2215
Google “search” (lemmy.world)
submitted 10 months ago by themaninblack@lemmy.world to c/memes@lemmy.ml
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] De_Narm@lemmy.world 150 points 10 months ago

That's not only a search engine problem in itself - websites also got worse in general to appeal to googles algorithm. Which means that other search engines would show similar crap, unfortunately.

[-] blind3rdeye@lemm.ee 78 points 10 months ago

I remember in the early days of the internet Alta Vista search worked quite well. It was easy to find what you wanted, and find new things relevant to your interests - and so it became very popular. Unfortunately, Alta Vista only worked well if people made their websites in good faith. It was searching meta-tags and text on the page; and so when greedy people wanted to get more traffic on their website, they found it easy to exploit Alta Vista's search. As more and more people started exploiting the system, the search got worse and worse.

I remember the day I switched to using Google. I was searching for some C programming stuff on Alta Vista with technical words - and the results had more porn sites than programming sites. Like, wtf. Obviously that search doesn't work anymore. It stopped working because arseholes were exploiting it.

And now, pretty much the same thing is happening to Google. Their algorithm worked better for longer than what Alta Vista was doing, but it seems that self-interested people have kind of cracked the system, and now the results are mostly just junk instead of useful stuff. (Note, I stopped using Google several years ago. I've been using Duck Duck Go. But you're right that the problem is more widespread than just Google.)

[-] sub_ubi@lemmy.ml 22 points 10 months ago

Profit motives are good at ruining social platforms; society.

[-] greenskye@lemm.ee 40 points 10 months ago

Yep the whole Internet feels like a dying mall. There are still some places I go for specific needs, but I'd say my casual browsing of any kind just keeps getting smaller.

[-] bruhduh@lemmy.world 14 points 10 months ago

Nah man, duckduckgo is good, there's other alternatives and searx unified them all

[-] Gabu@lemmy.ml 28 points 10 months ago

DuckDuckGo is not good. It's only marginally less pathetic than Google, but that has to do for the time being.

[-] Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.ca 19 points 10 months ago

Eh, DDG is mediocre, but I don't know of a better one ATM.

[-] seathru@lemm.ee 9 points 10 months ago

Kagi is pretty good. But not free.

[-] SailorMoss@sh.itjust.works 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

SearX isn’t maintained anymore, SearXNG is the meta-search engine that is still maintained.

[-] baropithecus@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago

I legitimately switched back to local teletext as my main news source. No SEO bullshit, no ads, the articles are succinct and written by humans (for now).

this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2023
2215 points (100.0% liked)

Memes

45532 readers
354 users here now

Rules:

  1. Be civil and nice.
  2. Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS