this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2024

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Are search engines, like Google, relevant at all anymore? Why use them? A relevant debate. It's not 2010 anymore. (lemdro.id)

submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by Rob@lemdro.id to c/technology@lemmy.world

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Why would something like Google search possibly be irrelevant?

well..

a lot of these search engines use search engine Optimization, seo to rank sites. It's also not secret that they choose what shows up and what does not.

Things like that have been a thing for years, and since there wasn't a good alternative search engines remained relevant as we users tolerated their direction.

Now you have Lemmy, Mastodon, Sharkey, Firefish (if it's still a thing) connected to the Fediverse. On the Fediverse there is no such thing as looking up a website, but rather you look up actual specific content and get real results handed back to you. A lot of these Federated services are split and one person pays for hosting a smaller server, and the next another, slowly building up the bigger federated Fediverse.

On Lemmy you can just type in Windows 11, and no website to click on to, no bs, you get to hear about what's happening with WIndows 11 from different voices. Is the *Windows cool, a tragedy, is there that one guy that *disfavors it, or is in favor of WIndows 11?

It's all there and you as a user gets to decide for yourself if you like all the results you see, or some, or none of them and then move on with your day as it should be.

Thoughts? Opinions? Statements? Judge rulings?

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[–] sramder@lemmy.world 84 points 8 months ago (6 children)

Is this a joke, hyperbole? To build on your example, what if I wanted to find out “how to disable Windows 11 update prompts” into lemmy’s search. Do you think I would get the answer I’m looking for?

I’m not saying I don’t want to be rid of google and all they do. I would pay for 10 proton mail accounts a month if just one of googles data centers spontaneously burst into flames right now!

…

Well I’m willing to wait a while longer… I have not tried Kagi yet, but I will as soon as I get bored with Midjourney. Hopefully someday we can collectively slip the yoke, but I suspect googles results will get a lot worse first.

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[–] chalupapocalypse@lemmy.world 71 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I've heard kids these days search tiktok instead of Google.

Kids are fucking stupid

[–] ramirezmike@programming.dev 17 points 8 months ago

I was driving my brother in law and he was trying to tell me some news he heard but couldn't get the specifics so he spent ten minutes searching tiktok for it. I couldn't believe it

[–] essteeyou@lemmy.world 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I've heard that's true for restaurants and stuff like that, such seemed pretty baffling to me considering Google Maps (and others) exists.

[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 8 months ago

I mean there are cool channels that showcase the food instead of ratings. You can't fake the restaurant AND their food so quickly
Example (Also available on YT): https://www.tiktok.com/@japaneat
The only thing it would need to be a true superpower is to limit an area and then show all restaurants displaying their food.
BUT: This will quickly by gamed as well as nothijg would stop the owner of just creating instagramable dishes that taste just meh but paying the creator to say otherwise.

[–] magnetosphere@kbin.social 33 points 8 months ago (1 children)

What kind of fediverse search are you talking about? Provide a link. That would do much, much more than any explanations or testimonials possibly could.

[–] Rob@lemdro.id 0 points 8 months ago

Like on Mastodon, I can search for information on Google, Duckduckgo and you'l see all the latest human input on these topics that's available. Whether you search for hashtags or for posts specifically.

Or on Lemmy, you can search for posts or literally entire communities dedicated to what you are looking for.

When I say the Fediverse, I'm talking about as a whole, when you are searching for posts, and the like. The Fediverse will generally strive to actually show you everything that's available. It's a step from forward from what the modern search engine provides it's users.

Do search engines have some advantages, sure, but are they hindered severely by seo, also yes. To the point that any advantages a Google search could have just isn't worth it.

[–] Sal@mander.xyz 30 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Search engines like google aggregate data from multiple sites. I may want to download a datasheet for an electronic component, find an answer to a technical question, find a language learning course site, or look for museums in my area.

Usually I make specific searches with very specific conditions, so I tend to get few and relevant results. I think search engines have their place.

[–] Rob@lemdro.id 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Good point. While Search Engines do have their place and uses. My issue isn't with the idea of the search engine itself but with seo deciding what resualts show up or will never show up regardless of the quality of the source. A lot of it goes against the open internet.

[–] Kissaki@feddit.de 16 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Do you know what SEO stands for? It's not SEO that is ranking results. SEO is the consequence of ranking results by relevance and quality.

What's your alternative? Give supposedly relevant results randomly? That'd be even worse.

[–] Rob@lemdro.id 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

My alternative is to deliver what people are actually saying on the search engine based off of what a user searches. Not just a handful of special outlets that know they are hand picked and take advantage of their position.

[–] Sal@mander.xyz 1 points 8 months ago

You can take a lot of control by using search commands. Here is a list of commands for Google, for example: https://www.lifewire.com/advanced-google-search-3482174

By using commands like these you can narrow down your searches to the point that the impact of SEO is small. You give a much greater weight to the conditions that you have chosen.

It can be a bit of work to write a good search query, but the database that search engines search through is massive, so it makes sense that it would take some work to do this right.

[–] Passerby6497@lemmy.world 23 points 8 months ago

You must not have hard problems to solve if fediverse content is able to replace a search engine.

[–] solidgrue@lemmy.world 15 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Search engines are good for what you might call "keyword searches" across websites. I'd say SEO spam has degraded quality of hits and made search results less reliable than even 5 years ago. There's a lot more chaff to winnow now in the main search services. You sorta need to discriminate on hits, and dig a bit deeper into the results to find that new nugget you didn't already see 3 or 4 times already in previous searches with similar, but different parameters.

I find the LLM AIs to be slightly better at turning up obscure info these days. The conversation sets some persistent context that's helpful when you need to dial in on obscure stiff like a driver issue, tuning problem or weird product spec. You still need to carefully vet your results, but the AIs understand technical jargon pretty well, and generally return some solid analysis for leas common scenarios.

They're also good for pick-and-shovel work in odd tech areas, but you really need to be careful with the results because they're confidently wrong in speculative conversation only slightly more often than they're confidently right.

That's just my opinion, but it's how I do search these days: use an AI to refine keywords, then use DDG or Google to find familiar sites with corollary content.

[–] dariusj18@lemmy.world 15 points 8 months ago

Trash in/trash out. Small communities of experts can create quality content, but after becoming relevant enough astroturfing begins.

[–] Brkdncr@lemmy.world 13 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Just wait for the bots. Also, search engines have been playing cat and mouse with SEO for a while. I don’t know why it’s gotten so bad lately.

[–] Rob@lemdro.id 7 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Unlike on Google search, if you see a bot on Lemmy, or Mastodon, you can just block the bot and never see them again. Follow accounts/communities you trust to be reliable for finding info on various topics to eliminate the chances of running into the bots (since you more likely will be looking at your following feed.)

I wish seo would make the web more lively again but I just see them as a lost cause, and the Fediverse as the better future.

[–] linearchaos@lemmy.world 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I've been blocking bots for 6 months now, it's a neverending stream of new garbage.

[–] Rob@lemdro.id 2 points 8 months ago

That's a price to pay to have a free internet.

If bots are an issue, and I believe it can be sometimes, you could try suggesting to Lemmy developers to invest into bot protection for the platform. Also, the instance maintainers themselves.

[–] sramder@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago

So one bot watches and another posts, possibly from an established account farmed with real human labor.

[–] XTL@sopuli.xyz 1 points 8 months ago

Fvo "a while" that are about 25 years. The pressure has been going up all the time as more and more companies and spammers try to shoehorn themselves into irrelevant searches.

[–] GlassHalfHopeful@lemmy.ca 13 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Perhaps we use search engines for different purposes... 🤔

I don't use Google, but I definitely use my preferred search engine numerous times daily.

[–] Rob@lemdro.id 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Maybe, care to elaborate your purposes.

Typically I might search for something specific like an answer to a question, and maybe or maybe not it shows up in a Google search. Or I might just search for a specific website which 9 times out of 10 it will show up.

The main problem I see with both Google and Duckduckgo is, Sometimes if I just search for information, some sites will show up and others just won't. So because of this you may be missing out on helpful and relevant information that just isn't seo friendly enough.

[–] meekah@lemmy.world 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I'm not sure how abandoning search engines and only using specific Websites is supposed to help with this

[–] Rob@lemdro.id 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

By using say Mastodon, it is federated with other instances that focus on certian things and people posts about said things. You can search from Mastodon posts and even beyond Mastodon to other platforms that are using using Activity pub. and vice versa.

Because of this you will have more independent control rather than one company controlling the flow of everything. With Google everything goes by Google. With Duckduckgo everything goes by Bing and Duckduckgo. With Mastodon, whatever you see goes by various Mastodon server criteria.

[–] HeavyDogFeet@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

But you’re still limited to the opinions of people who post on Lemmy, which, as someone who occasionally posts on Lemmy, is not a shining beacon of quality.

Even if I just went by what I get on the first page of a Google search, I’d expect I’d find what I need much faster using Google than I would using Lemmy based purely on the volume of info Google has access to. And that’s not even taking into account things like Google’s ability to search within other sites.

Unless Lemmy has gotten like 100 billions times better in the last week, this isn’t even a fair comparison.

Edit: lol, just realised you’re the same guy from the Nvidia thread.

[–] FluffyPotato@lemm.ee 11 points 8 months ago (1 children)

This is only true if you need news or opinions. You can't really search Lemmy for technical questions or search for a specific site which are my main usages of a search engine.

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[–] MonkderZweite@feddit.ch 9 points 8 months ago

Guess this guy never has to look up syntax stuff.

[–] EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 7 points 8 months ago

Search engines don’t use search engine optimization. Search engine optimization is what people do to get their site to the top of a search engines results.

[–] TruthAintEasy@kbin.social 6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Google is free, Im searching recipies, websites of companies I might invest in, the law in general and pop-culture crap 90% of the time

Seems like a waste of water and energy to ask a highpowered LLM about it. I heard each query on GPT uses 12L of fresh water, seems wastefull when I could just use a basic google

Edit: it is approx .5L of water for 5 to 50 prompts, thanks google!

[–] tiredofsametab@kbin.run 6 points 8 months ago (3 children)

I'm not going to give the fediverse my address and ask it where the closest dentist/clinic/restaurant is. Also, even if I did, 見る人がほとんどわからないかも。

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[–] Teon@kbin.social 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Here is some info about the decline of truth on google search.
https://bbbhltz.codeberg.page/blog/2024/02/seoshenanigans/

[–] Rob@lemdro.id 1 points 8 months ago

I'm not as worried about the decline of truth, but rather the decline of the open web. Google is favoring it's search engine for a few. Sites such as Quara, Reddit, cnn always get top resualts. It's never anyone else unless specifically searched for. If you don't specifically search for them others never get heard on Google search.

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

I only find search engines somewhat irrelevant because I'm almost never searching for, like, a website. I'm searching for information or software that's compiled on 1 of 5 websites and I can usually use the search function on those specific sites.

Used to use search engines to find new websites. Back when Google was new and it was easier to find cool stuff with keywords rather than by adding .com to random words in the URL bar.

[–] Rob@lemdro.id 0 points 8 months ago

That is what we are missing. The Fediverse makes searching by keyword so simply easy, with it being decentralized, this feature will be preserved as long that people developing the Mastodon's and the Lemmy's keep supporting it. If they don't you won't ever actually lose that feature you would likely have to join another platform like Firefish, or Sharkey and search the Fediverse that way if something like this were to happen. This is why I still stand with the Fediverse being better for the longer term than Google as a search engine.

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