• OpenStars@discuss.online
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    6 months ago

    I don’t understand what you are saying. If some other search methodology were to use the same exact methodology of Google in paying attention to the SEO terms, then obviously it would fall prey to the same thing that killed Google. Similarly if the method was not precisely 100% identical yet still used SEO, then it too would be poisoned.

    However, if the search method were to ignore SEO entirely and focus purely on the content of the page, plus other metrics such as number of links to that page, from other highly-ranked websites, but independently of SEO, then it would not be poisoned by SEOs. Although it might suck due to other causes, either related or not.

    Anyway it all depends so heavily on what you want to find - e.g. a replacement for Google Maps is harder, and Google Images is also fairly great too.

      • OpenStars@discuss.online
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        6 months ago

        Probably less, in their modern formulation. I knew more about past ones but it’s been awhile and I have no idea how much of that is even still relevant.

    • dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net
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      6 months ago

      A lot of content sites have altered how they write articles to be in line with google SEO to drive traffic. In doing this, the content that can be found by any search engine is now of lower quality.

          • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            It really isn’t that hard to tell the difference between bots activities and humans. If Facebook can detect a nipple in a picture in microseconds they can tell that “hmm a surprisingly high number of IoT fridges have strong opinions about this anti-Putin blogger, starting last week” isn’t valid.

            • beebarfbadger@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              That sounds like the millions of doctored amazon reviews and social media bot-boosted content should be dealt with by next week then.

              • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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                6 months ago

                If there was an incentive to do so there would be.

                Alphabet doesn’t have real competition. If they start getting some they will be motivated to improve. Amazon the same way. You order crap from them and they still make their money. Social media the same way, there is just no particular reason for them to anything about bots when bots don’t impact ad numbers.

                The corporation I work for has a captcha on the website to do pretty much anything useful. We have an incentive to not have bots.

    • frezik@midwest.social
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      6 months ago

      What Google used to do is a lot of manual effort to keep SEO stuff at a minimum. You can’t make it go away entirely, but it was a give-and-take that basically worked.

      We’re stuck now because Google decided they didn’t want to spend the money on it anymore, so the SEO people won.

      However, if the search method were to ignore SEO entirely and focus purely on the content of the page

      As another poster mentions, SEO is about gaming the content so search engines pick them up. If you change your algorithm, they’ll just change their methods. Google’s old method may be the only way to clamp down on it.

      • OpenStars@discuss.online
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        6 months ago

        Admittedly I am much behind on the technicals, but here is an example: if an answer to a technical problem appears on StackOverflow, Reddit, and pleaseclickmePuLEASEpleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease.xxx, then why allow the latter ones to rise to the top and the former two don’t show up until like page 3? Regardless of content on the page, the former two sites have a reputable “reputation” - is this what you mean by manual efforts, to designate them as more trustworthy sites?

        Ironically the Reddit upvote/downvote style would work for search results, helping guide others to find similar content after a few people blaze the trail. However, voting has its own issues… as we see even in irl elections, as people game that system too with alt accounts. Anywhere profits are involved, it becomes a cat-and-mouse game where you have to fight off the vested interests.:-(

        But for something important, it becomes worthwhile to invest some effort into it?

        • frezik@midwest.social
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          6 months ago

          It’s only important in so far as Google can make a profit on it.

          Yes, they could favor specific servers, and that used to be the case. That takes specific effort to pick those sites out, though. They don’t want to do that anymore.

          • OpenStars@discuss.online
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            6 months ago

            It’s only important in so far as Google can make a profit on it.

            It did not used to be that way. However, we collectively deluded ourselves into thinking that we were “safe”, forever, b/c Google “wasn’t evil”.

            Yes, they could favor specific servers, and that used to be the case. That takes specific effort to pick those sites out, though. They don’t want to do that anymore.

            In a sense, they wouldn’t even have to anymore, if they allowed the old ones to remain at the top. But I see what you mean - e.g. Reddit could change, and Lemmy would never get added.

      • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Just block sites that do it or even worse do what the AI people are doing, data harvest it, and present the answer only.

        I stopped looking up recipes ever since chatgpt became a thing.