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 gotten so hard to find authentic, useful results that people have started adding the word “Reddit” to search terms
I have definitely done that multiple times.
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.
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.
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 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)
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.
