this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2023
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No Stupid Questions

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Google search failed to even find a hollywood movie, even after 1 hour of attempts. I don't really care about the movie, but I am terrified by the prospect that google now ceased to function on this basic level. Why is this happening?

I understand the explanations of seo and other stuff like spam content. But why are there NO relevant results at all.

I wouldn't mind having to start wading through results at page 2 or even 10 but now it utterly fails to find even the most basic things.

Things you found on the first attempt even just a year ago. Now they are effectively hidden.

To me functionally the entire internet has now vanished. I cannot access anything that I am searching for. Might as well not exist at all.

Has anybody found a way around this?

Is this on purpose? Is this an attack on the free internet, herding people to just the top 5 sites like facebook, youtube, tiktok, and so forth?

Are there search engines that still work?

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago

https://danluu.com/seo-spam/

Here's an interesting read that attempts to compare search results of various search engines

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Yeah bruh, Google has been shit for a good long while, now.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago

Google will let you find what they want you to find. Especially if it's a commercial product of some sort.

Long time rant of mine that google has declined in worth as far as search goes. Cramming ads, videos with ads, and preferred search results now consumes the first page of results and more. If you're searching for a tech problem or a solution to some issue, it's somewhat better after you get past preferred sites and garbage SEO sites all trying to sell you something, but often it's best to use Site: search. You can't really use modifiers like "-" or quotes very much either, the "-" simply does not work at all, and getting too specific with quotes, more than a couple words, will often result in no search results at all.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (4 children)

I seem to find what I need. DDG is my default search and I still end up switching over to google more than half the time to get what I'm looking for.

Do I wish Google wasn't annoying and greedy? Yes. I don't think any corporation owes me that specifically though. But we do owe it to each other to bring attention to it and even reduce demand for it when possible.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Just today I was searching for a news article about a local radio personality who got fired in the last few days. Zero relevant results. Just extraneous garbage. I was stunned.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago

Brave and duckduckgo works. I use both

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (6 children)

I'm using Duckduckgo for a while now. Pretty good

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago

It's why I switched to DuckDuckGo. At least there I can find the result in a few pages. Google doesn't even respect operators anymore. Want to search for enterprise but don't want car ads? Good luck finding captain Picard through all that nonsense.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (12 children)

I’ll be the dense lunkhead and ask/say the obvious:

https://www.google.com/search?q=find+a+Hollywood+movie

I’m guessing you were trying to find a specific, older movie?

OT, but now I’m disappointed to have discovered that LMGTFY’s SSL throws a NSURLErrorDomain error. I would have used that instead.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I'm late to the party and I don't understand several things I read in the comments, so I need to ask for clarification.

What is Google's Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? I looked it up, but the websites StartPage was giving me were not useful (probably ads or spam sites). Is finding these ads/spam sites the problem?

How is this a search engine's fault? I mean, if the internet is now made by walled gardens and spam sites, search engines have trouble finding something really relevant, but how is it their fault?

I should add I navigate logged out on Firefox with the Ublock Origin and NoScript extensions (among others) so I at least don't see Google's ads.

I agree there are some searches where it's next to impossible to find informed sites from spam ones: just a week ago I was looking for "Best Nintendo Switch games released in 2023" and I got lots of dubious blogs, and even when I got hits from IGN, GameSpot or PcMag sites, I realized I don't know if any of these last sites are genuine or bought out (and checked the Wikipedia for more wisdom about their veracity), but how is it the search engine's fault to not navigate through seas of crap?

When I search for academic things, Google or StartPage still seem to give me useful answers.

I have been wary about searches related to reviews about anything, but it just seemed to me the internet is a worse place now in general (because of walled gardens and spam)

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The search engine makes the rules for what they deem important in finding the correct results. SEO is the practice of optimising of a web site to best get your site on the top of the list. All the painful stories about grandmothers and long lost lovers at the top of recipes are to achieve better SEO and a good example of how SEO made the internet worse.

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