this post was submitted on 04 May 2024
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332
Google Kneecaps Loads Of Very Big Websites After SEO Change (aftermath.site)
submitted 11 months ago by dantheclamman@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] ronmaide@lemmy.world 170 points 11 months ago (3 children)

I’m kind of conflicted about this. On one hand it’s dangerous that the public’s access to information is so tightly coupled to a single organizations decisions, and I can see the danger in Google making a change like this.

On the other hand, clickbait and SEO gaming has gone on so long that using a site like Google has become significantly less useful to actually finding information, and if a site like Kotakus traffic is down by 60% as a result—is that due to Google being dangerous, or Kotaku having a pile of garbage content meant to game the system and bring in traffic?

For what it’s worth I’m using Kotaku as an example because the article used Kotaku as an example—I have no actual opinion or evidence around the actual content on that particular site.

[–] dantheclamman@lemmy.world 93 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It's an example of why monopolies are harmful. They create distorted economies that don't serve consumers. Like ecosystems overcome by a monoculture, monopolies are inherently less resilient, less functional and prone to sudden disruption.

[–] Wrench@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

How exactly would it be any different without Google / SEO. Parsing of website content to determine topics would be a shit show historically, or ridiculously computation heavy now that LLMs could conceivably do a decent job at classifying content. So Google created a way for sites to tag the kind of content they have. Pretty much any search engine would need the same kind of mechanism.

And content providers are always going to be incentivized to be the top search result, which means targeting search algorithms. That's just the nature of the beast.

If there were multiple SEO implementations, that just means more work to target multiple algorithms. And the content owners with more resources, hundreds of developers, would ultimately win because they can target every algorithm.

I really don't see how Google as a "monopoly" changes these basic fundamentals.

[–] dantheclamman@lemmy.world 33 points 11 months ago (3 children)

If there were multiple sources of traffic, the pressure to optimize to one source would be lower, and the disruption caused by algorithm changes would be muted. Which would mean more interesting content less driven by a narrow set of metrics

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[–] Paragone@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago

When a handful of monopolies decide that no factchecking will be seen by anybody, anymore,

and only profitable-to-their-dictatorship disinformation will be seen,

then humanity will not have any means of countering that:

it will be too late.

We are "the frog dropped into the slowly-heating pot of water".

People pretend that monopoly is "maybe" harmful, economically, but it is an existential-threat to countries, and with globalization, now to civil-rights as a valid-category.

_ /\ _

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[–] UnculturedSwine@lemmy.world 72 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Google search has enshittified far faster than I ever thought possible. It used to work like magic. Too bad capitalism dictates that usefulness has a ceiling.

[–] bear@slrpnk.net 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (10 children)

I've switched to Kagi recently and honestly it's better than Google ever was. You can assign weights to sites to see more or less of them in your results, it automatically cuts the listicle crap out, it has various built in filters for specific things like forums or scientific studies.

Downside: it's $10/mo. But I'm at the "I'd rather pay with money than data" stage of my life. Especially if it actually makes the experience fucking usable again.

[–] crazyCat@sh.itjust.works 3 points 11 months ago

Another happy Kagi user here, it’s great.

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[–] capt_wolf@lemmy.world 64 points 11 months ago (2 children)

This sort of thing is why Google's monopoly on the internet is so dangerous.

[–] NoIWontPickAName@kbin.earth 45 points 11 months ago (6 children)

Because they are making so that we get less results that are just cheating the system to show up at the top?

SEO is a bastardization of a useful tool, solely meant to game the system artificially

[–] grue@lemmy.world 31 points 11 months ago (2 children)

SEO is only feasible in the first place because we have one dominant search engine instead of a bunch of equally-prominent ones with different algorithms that would need to be optimized for differently (and maybe even mutually-exclusively).

[–] NoIWontPickAName@kbin.earth 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Copy paste.

There are a ton of them, the problem is none of them are as good as google.

I hear there are good pay ones, though I have never tried one.

I can usually find what I need on google pretty damn quick, although I have seen the end page more than once

[–] Undaunted@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 11 months ago (6 children)

I found search results surprisingly bad when I had to use is on another computer. I use Kagi (and yes it costs money but I rather pay that than pay with my data) which gives me way more accurate results. Google might have been the best search engine until a few years ago but from my experience it is not anymore.

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[–] conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works 3 points 11 months ago

This is not in any way true.

SEO is an almost impossible to solve problem because sites know any search engine exists.

[–] capt_wolf@lemmy.world 14 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Well, yes, but in a broader sense, they have way too much of a stake in the control of global communications altogether. Even just a hiccup on their servers or slight change to their system has a global impact, as obviously evidenced here. The world is dangerously reliant on a centralized private company for daily functioning.

Such a powerful entity shouldn't be controlled by private parties and needs to be governed in a way that the benefit of the people is kept paramount.

[–] NoIWontPickAName@kbin.earth 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

So you are wanting to do what here exactly?

[–] capt_wolf@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Not really anything to do but draw attention to it... It's not like we have an effective globally governing body to oversee something like this objectively.

[–] NoIWontPickAName@kbin.earth 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

No, i meant what solution would you like to see here.

Like just taking the business away from the company and have the government seize it?

Because other than just building a new one that organically grows and becomes better, then I don’t see a solution.

Maybe regulate the hell out of it, but that’s basically just seizing it and forcing them to do what you want.

I do agree it is a precarious situation though

[–] capt_wolf@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I mean, I'm a fan of regulatory action, in the same vein as what was proposed with net neutrality originally, and dissolution of the monopoly. The services Google provides are vital to the functioning of the internet, and as such, must be treated as a governed utility the same way internet provision should be, with tight definitions of services and regulations to control what can be done and when. In that regard, companies like Google and Amazon(in regard to AWS) would be classified as utility providers similar to ISPs with the same degree of accountability in regard to service provision, availability, transparency of policy and actions, liability, etc.

In addition, break up the monopoly accordingly. Entertainment services, telephony/internet/communication services, electronics development, however it would be appropriate. Problem is how many of those services overlap and likely where they'd argue that the company can't be broken up.

Like you said, that's like seizing their business from them and it also doesn't account for global factors. However, each nation is ultimately responsible for how companies operate within their borders, internet service providers should be no different.

[–] tedu@azorius.net 2 points 11 months ago

So what should a regulated search utility do about SEO spam? Maybe publish an open source algorithm so I can test my spam before submitting it?

[–] abhibeckert@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Because they are making so that we get less results that are just cheating the system to show up at the top?

No, because they are failing to hide low quality search results. Something the would invest more money in if an alternative search engine existed.

There are so many websites now that just shouldn't exist at all. And they wouldn't exist if Google didn't send tons of traffic their way.

[–] NoIWontPickAName@kbin.earth 4 points 11 months ago

What websites do you think shouldn’t be allowed to exist here?

You find what you search for, shitty companies game the system with SEO because they are shitty and it’s the only way for them to get access.

Google is trying to make that harder for them to do.

Why is them making SEO harder a bad thing?

[–] jacksilver@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

If there were more search systems/engines there would be a wider variety of ways search results are optimized. Meaning SEO would have a greater level of diminishing returns. Having a single player creates a single point of weakness in search.

[–] NoIWontPickAName@kbin.earth 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

There are a ton of them, the problem is none of them are as good as google.

I hear there are good pay ones, though I have never tried one.

I can usually find what I need on google pretty damn quick, although I have seen the end page more than once

[–] abhibeckert@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I can usually find what I need on google pretty damn quick

It depends what you're searching for. Some things are very hard to find that used to be easy.

The solution I'd like to see is for Google to stop being anticompetitive. For example it just leaked that they pay half of their company wide profits to Apple in order to stop Apple from using (or creating) another search engine.

Stop spending tens of billions of dollars per year trying to keep competition away, and instead invest all of that money into making Google Search a better product.

[–] JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

They also pay Mozilla over $400 million a year for the same. And as around 90% of the income for Mozilla is from the search engine deals, they'd go out of business without them.

[–] runefehay@kbin.social 3 points 11 months ago

Mozilla wouldn't be struggling if another monopoly (Microsoft) hadn't destroyed their company.

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[–] conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Because they down ranked sites blatantly shoveling shit for the sole purpose of gaming their algorithm?

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[–] mlc894@lemm.ee 47 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Who wrote this? I’m supposed to be upset that a bunch of big websites are lower on Google results? Why should anyone besides their shareholders care?

Edit: Oh, he co-founded the website hosting this article. So he does indeed have a vested personal interest.

[–] hglman@lemmy.ml 5 points 11 months ago

It's not as if Google's results have improved in that time span. They are significantly worse now.

[–] Reddfugee42@lemmy.world 44 points 11 months ago

Good. Websites are spammy garbage now. I can't fucking believe how shitty the experience is when I'm not using a browser with uBlock origin.

If this is a way to punish that, punish away.

[–] Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 25 points 11 months ago

I don't see pinterest on this list.

[–] Plavatos@sh.itjust.works 19 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Pornhub, xtube, I know these names better than Google knows my own grandmother's. Youporn, xxn, redtube, panty jobs, homegrown Simpsons stuff....

Edit: This isn't my fault it's the source articles for using that image.

[–] BowtiesAreCool@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago

That’s one of the most trash articles I’ve ever read.

[–] IDontHavePantsOn@lemm.ee 9 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Does anyone know the best lemmy community to ask about SEO and web/finance tech in relation to a small business? I have a small business that is doing very well, but SEO and word of mouth is a direct contributor to its success, and I think I'm getting screwed over in cost by the company I've been paying to run my site building, hosting and, SEO.

[–] UnculturedSwine@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Considering the general types that actually use lemmy, you're on the wrong platform for that kind of community. No offense

[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I would assume that the amount of people working in the IT-sector far outweighs any other job occupation.

[–] azl@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 11 months ago

But IT is not marketing, which is the subject of this discussion...

[–] gt5@lemm.ee 3 points 11 months ago

You can dm me if you want. I ran an agency that did SEO for a several years before I sold it in 2021. I’m can’t provide you with much in the ways of strategy anymore but I can give you an idea if your current provider is doing reputable work or not

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[–] guyrocket@kbin.social 8 points 11 months ago

But google is NOT a monopoly. Right?

[–] rodneylives@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago

What the heck is Dexerto?

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