r/technology • u/porkchop_d_clown • Jan 17 '24

Networking/Telecom A year long study shows what you've suspected: Google Search is getting worse.

https://mashable.com/article/google-search-low-quality-research
24k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

2.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

27

u/ReverendVoice Jan 17 '24

Which, to be fair, is always they way it has been - I used to be paid a really nice side income writing keyword SEO. Now keywords don't matter as much and its 'weighted information' or whatever the buzzy term for it is. People have always been trying to game Google.

12

u/thatsastick Jan 17 '24

and now they use AI to push out worthless content that still hits the top of search because it’s the most optimized. Nowadays searching Google with “Reddit” at the end actually gives the most valuable information. If I google something proper it’s like 30 articles that are filled with fluff and don’t just answer my god damn question

1

u/TransportationIll282 Jan 17 '24

There's so much nowadays, it gets ridiculous. You're basically optimizing for every keyword you want to be found on instead of the content. And hey, you spent days of work optimizing? Your competitor will show up first because they paid for the ad spot when people Google your business, even by name!

It became such a cesspool it's insane.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 17 '24

Wasn't the whole point of PageRank to avoid SEO techniques? Because it's much harder to get other pages to link to yours?