Google swears everything is fine. A new study—and many people's lived experience—says different.
For the past few years, a growing number of users, analysts, and experts raised alarms about a truth that feels obvious to a lot of people who surf around in web browsers: the quality of Google results is in serious decline. Google disagrees.
It’s kind of terrible now. Since late 2023, when I go to search technical specs of hardware, I am presented with a view that looks like browsing an online shopping catalog. It’s weird and unwanted. For personal use, I went back to DDG.
Google search is horrendous now. Instead of showing you relevant search results, it’s become an advertising race to the top game. If they can find “sponsored” links or shopping results related to your search, those go to the very top space. It’s about to get way worse as the rise of AI continues to rot the brains of board room suits.
I use Ecosia and DDG. Ecosia on my personal laptop, and DDG on my phone browser.
Back in the early 00s (I think), there was a running joke about how the search engine Ask Jeeves had one purpose, and one purpose only: to amend any search to “where can I buy…?” Because no matter what you searched for, it would inevitably prioritise adverts and online shopping.
That’s what Google is now.
I also use Ecosia now. It’s powered by Bing on the back end, I believe, but the results are consistently better than what I get from Google. And it’s like… okay, yes, this is the world we live in now, where Bing is more useful than Google.
DDG keeps changing my search query because its “not returning a lot of results” or because it thinks I typo’d and it is infuriating to me, sometimes it doesnt even inform me that it did, not even giving me a link to click to get to my actual search query
'also noticed that it got worse around the same time google did
It’s very hit or miss for deeper searches. Sometimes at work I just default back to Google because I need quick results that are more relevant. Ecosia has been decent but I don’t have enough hours into it yet. I’m open to ideas, honestly.
Yeah, jeez. The number of times I give up and Ctrl+F on the page I’ve clicked to, just to find that the phrase I double-quoted just does not exist there and that my time has been wasted
Honestly I don’t think it’s just Google, DDG has been getting worse as well, not quite as bad as Google but still similar issues where the thing I’m looking for is buried under spam sites built to a generic standard with shitty content but spectacular search engine optimization.
And pumping out sites and pages like that is optimal in the current market as it is the best way to get clicks, as supposed to investing in skilled writing, investigation and research.
The problem is that the major search engines have all kind of sat on their behinds about this and actively sold these bad websites assistance in gaming their search engine. The search engines would have to rebuild their search functions to find signs of bad sites and deprioritize them in the list, not just show things that seem relevant. They’ll probably never do this because then they’d hurt the part of their business that is helping shitty sites game the engine.
It’s AI-generated content. Someone is just telling the AI to generate content that will capture X search term. Like free google ads, except instead of configuring target keywords in a system designed to do that, they’re bridging the gap with content designed to capture search traffic.
Because of AI, this is flattened again to a simple config. You could have an adwords-like interface where you’re configuring target keywords and phrases, and then you just click “run” and you have a pile of content designed to connect the dots you configured. Here’s a keyword, here’s a URl. When people search this keyword I want them to end up at this URL. Write me an article that will meet both those criteria.
Maybe this AI shit is like the warp drive in the three-body problem: it feeds off a space filled with well-organized information, but when it’s used, it pollutes that environment with bullshit, rendering future use of that information ecosystem less valuable.
I say supposed here in place of opposed as “ supposed” implies “a correct course of action”, rather than “an alternative but opposite course of action.”
As an FYI, opposed does not necessarily mean opposite, it can and often means in contrast to or in conflict with. Shades of gray, but either word works fine here.
“as opposed to” is an idiom that just means “in contrast”. You’re creating a contrast between what they’re actually doing as opposed to what they’re supposed to be doing. “As supposed to” doesn’t work as a preposition and doesn’t actually create a contrast on its own.
🤖 I’m a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:
Click here to see the summary
For the past few years, a growing number of users, analysts, and experts raised alarms about a truth that feels obvious to a lot of people who surf around in web browsers: the quality of Google results is in serious decline.
That’s according to a new study by a team of researchers from Leipzig University, Bauhaus-University Weimar, and the Center for Scalable Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence, first reported by 404 Media Tuesday.
According to the study, those efforts aren’t working, but “search engines seem to lose the cat-and-mouse game that is SEO spam.” These changes often lead to a “temporary positive effect,” but the spammers just find new loopholes.
Just last week, Gizmodo covered a bizarre situation that saw Google turning up what looked like a child’s homework assignment for a search about former president John F. Kennedy’s stance on the death penalty.
It’s gotten so hard to find authentic, useful results that people have started adding the word “Reddit” to search terms to turn up content written by someone who actually cares, instead of someone just trying to make money.
In 2023, a Gizmodo investigation found the tech news outlet CNET deleted thousands of articles because its team felt that would aid in the site’s performance on Google Search.
Google search results suck and I’ve actually heard regular people mention it. They just either don’t know how to switch search engines or they think Bing search sucks.
Bing and Bing based searches have also gotten worse. The study in question actually says they preform worse than google. Its all Goodhart’s law in action.
Or they still think they are entitled to a “free” search engine and don’t see the amount of resources needed for that and that it’s actually a service worth paying for, either through a subscription or through a donation-based service.
Switching one private company for another is definitely not the way to go…
Or they’re working class or buried in medical bills and can’t afford to be spending money on things like search engines that have a free alternative, even if it is worse.
I’m not actually convinced the alternatives are any better here, anyway.
Subscription services still get worse. The arrogance Cable TV must have to show us ads—cable was the ad-free service back in its day. The same is happening with Netflix. The same will happen with Spotify. This thing is a snake eating it’s own fucking tail.
I want something without perverse incentives. Donations, maybe. Taxes, possibly. I get free roads, why not a free search index.
Careful about how you throw around the word “entitlement”. The top competition is free and search engines are very low value for the average person. It’s very reasonable to expect search engines to be free and for anything paid to be a niche product. Google search results may be terrible, but not so terrible that I’m going to pay $5/month to escape it.
Amazingly Google is still the best unpaid search engine, as bad as it has become. Terrible websites have completely taken over the web. To find actual information you need access ProQuest or EBESCOhost or something like that, though their indexes are much smaller.
eh, ddg is equally bad with it insisting it knows better than me what my query is and “fixing” it, leaving me to have to either fix it or click a link telling it “yes I really did want to search for that and not what you assumed”
I am actually kinda ok with DDG, but the results are… not always very great and the second page is filled with weird websites related to my location…
Maybe i should try both Kagi and Searx
TL;DR: They became partners with Brave, when people pointed out Brave’s objectionable politics they responded… poorly (still read the thread, it has much more info)
Quick edit: Was pointed at this, looks like it’s even worse and the Kagi owner himself might be very objectionable too
Yikes, thanks so much for these links. I’ve avoided kagi for awhile now for lack of need but it had been top of list of ‘things I should try’. Guess I can strike that one out now.
I’m using Qwant and it gives me better results than Google. Even Startpage does and it’s using Google behind the scenes.
Google managed to fuck up their personalization so much it makes the results worse (it’s almost like they only really care about tailoring the ads /s). And I’m suspecting it’s by design, if the results suck the users are more likely to either press the ads or go through more result pages, therefore seeing more ads.
I agree it does suck in general
One thing I tried is using a metasearch engine and for the least part I find the results better and way more customizable (for reference I am self hosting searxNG)
same, just being able to blacklist content farms I dislike is worth the price (standing up a container) of admission, but there’s plenty more good things.
Google has not been interested in providing value to end-users for a while now. They are at the point in the enshittification process where because of their monopoly in search, they are able to stop providing value to their paying customers as well (sites that use AdWords, etc.) and just line their own pockets.
I’m using Kagi for quite some time now and it’s awesome. But recently I was using a different machine and did not have my login credentials at hand so I used Google and holy shit I didn’t remember Google giving such aweful results. I was not able to find what I was looking for. Then searched the same thing on my phone through Kagi and the solution was in the first three results. So yes I also feel that Google search is getting worse.
I can’t be paying $5 or $10/month for yet another service. I understand the companies need to make money, but the amount of services asking for a subscription is getting out of hand. And $5 is really high for a search engine, that price is crazy. I was expecting something like $12/year for unlimited searches.
You either pay with your money or by viewing paid content. I save WAY more time than the $5 is worth to me not having to dig to find real results. It’s ability to surface actual product reviews instead of page after page of amazon affiliate links has saved me hundreds of dollars. I felt it was crazy to pay for too, the free trial immediately changed my mind. You don’t know how bad you have it until you see how good it could be.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: !technology@beehaw.org
A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.
Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.
It’s kind of terrible now. Since late 2023, when I go to search technical specs of hardware, I am presented with a view that looks like browsing an online shopping catalog. It’s weird and unwanted. For personal use, I went back to DDG.
Google search is horrendous now. Instead of showing you relevant search results, it’s become an advertising race to the top game. If they can find “sponsored” links or shopping results related to your search, those go to the very top space. It’s about to get way worse as the rise of AI continues to rot the brains of board room suits.
I use Ecosia and DDG. Ecosia on my personal laptop, and DDG on my phone browser.
Back in the early 00s (I think), there was a running joke about how the search engine Ask Jeeves had one purpose, and one purpose only: to amend any search to “where can I buy…?” Because no matter what you searched for, it would inevitably prioritise adverts and online shopping.
That’s what Google is now.
I also use Ecosia now. It’s powered by Bing on the back end, I believe, but the results are consistently better than what I get from Google. And it’s like… okay, yes, this is the world we live in now, where Bing is more useful than Google.
DDG keeps changing my search query because its “not returning a lot of results” or because it thinks I typo’d and it is infuriating to me, sometimes it doesnt even inform me that it did, not even giving me a link to click to get to my actual search query
'also noticed that it got worse around the same time google did
It’s very hit or miss for deeper searches. Sometimes at work I just default back to Google because I need quick results that are more relevant. Ecosia has been decent but I don’t have enough hours into it yet. I’m open to ideas, honestly.
Yeah, that’s because it gets the results from Bing.
Yeah, jeez. The number of times I give up and Ctrl+F on the page I’ve clicked to, just to find that the phrase I double-quoted just does not exist there and that my time has been wasted
Omg yes
Search: “staplers”
“What’s all this saint stuff?? Hmm wtf?”
‘Where you trying to search for “St. Rap Lore?” Here are your results.’
Honestly I don’t think it’s just Google, DDG has been getting worse as well, not quite as bad as Google but still similar issues where the thing I’m looking for is buried under spam sites built to a generic standard with shitty content but spectacular search engine optimization.
And pumping out sites and pages like that is optimal in the current market as it is the best way to get clicks, as supposed to investing in skilled writing, investigation and research.
The problem is that the major search engines have all kind of sat on their behinds about this and actively sold these bad websites assistance in gaming their search engine. The search engines would have to rebuild their search functions to find signs of bad sites and deprioritize them in the list, not just show things that seem relevant. They’ll probably never do this because then they’d hurt the part of their business that is helping shitty sites game the engine.
In the mid aughts every time Google updated their ranking, and results shuffled it was called the “Google dance”. We sorely need a major Google dance.
It’s AI-generated content. Someone is just telling the AI to generate content that will capture X search term. Like free google ads, except instead of configuring target keywords in a system designed to do that, they’re bridging the gap with content designed to capture search traffic.
Because of AI, this is flattened again to a simple config. You could have an adwords-like interface where you’re configuring target keywords and phrases, and then you just click “run” and you have a pile of content designed to connect the dots you configured. Here’s a keyword, here’s a URl. When people search this keyword I want them to end up at this URL. Write me an article that will meet both those criteria.
Maybe this AI shit is like the warp drive in the three-body problem: it feeds off a space filled with well-organized information, but when it’s used, it pollutes that environment with bullshit, rendering future use of that information ecosystem less valuable.
Not to be that guy, but it’s “as opposed to”. Hope this helps in the future!
I say supposed here in place of opposed as “ supposed” implies “a correct course of action”, rather than “an alternative but opposite course of action.”
As an FYI, opposed does not necessarily mean opposite, it can and often means in contrast to or in conflict with. Shades of gray, but either word works fine here.
“as opposed to” is an idiom that just means “in contrast”. You’re creating a contrast between what they’re actually doing as opposed to what they’re supposed to be doing. “As supposed to” doesn’t work as a preposition and doesn’t actually create a contrast on its own.
But the way it fits into the sentence doesn’t match that use case. It does perfectly match the use case for the phrase “as opposed to”.
🤖 I’m a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:
Click here to see the summary
For the past few years, a growing number of users, analysts, and experts raised alarms about a truth that feels obvious to a lot of people who surf around in web browsers: the quality of Google results is in serious decline.
That’s according to a new study by a team of researchers from Leipzig University, Bauhaus-University Weimar, and the Center for Scalable Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence, first reported by 404 Media Tuesday.
According to the study, those efforts aren’t working, but “search engines seem to lose the cat-and-mouse game that is SEO spam.” These changes often lead to a “temporary positive effect,” but the spammers just find new loopholes.
Just last week, Gizmodo covered a bizarre situation that saw Google turning up what looked like a child’s homework assignment for a search about former president John F. Kennedy’s stance on the death penalty.
It’s gotten so hard to find authentic, useful results that people have started adding the word “Reddit” to search terms to turn up content written by someone who actually cares, instead of someone just trying to make money.
In 2023, a Gizmodo investigation found the tech news outlet CNET deleted thousands of articles because its team felt that would aid in the site’s performance on Google Search.
Saved 83% of original text.
Just use Ecosia people! Plant some trees.
how is it with piracy search ?
I haven’t tried that part.
I only use goigle when I’m specifically looking for a product, because that’s really all they’re good for. Ecosia is my default
Google search results suck and I’ve actually heard regular people mention it. They just either don’t know how to switch search engines or they think Bing search sucks.
Bing and Bing based searches have also gotten worse. The study in question actually says they preform worse than google. Its all Goodhart’s law in action.
Or they still think they are entitled to a “free” search engine and don’t see the amount of resources needed for that and that it’s actually a service worth paying for, either through a subscription or through a donation-based service.
Switching one private company for another is definitely not the way to go…
Or they’re working class or buried in medical bills and can’t afford to be spending money on things like search engines that have a free alternative, even if it is worse.
I’m not actually convinced the alternatives are any better here, anyway.
Subscription services still get worse. The arrogance Cable TV must have to show us ads—cable was the ad-free service back in its day. The same is happening with Netflix. The same will happen with Spotify. This thing is a snake eating it’s own fucking tail.
I want something without perverse incentives. Donations, maybe. Taxes, possibly. I get free roads, why not a free search index.
Careful about how you throw around the word “entitlement”. The top competition is free and search engines are very low value for the average person. It’s very reasonable to expect search engines to be free and for anything paid to be a niche product. Google search results may be terrible, but not so terrible that I’m going to pay $5/month to escape it.
Amazingly Google is still the best unpaid search engine, as bad as it has become. Terrible websites have completely taken over the web. To find actual information you need access ProQuest or EBESCOhost or something like that, though their indexes are much smaller.
I have definitely done that multiple times.
Kagi search. 100 free ones then subscription plan, but it gives good search results like google back in 2010
deleted by creator
The dangers of a monopoly. No matter how bad Google gets people will still use it because, in many people’s minds, there is no other search engine.
eh, ddg is equally bad with it insisting it knows better than me what my query is and “fixing” it, leaving me to have to either fix it or click a link telling it “yes I really did want to search for that and not what you assumed”
What are those? DDG, Bing, Ecosia etc. are all not really better than Google. I haven‘t tried Kagi yet, mostly because it costs money.
You can use Kagi for free if you make an account and only use it when the others fail. Love Kagi, but won’t pay for it.
You can actually try kagi for free. 100 searches/month should be enough for you to decide if it’s worth the money to you.
(Not affiliated; just a happy user)
Kagi went to bed with Brave, and when people protested they ignored it
That’s kinda stretching the definition of ‘went to bed’. Brave is one of the result providers you can select as a source, and that’s about it
Is kagi a metasearch engine? Or does it have its own crawler and so on?
It’s a mix I believe: https://help.kagi.com/kagi/search-details/search-sources.html
I’m going to give Kagi a try, thanks to this comment - I didn’t know there was a free trial.
i was struggling with DDG too, but in another post i saw someone recommend searx and it is actually really good.
Fyi searx is deprecated or at least not maintained and discontinued Switch to searxNG which is an active fork and it is really good :D
searxng.site is what i use. i didn’t even know it had different forks too
I am actually kinda ok with DDG, but the results are… not always very great and the second page is filled with weird websites related to my location…
Maybe i should try both Kagi and Searx
Kagi went to bed with Brave, and when people protested they ignored it
Oh boy… guess the future will really be running our own stacks
What do you mean with “went to bed”?
Here’s a Masto thread explaining a bit the polemic
TL;DR: They became partners with Brave, when people pointed out Brave’s objectionable politics they responded… poorly (still read the thread, it has much more info)
Quick edit: Was pointed at this, looks like it’s even worse and the Kagi owner himself might be very objectionable too
Second edit: And it keeps getting worse, of course they had to get into AI…
Yikes, thanks so much for these links. I’ve avoided kagi for awhile now for lack of need but it had been top of list of ‘things I should try’. Guess I can strike that one out now.
I’m using Qwant and it gives me better results than Google. Even Startpage does and it’s using Google behind the scenes.
Google managed to fuck up their personalization so much it makes the results worse (it’s almost like they only really care about tailoring the ads /s). And I’m suspecting it’s by design, if the results suck the users are more likely to either press the ads or go through more result pages, therefore seeing more ads.
I agree it does suck in general One thing I tried is using a metasearch engine and for the least part I find the results better and way more customizable (for reference I am self hosting searxNG)
same, just being able to blacklist content farms I dislike is worth the price (standing up a container) of admission, but there’s plenty more good things.
DDG is on pair with google, that’s enough for me. (in some topics far better and in some far worse)
Not for international (non-English) results.
This is 100% true, no contest.
googles some Terraform syntax
gets a blog post from 2023
the code in the blog post is Perl, not Terraform
You don’t say.
Google has not been interested in providing value to end-users for a while now. They are at the point in the enshittification process where because of their monopoly in search, they are able to stop providing value to their paying customers as well (sites that use AdWords, etc.) and just line their own pockets.
I’m using Kagi for quite some time now and it’s awesome. But recently I was using a different machine and did not have my login credentials at hand so I used Google and holy shit I didn’t remember Google giving such aweful results. I was not able to find what I was looking for. Then searched the same thing on my phone through Kagi and the solution was in the first three results. So yes I also feel that Google search is getting worse.
Pay for the service or you will become the product. Kagi is more than worth it, its so nice to be able to find what I’m looking for again.
I can’t be paying $5 or $10/month for yet another service. I understand the companies need to make money, but the amount of services asking for a subscription is getting out of hand. And $5 is really high for a search engine, that price is crazy. I was expecting something like $12/year for unlimited searches.
You either pay with your money or by viewing paid content. I save WAY more time than the $5 is worth to me not having to dig to find real results. It’s ability to surface actual product reviews instead of page after page of amazon affiliate links has saved me hundreds of dollars. I felt it was crazy to pay for too, the free trial immediately changed my mind. You don’t know how bad you have it until you see how good it could be.
deleted by creator
$5/300 is just under 1.67 cents per search.
I could blame a lot of things here, but it’s just obviously been far too long since I’ve done basic math. I appreciate you fact checking me.