How Google is killing independent sites like ours - HouseFresh
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And why you shouldn’t trust product reviews from big media publishers ranking at the top of Google.

How Google is killing independent sites like ours::And why you shouldn’t trust product reviews from big media publishers ranking at the top of Google.

  • @thehatfoxEnglish
    107•7 months ago

    SEO has been a plague in search engines for almost as long as they have existed. Unfortunately combatting it is an endless cat and mouse game, as there will always be some who will devise new ways to game the system. With how commercialised the web has become there’s enormous incentive to do so.

    I’m also not convinced Google has much intention of really fixing it. They already have a monopoly on search, and as an advertising company are unlikely to want to upset the big media companies exploiting their search engine.

    • @TheGrandNagusEnglish
      71•7 months ago

      Google actually has an incentive not to make search too good. That means less time looking through search results, seeing ads, and less time hopping between 5 different sites trying to find what you need, seeing ads on each one.

      Ad networks are a plague.

      • donEnglish
        32•7 months ago

        Google actually has an incentive not to make search too good.

        This is sometimes ominously referred to as perverse incentive.

      • @HolyhandgrenadeEnglish
        9•7 months ago

        The total annihilation of the advertising industry is on my utopian wish list.

    • @Burn_The_RightEnglish
      17•7 months ago

      They don’t have a monopoly on good search results. I rarely use Google anymore and I do not miss it at all.

      • ladEnglish
        8•7 months ago

        They had results that were mostly better than the competition. Now they’re so-so, creating a better position for others, which is wild

      • @HolyhandgrenadeEnglish
        6•7 months ago

        Which search engine do you use?
        I’ve started to use Duckduckgo but it’s a bit hit and miss.

        • @Burn_The_RightEnglish
          3•7 months ago

          Mostly Duck Duck Go (which draws from Bing).

    • @ZerfallenEnglish
      8•7 months ago

      I moved from Google Search to Kagi, and I really like it. It’s a bit expensive though the experience is really nice, and you know where you stand with them as a customer, regarding their priorities/motivations.

      • Refurbished RefurbisherEnglish
        16•7 months ago

        I’d use Kagi, but anonymous searching is impossible because you need an accoint to use the search, due to it being a paid service. I just have to take their word that they maintain privacy. I don’t trust any company’s word for shit. Also AFAIK it’s not open source, so I can’t self host it either.

        Also, it’s quite expensive when other options are free. I get why they do it this way, but it’s just not for me.

    • @[email protected]English
      2•7 months ago

      And Google is still better at getting me what I want than their competitor. I get what I want from Bing 2/10 times and Bing fails every time it’s a deeper topic