Google, the search engine that's forgotten how to search
Users are dissatisfied with Google Search results, citing declining relevance and accuracy. Concerns over ad prioritization, AI content appropriation, and competition from alternative platforms are prompting content creators to reconsider reliance on Google.
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Google is facing significant criticism regarding the quality of its search results, with many users expressing dissatisfaction over the declining relevance and accuracy of organic results. This sentiment is echoed by both casual users and SEO professionals, who have noted a shift towards prioritizing ads over genuine content. The integration of AI-generated overviews has further complicated the landscape, as users feel that their original content is being appropriated without proper acknowledgment. The search engine's focus on monetization has led to a perception of carelessness, with users struggling to differentiate between ads and organic results. Additionally, the rise of alternative platforms, such as Bing and social media, indicates a growing discontent with Google’s offerings. Users have reported issues with local search accuracy and the overwhelming presence of ads, which detracts from the overall search experience. As a result, many content creators are reconsidering their reliance on Google, fearing that their work may be exploited by AI models like Gemini, which utilize scraped content to generate responses. This situation has prompted discussions about the future of content creation and the sustainability of relying on Google for traffic.
- Users are increasingly dissatisfied with the quality of Google Search results.
- The integration of ads into organic search results has led to confusion and frustration.
- Many content creators are concerned about their work being appropriated by AI models.
- Alternative search engines and platforms are gaining traction among users.
- There is a growing sentiment that Google’s focus on monetization is harming user experience.
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18 commentsA fictitious case might be "Is it possible to fly by inserting two gherkins in your nostrils" and the response from Gemini has been in the spirit of "by choosing gherkins with appropriate thrust, it is indeed possible to fly by nasal insertion"
It's great at the syntactic parse. It's really not great at the semantic intent sometimes.
Don't eat tide pod kids.
Google has always been renowned for its speed and the AI responses take a "short" while to generate, by which time I've already scrolled past the result to find an actual website.
It also seems wrong to produce your own search results above the content you have scraped in order to generate your own response. You negate the need to engage with the websites that generated that information for you.
Additionally, it covers ChatGPT Search as an alternative, but is criticising Google search as "the search engine that's forgotten how to search". Like, do you want traditional search or do you want AI search, pick one?
I get the frustration with web search. So much of the web is copy-pasted/generated rubbish that no search engine is giving the results we used to get 10 years ago. But personally (and I am biased), I'm still getting better results from Google than from DDG, and since getting access to AI overviews in Australia a month ago or so I'm getting fairly consistent good answers with that.
The author started a new channel exclusively for a single video after prompting from some users on LinkedIn but paints the plateauing of views as a shadow ban rather than just perhaps only the moderate follow-through from LinkedIn, lack of existing subscriber numbers to bolster spread, own promotion, etc. This is isn't something unique to that video, it occurs for any number of benign videos.
But is that content still being made? Dead Internet theory is a meme (or maybe even seriously believed?) for a reason - everything seems to be on a handful of increasingly algorithmically driven walled gardens.
I could start a blog, or scrawl on the "bathroom wall" of a comment box. Which will get me more views and interactions for the least amount of effort? Yes, there's a few more people on the internet, but not a lot more educated people. The internet started as shady dive bar, and how now turned into a Vegas Casino. It's more family friendly, but you're also far less likely to have an argument about philosophy with a slightly crazy person because they're now just playing the slot machines.
Who has time to write a blog post about how they do unit tests anymore?
In all the 500 articles of how Google no longer remembers how to search there's never a reasonable example of something it can't search for that a reasonable search would work for. I mean "what time is the ferry" never did work - you'd have to specify the ferry company etc.
It's all oh no it has ads - oh no it shows content I think is uncool - oh no duck duck go is cooler for cool people like me - oh no it has AI and it isn't prefect!
It reminds me of the 500 bitcoin is dead articles.
Google works ok for me and still has the vast bulk of searches.
In the future, maybe OpenAI or Google or Perplexity will pay for people to write about interesting subjects because doing it for free online is no longer rewarding.
Economic pursuits dictate why, which, how, and when more idealistic goals are prioritized.
huh, that is … definitely not my experience of LinkedIn. My experience of LinkedIn is that it is a wasteland of hustle grindcore fake-it-till-you-make-it dipshittery.
If you search for a physical business, Google is amazing. If you search for anything physically around you, again, amazing. Maps? Find an online vendor for a certain product in your country? Google wins. This is what normal people use Google for. To find things in the real world.
Also, asking people who do SEO as a career about Google is pointless. They're literally the enemy of good, organic search results. Asking random internet users is equally pointless, everyone hates everything on the internet.
Go on the street and ask some random person walking by which search engine is the best... People don't use Google because they're entrapped, but because it's the most useful for the normal things that normal people do.
- Google will not invest more in "domain" search
- Google will not make any revolutions, because search is their bread and butter. They will not do anything that could "destroy" it
- "awesome lists" replaced organic search engines in github, and curated lists are very well done [0]
- for reddit there are megathreads, which also are curated lists
- To find popular sites I use my own simple bookmark search [0]
- To find new contents I use my own RSS client. I use around 500 sources [1]
- Currently I do not use Google search. I use chat gpt, RSS client. Google search is at third position, and even it I sometimes replace with kagi, or yandex [2]. Google is already dead for me
- Whenever I have to go to Google search I am disgusted with the amount of content farms it spews at me, at the yahooziation of the result page
- Because there are only a little amount of walled gardens, a simple bookmark search, like in [0] is enough to guide me through the Internet
[0] https://rumca-js.github.io/quickstart/public/static_lists/vi...
[1] https://github.com/rumca-js/Django-link-archive
[2] https://rumca-js.github.io/quickstart/public/static_lists/vi...
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