Zach Gage

Well if you were wondering why Google search sucks so bad the answer is really something —

EDIT: hm well after some time it doesn’t seem like this article is exactly true. Sorry about that! Should not have boosted

https://www.wired.com/story/google-antitrust-lawsuit-search-results/

A Note From WIRED Leadership

WIRED
Oct 4, 2023 at 2:52amWeb
Show threadZach GageOct 4, 2023
upon some digging, it's not clear exactly what is happening when google 'alters' your query. it doesn't seem like it ‘replaces' it. But it does seem like something really fishy has been going on for years in how google has taken so many steps to disempower users from being able to constrain their queries
Show threadTim Ellis 🦝Oct 4, 2023
@helvetica I miss Alta-Vista. Unmatched power search.
Show threadMichael CookOct 4, 2023

@helvetica I gave up recently because I noticed this kind of thing.

Even if they’re not swapping for something that is explicitly easier to sell ads against, they never seem to search for what I actually searched for. They always seem to turn it into some more basic/popular query that is similar.

Is that to “return relevant results”? Or because the popular query has more ad slots?

Don’t know. But it destroyed the value of Google search for me. So I went to DDG, works just as well these days.

Show threadTravis LaFleurOct 4, 2023
@helvetica we were confused by this too https://mastodon.social/@steveportigal/111172569905492231
Show threadLexGear  Oct 4, 2023
@helvetica Is 'duck duck go' a good alternative?
Show threadZach GageOct 4, 2023
@LexGear kagi
Show threadLexGear  Oct 4, 2023
@helvetica Interesting. How do they make money?
Show threadZach GageOct 4, 2023
@LexGear you pay them a subscription fee
Show threadluddite 🇵🇸 computerOct 4, 2023
@LexGear @helvetica yes, I've been using it for ages, it's great
Show threadVery Human RobotOct 4, 2023

@helvetica this is a gross misrepresentation of how semantic search works.
But I suppose it gets clicks.

... which is the real reason modern search is bad; SEO and click optimizing marketers!

Show threadjmmcdOct 4, 2023
@StompyRobot @helvetica the good thing about Twitter is a person from Google search showed up in the thread to explain how confused and wrong the Wired writer is.
Show threadZach GageOct 4, 2023
@jmmcd @StompyRobot do you have a link?
Show threadStarkRGOct 4, 2023
@helvetica Jokes on them, Google's search results were so bad I stopped using it.
Show threadRicOct 4, 2023

@helvetica as a pro web dev with a reasonable understanding of how to tailer content to rank well in Google listings, and as somebody who works regularly with SEO agencies, I find this a difficult claim to believe.

Equally though, as somebody who's used both Google's and Facebook's advertising networks and experienced first-hand how incredibly dodgy they both are, I'm also not at all surprised by this one.

We optimise our websites to do well on Google, but I'd recommend DuckDuckGo for search 😉

Show threadZach GageOct 4, 2023

@dev_ric yeah i agree it seems more complicated than portrayed.

my suspicion is that if they are modifying the query it is the one that goes out to secondary components of the search (like what widgets to show, what do we tell the ad network the search is for)