for many years now – stopped using them back when they started to ignore +include, -exclude, and “phrases”
So wait, the search operators don’t work anymore? It seemed like it but is that confirmed?
They still work as intended actually, but most pages are so inundated with SEO garble that they’re effectively useless
They really don’t, though. Inclusion/exclusion operators work most of the time, but it’ll still return results with explicitly-excluded keywords. It also fucks up results by returning entries with similar words to your query, even when you double-quote a part of the search term. Advanced queries that use booleans and logical AND/OR don’t work at all anymore, that functionality has been completely removed. It returns what it thinks you want, not what you actually want, even when explicitly crafting a query to be as specific as possible.
I use Kagi for search now and it’s 1000x better, especially when researching technical issues; it’s like when Google actually respected your search terms and query as a whole.
They still work but they search the entire page, not just what’s visible in your browser. A search for "term" does not implicate you being able to find term on the results’ rendered pages.
So pages are just including every relevant term hidden somewhere like they making resumes in the early aughts with 4pt white text with bullshit at the bottom?
Google is no longer a search engine.
It’s a storefront.
Yes. If you do a search on this site for posts about google, you’ll find multiple threads about this. Basically it seems that google is losing the arms race against SEO, and new LLM bots are mostly responsible.
Basically it seems that google is losing the arms race against SEO[…]
What does this mean in particular?
Companies are better at getting their shitty product/spammy pages to the top of search results than Google is able to find high quality pages to show you.
Google has to create algorithms to judge pages based on their content and get good results , companies only have to fine tune their pages to match the algorithm.
IIRC Google penalizes sites if they are detected to be abusing the SEO system. Not sure how effective the detection is though.
People with mediocre content using SEO to get themselves higher in the search results than sites with actual information on them. That way when searching for something you need to dig through the shit to get to the nugget of actual useful info.
Search engines tried to rank pages based on how big the chance is the info the user is looking for is actually on that page. SEO makes it so that pages with a lower chance of containing the right info, are ranked before pages with a higher chance. This leads those pages to get more hits and thus marketing thinks it’s done their job. But in reality it just pisses off users, blaming the dumb sites that do this and more often the search engine. Search engines are trying to fight this, but SEO is big business, so they are losing the battle.
Now these days there are more issues, like search engines not having access to a lot of info in so called walled gardens. So more good info gets created in places where it can’t easily be found. Also search engines have become more and more advertisement machines instead of search engines and with this shift in priorities, the user experience deteriorates.
But yeah SEO sucks and has always sucked.
It means if you search for anything, your first 3 pages of hits are the same useless websites that exist to push ads vaguely related to your search rather than real info. Trying to research a broken TV used to return things like AVForums or reddit threads or samsung support sites. Now it’s “TEN BEST TV’s IN 2024” that are nothing but sponsored content and affiliate links to tvs on amazon.
Google can’t figure out how to tell the difference between the former and the latter, and isn’t motivated to because they get paid for the ad clicks, and not for the forum clicks.
If google detected continuing searching after a page visit, then that page you looked at was probably not having the right answer, right?
SEO solution : make super long pages with the history of what you are looking for and adding mumbo jumbo stuff to bloat out the page so you stay there longer. Now google thinks you found what you looked for.
And a lot of other crap ofc.
SEO (search engine “optimization”) is how a search engine ranks its results. The more webpages link to a certain result (as determined by a webcrawler), the higher it is displayed. That is why bloggers are often paid by bad actors to publish editorials that link to a scam, virus, or gambling website.
Google popularized the concept in its early years, back when SEO was an organic indicator of a result’s popularity. It made them the single best choice. Then, capitalism happened, and SEO became a resource to exploit.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.
The technicals of all the ways this is done nowadays are complicated, but basically SEO itself is now a pretty huge industry, just website owners paying SEO companies to show up higher in search results.
Basically the scenario we are now in is that companies that can afford to game and manipulate the way google’s search algorithm works in terms of prioritizing ‘relevance’, ie, what you see first, have been so successful at this that it has essentially ruined the ability to find any website that cannot afford to do so.
This would be something like 99.999% of existing websites are going to be much harder to find without going through pages and pages of results, whereas a tiny number of websites that can afford massive SEO are going to show up on the first page, as well as in search results for search terms they are barely related to at all.
What incentive does Google have to even put up a fight? Worse results = more time searching = more “traffic” = more ad revenue. It’s not like they really have to worry about search engine competitors. Please do not try to recommend DDG to me. It is just a different flavor of garbage.
Yes, there’s a great article I read a while back about how and why recipe web sites became so bad and frustrating. Basically, a good website would show you the recipe, you would read it and leave. However, since you didn’t spend much time on the site, google would rank it much lower.
On the other hand, if you encountered a long rambling story that you had to read through and scroll through ads, before getting to the useful information, then google would rank the site higher because you spent more time on it. That’s why there are so many memes about how bad recipe website are.
And of course, even before LLMs, it was trivial to implement a copy paste bot to create a massive number of web sites.
I live in central Canada.
I am reading the comments, and I am noticing that other people’s experiences are very different than mine.
For me, Google Search has reached the point where it will not even give me results for my search terms. I say this without an iota of hyperbole.
It’s so coincidental that this conversation comes up, but I actually sat there yesterday agog, looking at my desktop Firefox browser window… Scrolling through the entire search results page and realizing that not a single thing was even close to what I searched
It is noteworthy because I have been observing a steady decline, but it was the very first time I could make use of literally nothing that they gave back. In an unsettling way, the gravity of it hit me emotionally right there.
Don’t associate ME with those banjo-pickin’ inbreds.
edit: I had referred to the people of Saskatchewan as a bunch of banjo-pickin’ inbreds. I was wrong to make such a statement, and I’d like to apologize. The vast majority of the people in Saskatchewan have no idea how to play the banjo.
Canada doesn’t exist in Google…It is a the proverbial happy tone/hue couple…sorry, if I that wasn’t oblique enough
Canada is trying to de-google itself by “Search Engine Optimization” death by inviting a Nazi.
Google any image for happy >tone/hue< couple
Google (Kinda) Apologizes After Woke AI Gemini Exposed As Anti-White Racist
This reads like an incoherent AI-generated rambling. I’m sorry if you actually have a point you’re trying to make, but all I see is broken English, lack of direction, and an unrelated link at the end. If you are in fact not a bot, then please slow down and quality check before posting.
Google search was so legendary when it came out, it was able to find me perfect results when I would even type in almost gibberish, it somehow predicted what I actually meant. Over time the results were worse and worse, then nothing but products would show in the results a few years ago. Buy this, buy what,etc. no more research, just trash products in the search results. Google greed killed itself.
The Search Engine became a small part of Googles operations, and then Google became a small part of Alphabets operations.
Turns out advertising is where the money is.
