone who will acknowledge this given the amount of mooney involved. One search engine website pitched itself as having a mission to "organize the world's information". However search != organisation. The information the company was searching did not belong to them. It was outside their control. It generally remains disorganised. The mission was actually to copy the world's information, intermediate access to it and sell advertising services. The company did not sell "organising services" to information publishers. It sold online advertising services to advertisers. Intermediating access to information was nothing more than a tactic to asemble audiences for advertising. The mission was to sell online advertising services. Organising information for web publication is still an unsolved problem. (The problem of vast amount of disorganised information on the web remains unsolved.) Information that is organised is more easily searched. If organised well-enough, it can be generally be browsed without searching. Utrustworthy, unethical coomputer nerds found ways to make money from the disorganisation. They became wealthy and were celebrated as being "successful". ^1 As such, it is difficult to find anyone who will acknowledge that relying on "search", where the algorithm is properietary, secret and can be still gamed by "SEO", etc., was deeply flawed. Flawed not in the sense of it offered no opportunity for making money. Flawed in the sense it ultimately does not work well for locating the information sought by the searcher. If the wealth from intermediating access to information via "search" begins to dry up, then perhaps the fundamental flaws of web search will (again^2) be acknowledged. 1. NB. No one has been successful in organising the information published on the web. 2. As they were in the 1990s when one search project claimed (falsely) it wanted to counter the effects of advertising on "search" and remain in "the academic realm" only to then become the dominant web advertising services company. It makes sense that product searches might be effective because product infomation tends to be organised.

1vuio0pswjnm7 1y ago
https://deskthority.net/wiki/Chatter https://deskthority.net/wiki/Chatter