When did Google start being so rubbish?

[Ayahuasca]

I mean, back in the day if you searched for something obscure you might get a couple of hits and that was that.

Now, for the same obscure search, you get thousands of hits, none of which are relevant, most of which are advertising something, and you see that your searched-for words have been crossed-out.

It is deeply irritating.

[Wombat3]

Ayahuasca said:

I mean, back in the day if you searched for something obscure you might get a couple of hits and that was that.

Now, for the same obscure search, you get thousands of hits, none of which are relevant, most of which are advertising something, and you see that your searched-for words have been crossed-out.

It is deeply irritating.

You appear to be operating under the misconception that Google is an impartial search engine provider.

Its not, its an advertising company/medium

[TTmonkey]

Yes it's getting worse yearly. Search for something very obscure, as you say, before you know it it's suggesting you can buy it on ebay, even if you can't.

[C&C]

Have you tried an alternative search?

Something like Duck, Duck, Go which doesn't track you and so doesn't offer adverts?

Also depending on what you are searching for, there are a bunch of other search engine alternatives, although some are a bit niche.

[TooMany2cvs]

Ayahuasca said:

I mean, back in the day if you searched for something obscure you might get a couple of hits and that was that.

Now, for the same obscure search, you get thousands of hits, none of which are relevant, most of which are advertising something, and you see that your searched-for words have been crossed-out.

It is deeply irritating.

The web has grown massively, and people have learned a lot about SEO.

Then there's the way google pay to offer you "free" services... Install an ad blocker (uBlock Origin), and watch all the sponsored results just disappear completely...

[TwigtheWonderkid]

Duck Duck Go is the future.

[Tim2k9]

If you don’t want it to exclude certain words put “ “ round your search string.

However search is just an algorithm and people are going to try cheat it, searching for anything review related is just going bring up endless pass of 5 stat reviews even for the worst product.

[98elise]

It started being rubbish when google decided you were the product not the customer. You and your purchasing power are being sold to the highest bidder. Google don't give a crap if you get the result you were looking for, they only care that you visit the website of a paying client.

[Kermit power]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

Duck Duck Go is the future.

It certainly looks intriguing, but how do they make their money?

The like of Google provide a "free" service through advertising, and I understand the business model even if I'm not too keen on it, but if Duck Duck Go is free and presumably not funded by advertising, how does it work?

Alternatively, if it is funded by advertising, why would anyone choose to advertise on it, given that the advertising would presumably be completely random, as users aren't tracked?

[Atomic12C]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

Duck Duck Go is the future.

+1

Been using this a lot over the past year.
It also still allows "image grabbing", where as google recently prevented this.
I think also that Duck Duck is not "powered by google" or "bing", similar to the likes of Yahoo and some others.

[CzechItOut]

Kermit power said:

It certainly looks intriguing, but how do they make their money?

Adverts based on keyword searches. Same as Google.

[TooMany2cvs]

Kermit power said:

...but how do they make their money?

And this is the question that ALWAYS needs to be asked.

Nobody provides shedloads of servers and internet connection as a public service.

DDG get their money from...

...advertising and affiliates...

...through MS/Yahoo!

https://duck.co/help/company/advertising-and-affil...

[ExPat2B]

This phrase will help you understand much online

"If you are not paying for the product, then YOU are the product"

[RegMolehusband]

I have an interest in search engine performance from my business point-of-view.

I've just checked the number of visitors to our website referred from search engines since the 1st of Jan.

Google - 15,500
Bing - 698
Yahoo - 279
DuckDuckGo - 42

We rank well in each of them, so I think Google will be king for some time to come yet, despite its shortcomings.

[CzechItOut]

ExPat2B said:

This phrase will help you understand much online

"If you are not paying for the product, then YOU are the product"

And even when you are paying for the product, YOU'RE still the product. So meaningless really.

[sgtBerbatov]

Atomic12C said:

TwigtheWonderkid said:

Duck Duck Go is the future.

+1

Been using this a lot over the past year.
It also still allows "image grabbing", where as google recently prevented this.
I think also that Duck Duck is not "powered by google" or "bing", similar to the likes of Yahoo and some others.

Duck Duck Go is it's own search engine, powered by or built by Yandex who are a Russian company.

I've used them on and off for years, but I have to say in the last 6 months their results have improved immensely.

I also have the Privacy Badger plugin from the EFF and it doesn't alert me to anything spying on me which is good!

[captain_cynic]

TooMany2cvs said:

The web has grown massively, and people have learned a lot about SEO.

Then there's the way google pay to offer you "free" services... Install an ad blocker (uBlock Origin), and watch all the sponsored results just disappear completely...

This, as well as a tracking blocker like Ghostery. Everything loads much faster. I cant imagine how people put up with ads these days.

[sas62]

CzechItOut said:

ExPat2B said:

This phrase will help you understand much online

"If you are not paying for the product, then YOU are the product"

And even when you are paying for the product, YOU'RE still the product. So meaningless really.

And sometimes when you aren't paying from the product you are not the product.

It's a good soundbite but as you say, completely meaningless.

[budgie smuggler]

Seems like SEO has fked it up.

I got so fed up with pinterest clogging up many of my search results that I created a custom search which automatically appends -siteinterest.co.uk and all the variants.

[killingjoker]

98elise said:

It started being rubbish when google decided you were the product not the customer. You and your purchasing power are being sold to the highest bidder. Google don't give a crap if you get the result you were looking for, they only care that you visit the website of a paying client.

Google is evil. Anything with the word smart at the front is best avoided.