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

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?

TruthAintEasy ,
@TruthAintEasy@kbin.social avatar

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 ,

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。

Rob OP ,

Use Google maps, or something like that. You wouldn't need a search engine for that or even the Fediverse.

Appoxo ,
@Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

More like openstreetmap.

Dasus ,
@Dasus@lemmy.world avatar

You think going on google maps to search for restaurants isn't using a search engine?

The fuck

Teon ,
@Teon@kbin.social avatar

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

Rob OP ,

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 ,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

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 OP ,

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.

Rob OP ,

One thing Search engines are good for looking for stores like Aldi's, or Best buy and seeing the type of stuff they sell before you shop there. But if you're looking for anything opinionated, or from real people from *all backgrounds seach engines are becoming less and less of that as they use to be back in the 2008's-2013's

sramder ,
@sramder@lemmy.world avatar

100% true, the quality of search results has plummeted. I’ve read lots of articles that propose a myriad of excuses, but at the end of the day Google could fix it if they wanted to. Google search has the quality of free popcorn. 

Rob OP ,

The difference is I can enjoy some popcorn, seo takes the enjoyment out of most of everything if not everything.

sramder ,
@sramder@lemmy.world avatar

Sure, there’s some good free popcorn out there. It’s just not that common. It wasn’t a great analogy, but I’m sticking with it ;-)

Obonga ,

This is a relative hot take at this moment but as the search results get worse and the fediverse grows it might become true. Time will tell.

Rob OP ,

I was thinking about the long term but I am open to seo getting better and being proven long.

Rob OP , (edited )

I wanted to add some extra context that I feel some commentators are missing and it could be my fault for not being as specific.

The reason I think search engines are becoming more irrelevant is because seo, it isn't like the year of 2010 where you would find more relevant resualts as easily.

If you read the title and the actual og post contents, you would find out i'm really just ranting about seo.

I did mention in the comments a few times that i'm not necessarily against search engines as they were originally intended to be used, but what seo has become for the modern search engine. Because of that, that is why search engines are becoming irrelevant to me.

So it isn't the issue with search engines at the surface, I do understand how they work, it's rather, what they had become on the inside behind the scenes with seo.

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