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Google has sent internet into ‘spiral of decline’, claims DeepMind co-founder
(www.telegraph.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2023
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I heard lot of complaints of google search and seen the decline, but it’s like it got significantly worse in the last 1-2 years. I read it’s not just ads and clickbait/seo “articles”, but google is editing your queries without your knowledge, so they can milk more money out of their advertisers.
It’s mostly unusable now if you want to search for smg new, I just use it to jump to already known pages (e.g. google “vodafone” to jump to the page with a few clicks an pay my bills, often simpler than typing/bookmarking).
That came from a wired article which was quietly retracted because the author had misunderstood a slide from the Google anti trust trial and had the meaning nearly backwards.
What Google is actually doing is allowing advertisers to match keywords to common synonyms and other relevant keywords. If you search for (insert brandname) infant sleepwear for example Google will also show ads from adverts from companies who selected the keywords "baby pajamas". And that specific keyword replacement was only relevant to advertising"..
Google has long been transparent about the fact they interpret the meaning of keywords for searches to try to improve their relevance, and if you think about it if Google was replacing low value keywords with higher value ones it would be obvious, as generic searches would only turn up stuff from luxury brands and ads wouldn't have broad keyword matching.
There are plenty of things to blame Google for, the low return on advertising that publishers get and the increasing need for the entire Internet to be locked behind millions of different paywalls, SEO optimization, click bait bullshit, link farms, but one of them isn't replacing keywords to maximize value.
So they ARE replacing search terms. Or at least adding to them.
So they ARE doing it make more money.
This was a good explanation but it doesn't really refute his point.
Except for the fact that they aren't replacing keywords on the user end, simply matching advertiser keywords to a broader range of keywords specifically for the ad results.
Claiming they are replacing user keywords for higher value ones is absolutely incorrect, which is what the article they got that info from specifically claimed before it was retracted.
They aren't taking watch searches and showing only luxury brand results, they are taking luxury watch searches and showing generic ads for "watches" alongside the relevant search results through the normal Algorithm which ties to find what it thinks is most relevant to those keywords.
That latter one is something all search engines do and without doing so they wouldn't be very useful to the average person who doesn't know about search operators and advanced search refining tools.. Simple keyword matching is too easily tricked by the SEO industry.
Compare to Amazon.com. Same thing. Ever less relevant searches in favor of who paid most to promote their products (usually random Chinese company with super cheap low quality products). Nowadays even if you search for a specific brand and model, it will often be buried by crap. And there is no way around it with advanced search parameters or filters.
It's a shame, I remember when Google literally revolutionized how we search the web, and Amazon did the same with ecommerce.
Amazon was for a long time not available in my east EU country, first time I checked it a few years ago, I was baffled how people could find this useful. Now I live in west EU, so not many alternatives, I hate it for the same reasons you list. Unless you specifically look for smg and know the details, you get all the useless shit pushed forward in your search.
This is what led me to Kagi. It’s been so liberating.
Mind elaborating?
At the risk of sounding like a shill sure! (I’m not, just a happy user)
Kagi is a paid search engine. They just introduced a 10/month plan that made the news which led me to their trial. I signed up a day later.
Because I’m paying money I have the feeling that I’m not the product unlike other free search engines. There’s likely no nefarious manipulation of search results and it’s refreshing to see new features rolling out.
It’s not all roses tho. Your searches are now tied to you and who really knows what’s going on with your data behind the scenes. Everyone needs to make their own decisions based on their priorities.
Exactly. It feels like we aren't the product but we don't actually know what it costs to run Kagi and whether the $10/mo is sustainable or just a way to reduce the losses till they get sufficient market share. Upon which they might start doing things to recover the losses. I'm also paying for it but this has been at the back of my head. Until they're a non-profit with similar transparency to Wikimedia, it won't rest. Speaking of, if one of the established, reputable internet non-profits like Wikimedia or Mozilla starts a paid search engine, I'd be all over it. I'd pay for it for as long as I can afford it.
Edit:
A bit about this from Kagi.
DO they geneuinly improve results or you are in it just for privacy ?
The few times I wasn’t sure I did the same search in google and got similar results so I’m 100% happy.
They even have some nice features like location aware searching, instant answer results (eg a box to convert currency), etc.
Additionally you can weight or even blacklist domains so you can completely remove results from Instagram.