Mastodawn

sighofannoyance

Has google stopped working for finding anything?

https://lemmy.world/post/10127824

Has google stopped working for finding anything? - Lemmy.World

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?

Björn Dec 30, 2023

I’ve finally switched to DuckDuckGo because of this. Even though only about two months ago I said here somewhere that it’s garbage. Google just managed to convince me that they’re more garbage.

coffee_poops Dec 30, 2023

That’s because DDG gets its results from Bing.

radix Dec 30, 2023

But without the chatgpt spam that has overtaken bing the last few months.

ebits21 Dec 30, 2023

I came to the exact same decision a few months ago.

DDG used to be worse; now it’s better.

🐑🇸 🇭 🇪 🇪 🇵 🇱 🇪🐑Dec 30, 2023

The only downside of DDG is that it doesn’t have a decade or two of algorithm data to personalise your searches and sort of “learn” what you mean with certain terms.

Not like I miss it too much. It’s just a mild culture shock to suddenly having to be more clear with my searches

Scrollone Dec 30, 2023

That’s a good thing, in my opinion. I miss when Google results were the same for everyone.

jennwiththesea Dec 31, 2023

It just occurred to me that this ability to communicate with a search engine, that everyone used to call Google-fu, was exactly this! It didn’t already know (or think it knew) what you were getting at, and it’s took some practice to figure out how to finesse the results.

/home/pineapplelover Dec 30, 2023

You mean the upside is it doesn’t track every behavioral trait? I can live with that

tpihkal Dec 30, 2023

I’ve been using Bing and choosing Google only as a second resort or for any shopping I do. If Google wants to be an ad filled shopping mall, I’ll treat it as an ad-blocked shopping mall.

Em Adespoton Dec 30, 2023

In that case you should be using DuckDuckGo; it uses the same database as Bing, without the tracking of Bing, and with the ability to use ! commands to pull in results from other places (!g=Google, !w=Wikipedia, etc.).

ColeSloth Dec 30, 2023

So you’re using Bing.

WarmSoda Dec 30, 2023

It may be bing under the hood, but it gives simple results without having ads and giant boxes everywhere.

CobblerScholar Dec 30, 2023

Over the last year of me using DDG as my primary search engine it has noticeably improved, give it another and we might see a trace of that spark Google had

caseyweederman Dec 30, 2023

I find my DDG results are only getting worse with time.
Same problem as with Google, and then some.
Carefully craft search string and submit.
Click through to a result, scroll and try to find the part that addresses my question.
Get frustrated and Ctrl+F for the active part of my search string.
Don’t find it.
Hit back to search results to repeat (but now the results are shuffled for some reason?)
Eventually give up and put the active parts into quotes to force their inclusion.
Same results.

Why am I getting these results if they don’t even match my search string?

KptnAutismus Dec 30, 2023

been using duckduckgo for a while now. it definetely could be better, but google is just hot garbage.

herrvogel Dec 30, 2023

Ddg is my default, but I still find myself having to resort to Google when the query is not dead simple. The engine is good enough for most cases, but overall Google is just better imo.

TrickDacy Dec 30, 2023

DDG is way worse than google. I am baffled by this comment.

Rhynoplaz Dec 30, 2023

I’m really surprised that you couldn’t find a Hollywood movie in an hour. Can I ask what the movie was? Was there a specific question you couldn’t find the answer for?

HjFUN Dec 30, 2023

I’ve always had the opposite, that a movie having a certain title absolutely destroys that term or phrase’s use unless all you want is that movie.

🐑🇸 🇭 🇪 🇪 🇵 🇱 🇪🐑Dec 30, 2023

People trying to look up the Kirby character “Zero Two” to find fan creations based on it…

Only to get barraged with weeb garbage.

Seriously you used to easily find fan content, remixes and music. Now all you get are shitty AMVs of some turbovirgins “Waifu”

WestwardWind Dec 30, 2023

Looks fine to me

WestwardWind Dec 30, 2023

Looks fine to me

🐑🇸 🇭 🇪 🇪 🇵 🇱 🇪🐑Dec 30, 2023

People trying to look up the Kirby character “Zero Two” to find fan creations based on it…

Only to get barraged with weeb garbage.

Seriously you used to easily find fan content, remixes and music. Now all you get are shitty AMVs of some turbovirgins “Waifu”

Anon124 Dec 30, 2023

In google search for

“kirby” “zero two” And you only get the kirby results

🐑🇸 🇭 🇪 🇪 🇵 🇱 🇪🐑Dec 30, 2023

Unfortunately negative prompts don’t work half of the time on Google. As many in this comment section have noted.

Anon124 Dec 30, 2023

Google will nag you and not show them, but if you press the “I really mean what I searched for” thing then it usually works for me. I just wish Google would trust that I know what I typed.

funkless_eck Dec 30, 2023

exact match was phased out years ago sadly

Anon124 Dec 30, 2023

I just tried the search prompt I wrote and it worked flawlessly. Idk what the issue is.

KISSmyOS Dec 30, 2023

No, it wasn’t. Still works perfectly for me (even to the point that there are zero results if the exact term simply doesn’t exist.)

yamanii Dec 30, 2023

Didn’t even need the quotations and google knows I’m a weeb, that person is just making a mountain of a mole hill because the newest character with the same name is more popular.

DrQuint Dec 31, 2023

This is because google, surprise surprise, actually knows who you are.

I have very similar results looking for things like Dota 2 hero names. It knows Bane is the nightmare purple monster, not the masked walking meme batman villain, and I don’t have to specify.

What google is TRULY garbage at is answering questions.

thisbenzingring Dec 30, 2023

turbovirgins

I have never heard this term before… Oh that has me laughing, I can never not associate that with weebs and waifu now

BlanketsWithSmallpox Dec 31, 2023

Have all three with zero two kirby search.

m.soundcloud.com/…/zero-two-kirby-64-the-crystal-…

Zero Two (Kirby 64 The Crystal Shards) GaMetal Remix Ft. Edobean (2020 Version)

Stream Zero Two (Kirby 64 The Crystal Shards) GaMetal Remix Ft. Edobean (2020 Version) by Jarrett on desktop and mobile. Play over 320 million tracks for free on SoundCloud.

SoundCloud

NoneYa Dec 30, 2023

This is what I hate. Sometimes I like to search up “life on mars” and see the various pictures people have created and the images people claim have life in them.

But I always get results for a television show of the same name that has absolutely nothing to do with the planet…

jettrscga Dec 30, 2023

I understand OP’s sentiment that google’s getting worse, but this sounds like ragebait. No examples of what they searched for an hour.

𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘰 Dec 30, 2023

People don’t lie on the internet, it doesn’t happen 🫥

fat_stig Dec 30, 2023

I would ask why op didn’t use IMDb.com or trakt which catalogue every Hollywood movie?

that guy Dec 30, 2023

People used to be able to do research. Haven’t they ever heard of the Dewey Decimal system?

UHF Conan The Librarian

YouTube

alignedchaos Dec 31, 2023

You can’t ask, because the OP is just part 1 of an ad

Concave1142 Dec 30, 2023

I have also noticed it seems harder to find stuff on Google now. My pet theory is that it is the building in of AI to search (Bing Chat anyone?) that is affecting Google search results. Lately, I have been going to Bard & ChatGPT to do searches but treat it more as a jumping off point to help point the direction of where or how to search.

Not perfect, but just a method I’ve been playing with for the past month off & on.

southsamurai Dec 30, 2023

Eh, for some things, it will work, and I’m amazed you couldn’t find info on a recent movie. But it really has gone to shit. You’ll end up with copy/pasted bot articles a few pages deep on most searches, unless it’s something on those huge sites you mentioned.

𝕽𝖚𝖆𝖎𝖉𝖍𝖗𝖎𝖌𝖍 Dec 30, 2023

Duckduckgo has gotten good enough that they’re being more brave with ads: the first several results are always ads for me now, such that I usually have to scroll to get ito good results. I don’t begrudge the ads; ddg doesn’t track users, and ads are how they fund the service.

Lately, I’ve switched my default engine to a good searx instance. When I’m not looking for a business, it gives me better results. However, when I am loojing for products or services, DDG is better. DDG seems to prioritize commercial interests, either intentionally or not. I suspect it has something to do with SEO; maybe searx ignores a lot of that.

I also find that Bing is providing better results than Google, lately.

Finally, here’s one of the best search engine resources I’ve come across recently:

Search Engine Party

Search Engine Party

Compare popular search engines across security and privacy related data points.

ColeSloth Dec 30, 2023

Duck duck go IS Bing. So of course they’re both getting better/worse at the same time. They’re the same search engine.

TiffyBelle Dec 30, 2023

This isn’t accurate. DDG isn’t just Bing. They source results from Microsoft/Bing, but they also have their own web crawler and they prioritize results differently than just Bing. Implying DDG is simply a mirror of Bing is misleading.

Varyk Dec 30, 2023

I like bings ai assistant for regular searches now since its answers have sources you can check for relevance.

It’s definitely better than Google at this point.

FlatFootFox Dec 30, 2023

The signal to noise ratio has seemed particularly out of wack with Google lately. The amount of blog spam SEO nonsense that crops up into the top 4 results has been pretty noticeable.

I’m not sure it’s entirely a Google thing. Reddit’s decline has made it harder to find quick answers for, “My washing machine’s making this weird string of beeps?” Niche hobbies moving from forums to Discord chats means, “How do I safely remove a keycap without damaging the switch?” is becoming a pinned message in a server you have to hear about via word of mouth. Basically any technology troubleshooting topic has moved from a blog post / forum to a YouTube video. And a 10 minute long one at that. Gotta hit those higher ad tiers.

For what it’s worth, I’m starting the new year off giving Kagi a try. It’s a startup trying to make a paid search engine work. You get 100 free searches to give it a try. After that it’s $5/mo for 300 searches, or $10/mo for unlimited. I’m not sure I’ll sign up for it just yet, but it seems pretty nice. No ads, custom components for things like Stack Overflow and Reddit, and some other nice touches for people who care about search. Their image search actually has a “View Image” link in addition to the “View Page” link. It’s hard to quantify how “good” a search result is, but I’ve been pretty impressed with it so far.

Kagi Search - A Premium Search Engine

Better search results with no ads. Welcome to Kagi (pronounced kah-gee), a paid search engine that gives power back to the user.

ɯᴉuoʇuɐ Dec 30, 2023

The last part of your post sounds like an ad straight out of those overlong YT videos.

Illuminostro Dec 30, 2023

That’s because it is.

FlatFootFox Dec 30, 2023

Have Brands™ started astroturfing Lemmy yet?

I’m not completely sold on Kagi yet. I’m still in the trial period right now. But paid services can be a tough sell online. I figured I’d be up front about the costs rather than wait for the inevitable “$10 a month for search!?” comment.

SpaceNoodle Dec 30, 2023

Yes, they have

eric Dec 30, 2023

I haven’t seen any obvious astroturfing yet, but your last paragraph really did have the vibe of a smoothly transitioned paid promotion. Not saying it was, but even the comments that you haven’t fully bought into it made it feel even more like one of the more honest paid promotions.

berkeleyblue Dec 30, 2023

I read this same sentiment two days ago; Google doesn’t work for me.

Not sure what they are on about. I can find things I‘m looking for on Google in under a Minute 9 out of 10 times and I tend to use it quite heavily tbh…

9bananas Dec 31, 2023

if you’re searching for something general, like, i dunno “dishwasher cleaner” or something, it spits out usable results.

but as soon as a query becomes technical in nature, like troubleshooting IT problems, it’s a straight up nightmare.

the reason it’s so bad at searching for anything very specific is their attempt to “figure out what you really mean”:

and google does that by… ignoring what you typed and changing your search prompt behind the scenes without telling you and without any options to change it.

and putting it in quotes rarely improves searches anymore, only spits out more garbage.

point is: google is basically dead for any specific searches and only really works for searches that amount to “i want to buy thing. show me thing.”

diannetea Jan 1, 2024

I had this weird hardware issue with my desktop and I could not find results for it on Google about a year ago, and I had searched for it a bunch of times previously as well and couldn’t find anything relevant. My boyfriend searched for it on Google on his computer and found a result with the information we needed and i immediately fixed it.

Guessing my “custom” results were poisoned by something at some time, but it prevented me from finding the answer I needed, and I didn’t think to log out at the time.

Super done with Google tbh

bravemonkey Dec 31, 2023

I signed up for Kagi after the trial. I’m very subscription adverse, but this one was something I don’t mind paying for.

Steve Dec 30, 2023

It’s great that DDG doesn’t track a users searches. It really is.
But at the end of the day, it’s still just an ad platform being used by companies to sell you things.
And here you are complaining about someone explaining an alternative ad-free search. Just think about that for a moment.

SpaceNoodle Dec 30, 2023

It’s just handing your search off to Bing, and Microsoft just does what it does.

Steve Dec 30, 2023

DDG pays Bing to use their API. DDG makes money by placing ads in the results.

ThunderWhiskers Dec 30, 2023

Also, if we’re being frank, DDG’s results are damn near useless half the time.

ahornsirup Dec 30, 2023

It also doesn’t allow you to actually exclude keywords. Which can be utterly infuriating if you’re looking for a specific entry in a franchise or a lesser used definition of something.