Google from decades ago was more useful than now

[TestingViews]

search results is worse than google search from 20 years ago, I believe google intention is to make users give up and try the Ads.

 

[Black Belt Spodermen]

That's for sure. Today relevant pages are fewer and more garbage.

 

[tazarbm]

yeah, that's their goal....

But I'm not sure that the google of 20 years ago was better, I've seen very good (as in, relevant) results over the last 10-ish years, it's just that lately they've gone bad I don't know why...

 

[OccultKingdoms]

Yeah. Google is mostly filled with authority sites that aren't really helpful.

 

[aspensap]

It's a mixed bag. As people who want to rank organically, we hate how much real estate goes to ads but users click on the ads so not entirely true that they are unhelpful. The organic results go through waves of good and bad as people figure out how to game the system, users figure out how to search differently to try to get better results, google adjusts and the cycle starts over. The results now are a little better for users but people will figure out how to game the system and we'll get right back into that cycle.

 

[xReminisce]

honestly makes me giggle a bit
majority of us here are finding ways to cheat the SE to have our trash as high up in the serps as possible.

There is honestly, no real common ground, its either, we bank and have shitty search results or we don't bank and have great search results
regardless of the two, google banks anyways.

Having trash as results means, our trash can be considered to be high up in the serps if we make the right moves
For SEO IMers, this is good news.

 

[TestingViews]

bing this google-is-allegedly-making-their-search-results-worse-on-purpose

 

[tazarbm]

There is honestly, no real common ground, its either, we bank and have shitty search results or we don't bank and have great search results
regardless of the two, google banks anyways.

so spot on! Like, literally hit the nail on the head

It's a mixed bag. As people who want to rank organically, we hate how much real estate goes to ads but users click on the ads so not entirely true that they are unhelpful. The organic results go through waves of good and bad as people figure out how to game the system, users figure out how to search differently to try to get better results, google adjusts and the cycle starts over. The results now are a little better for users but people will figure out how to game the system and we'll get right back into that cycle.

maybe a bit unrelated to your comment, but - through some weird connection - reading it reminded me of how google's algorithm is said to be having 2 billion lines of code and being segmented into different departments and each departments can only know what's happening in their own department and not anywhere else, and this creates a lot of inconsistencies in the algo. I've read somewhere these things, I don't remember where or whether they're true but if they are, there's no surprise then that, at google, the left hand never knows what the right hand does.... Probably one of the many reasons for which we have such bad SERPs sometimes...

 

[laur.laurix]

That is because the founders of G saw in G Search a tool for learning and discovering the web and they treat it like a hobby project at big scale for a long time.....until they understood that G Search it's a fucking money printing machine and decided to squeeze these bitch till the last dollar.

 

[HustleTong]

20 years from now on, maybe Apple or X will have their own search engines

 

[Steptoe]

They went from 'do no evil' to 'leave no money on the table'.

 

[kevincrashout]

The best understanding of SEO means that the relevant pages are not actually the best/most effective but from whoever has the best marketing team