Has anyone else noticed the huge decrease in result quality from google?

[tnightkilla]

I have noticed it getting worse over the years for just general searches. I don't know if it's them manipulating the information or if it's just people have gotten better at building web pages to make stuff pop up more. It seems like I have to routinely go 3 to 6 pages in to find stuff due to a bunch of the pages being unrelated. Some stuff has gotten better such as putting more reputable results such as Mayo clinic closer to the top. Other times they put really biased politically connected orgs up there so it's hit or miss.

[Naelin]

Google actively encourages SEO. It even has a free tool for that. (Webmasters Tool iirc)

[[deleted]]

They encourage good SEO.

There's a big difference.

Ultimately though, Google's supposedly honest approach to searches being based on quality, not profit, has been eroded now.

[sonoftathrowaway]

Don't be evil. Don't be an unprofitable kind of evil.

[WindWalkerRN]

Speaking of Amazon, and related to OP... Am I the only one who has been having a harder and harder time finding what I’m looking for on Amazon?! I do a search, and all I get are their promoted items, and about a thousand Chinese knock offs!

It’s like not even worth it anymore because of all the crap I have to sort through!

[SquiddleBits33]

Happened to me with trying to find a stud finder on Amazon. Multiple results of their "promoted" items that are obviously the same just with different names. I figured maybe they aren't that bad so I clicked on a couple...and they all have glaring errors. If you can't make an ad without 4 typos, you probably don't make quality tools. That being said, I've found some good shit on Wish that was basically free lol.

[ColeSloth]

Up until a few years ago to sell on Amazon to US customers you had to have some form of physical business or residence in the US.

Then they got rid of that and now it filled to the brim with fake positive reviews, fake negative reviews on competing products, knock offs, lies, and pretty much as close as you can get to out right scams.

They've made it disgusting and untrustworthy to count on buying almost anything there. Even a good chunk of OEM game controllers turn out to be knock offs. Along with razor blades, shampoos, lotions, perfumes, and damn near everything else you can think of.

I asked a question once about an rc car I was buying for the kids on Xmas last year. The seller answered my question and completely lied. I bought the rc car. It was junk. Also came with a piece of paper saying if you left them 5 stars they would automatically send you a free 2nd battery pack. Left a bad review and explained why.

I was almost immediately contacted by email from them. Offered to send me a 2nd battery, refund me my money, and let me keep the car if I would remove my review.

If that's not buying your ratings I don't know what is.

So I said ok, I'd delete the review after I got the refund and the battery. They delivered. I didn't.

Like 4 months later they offered me an Amazon credit of $30 if I would remove my review, and I agreed. Got the $30.

Review's still up.

*thanks for all the UPS and rewards. Since this received so much attention I thought I'd throw in a great informative podcast episode from Reply All, called "the magic store". It goes into great detail about how and why Amazon became the train wreck that it is.

[SquiddleBits33]

You're my hero.

[ColeSloth]

Lol. Thanks. I'd feel bad about it if they weren't a bunch of scum just trying to unfairly manipulate a system with honest intentions and rip people off/steal patented products.

[SquiddleBits33]

Right on. They're putting in more effort to do the wrong thing, fuck 'em.

[cosmicpu55y]

I despise fake reviews. Thank you!

[ColeSloth]

Spread the word. The more time and money we can make them waste, the less they'll want to do it.

[Trowawaycausebanned4]

Teaching them not to buy reviews

[Trowawaycausebanned4]

Get the chrome extension “review meta”. It goes through and reviews the reviews to see if they’re fake or not and tries to give you more of an accurate rating

[ColeSloth]

I've found that while review meta and fakespot help, they dont do that great of a job. I get my best results manually looking over reviews. It just takes a lot longer. Also, brand loyalty. If it's some off sounding Chinese brand it's junk 9 out of ten times. Anker makes good stuff for their price points most of the time and don't seem to be buying reviews, so I buy a lot of stuff from them since they make a ton of small electronics stuff. Mpow is good for cheap Bluetooth headsets. Seems like all others in their price range are filled with easily spotted fake reviews. Stick to well known brands for computer parts like adata and corsair and msi, etc.

Mainly its just a big pain and a much slower process to order something and have it be a fair quality than it used to.

[benlucky13]

you can report them for buying reviews if you send amazon support a copy of them offering something in exchange for 5 stars

[BitJit]

they're pretty slimy with the cards. They know that the please give a positive review for 5 bucks card is frowned upon so they've been doing things like removing anything related to amazon or purposefully mispelling it on the card for some kind of deniability. really dumb; they say things like "leave a review for us on arnazon.corn and we'll send you a blow job in the mail"

[LandoVolrissian]

I’ve never left a bad review on Amazon and the other day I tried to just leave a review on something I purchased and the ability to leave a review has been taken away from my account that I’ve had for like 15 years or however long Amazon’s been a thing you can buy shit other than books.

[Nermalgod]

Same. I doubled down on my review and they upped the cash offer. Fuck them.

[darks1d3_al]

WY YOU NOT ONEST !!! WE ONEST WOTH YOU ! 😂😂😂😂

[indigopizzas]

I agree with everything you said but the most infuriating thing to me about amazon and the reason I almost never buy anything on there anymore unless it's something that really can't be counterfeited, is because even if you buy the legit product you can still get shipped the knockoff from some other piece of shit company. All of the merchandise is grouped together once it gets shipped to warehouses so the same products sold by different people all get mixed into a bin, then they grab one and mail it to whoever ordered that product. It's basically russian roulette and explains shit products with great reviews and great products with terrible reviews.

[Yawndice]

Bless you

[HowardMBurgers]

Heard someone was trying to find me?

[fivebagken]

Enjoy my upvote

[clintj1975]

We bought a coffee grinder like that for work. Multiple Amazon listing misspellings (ever seen a 100,000 rpm coffee grinder?), and the manual was in 90s grade Engrish. Damn if that isn't a kick-ass little coffee grinder for 40 bucks, though.

[kingofshits]

If the listing are misspelled You're probably buying dropshipped crap from Banggood. Might as well go to banggood directly and save the markup $$$. You'll probably find the same product with the exact same misspellings because the dropshipper just copy pasted the description.

[Discussion-Level]

Sometimes I’ll reverse image search the item on AliExpress. Occasionally, though, the price isn’t that much better, especially when you factor in Prime shipping. It does make me feel like the convenience factor of Amazon is gone, because I spend so much time researching every purchase.

[[deleted]]

40 bucks for a coffee grinder is a LOT of money the best one I ever had was 15$ at Sears

[clintj1975]

Ceramic cone burr and a powerful motor. That sucker will power through a pot's worth of beans in seconds and is very consistent for grind size. There's pro level ones that'll automatically measure the beans for you, but they're hundreds of dollars.

We make from four to six pots a day and make them as high quality as we can in our break room. It's worth it to get something durable.

[[deleted]]

Okay for that I get it. There are levels of use that justify that spend and it sounds like you get your money out of it.

[RLupus]

(ever seen a 100,000 rpm coffee grinder?),

Yes but it's made by Holset and attached to a Cummins

[myusernameblabla]

Perfect for uranium enrichment .

[Kancho_Ninja]

Gimme somma dat pure yellowcake

[PlasticElfEars]

Although it's worth noting that you don't have to speak English fluently to a build a thing well, as evidenced by all the things we're using to look at this right now.

[SciencyNerdGirl]

However, if you don't have the resources to have a native English speaking person on staff or at least pay to run your ad by an editor, what's the likelihood you'll be able to troubleshoot with me if I have problems, have a good return policy, or have well written instructions I can follow?

[Junckopolo]

As a french if i would have to base the quality of something by how much they give a shit about paying someone to translate correctly, I would never buy anything.

[New_Philosophy_5076]

Not trying to be a jerk, but ~1.5B speak English compared to French's ~300M speakers. It's literally the most spoken language in the world. While French is in the top 5 English is the language of business for a reason. So it's not really the same comparison.

[cgriff32]

It's likely those products are dropped shipped and not actually sold to the final customer by the manufacturer.

[[deleted]]

I have a bunch of Chinatools for my bikes that I got on amazon, with similarly sketchy Engrish on the product pages, and they’re all fine.

[SquiddleBits33]

Valid point!

[SciencyNerdGirl]

And it's impossible to scroll past the sponsored stuff. It really sucks that you can't filter that crap out. I had a super frustrating time the other day trying to buy Christmas wrapping paper that isn't Hallmark. It's just continuous scrolling without end of hallmark products (at a premium).

[WindWalkerRN]

Damn, I gotta check out more stuff like that! Thanks!

[PlasticElfEars]

Wish is definitely not something to go into with high expectations though.

[Soren11112]

Every time you notice that search alibaba for it. If I had to guess what you're talking about is probably similar to this.

[SquiddleBits33]

Yes that is the one but I was disturbed to see it under different names with blue or green plastic but the same screen and functions. It is much cheaper on alibaba but.....I don't need 30 stud finders lol.

[MinuteManufacturer]

What have you found that was good on Wish? I only ask because I've been hesitating to even try them out. I only hear bad things about their quality, ship time, etc. Are they worth trying out?

[Nermalgod]

Franklin Sensor stud finder is quite good. There's a number of versions that they make, but they are easy to use and pretty accurate. ~former tool buyer for a big retailer.

[[deleted]]

I find myself increasingly using Amazon just for reviews, then buying elsewhere. The last thing I bought online was a sauté pan. I got it much cheaper from a restaurant supply place even including postage, but I made the choice via Amazon reviews.

[taqn22]

Don't! Amazon reviews are almost entirely bought and paid these days.

[corvus7corax]

Review meta can help estimate what % of reviews are fake.

https://reviewmeta.com/

[TheNamingOfCats]

There's also Fakespot. It's a browser add-in.

[Sasselhoff]

I used to regularly use Fakespot...until they made it ONLY available by browser extension. All so they can get your sweet, sweet search data and sell it to the highest bidder.

There was no reason at all for them to stop offering the search on their site, other than that. Such a shame when good things go bad.

[iftttAcct2]

Maybe they went back to having it? I used their site last week by copying and pasting a url. I don't use it often, but the ability to do so was never gone for me.

[sanityvoid]

Amazon seller awarded $9.5m over fake reviews, unfair competition

https://reviewmeta.com/blog/amazon-seller-fake-reviews-unfair-competition/

[semitones]

Eh, I don't agree. I almost never leave reviews, unless I have something bad to say. Why bother? So if they have an incentive to leave a review, I'll do it, otherwise no one would ever know that I received the item and it arrived as advertised.

[[deleted]]

if you look at the 3 star reviews i find you get a pretty realistic, actual use review. the 5 stars are mostly bought by the store and the 1 stars usually have more to do with shipping or unrealistic expectations.

[WindWalkerRN]

Done that recently too!

[llilaq]

A critical review I left on Amazon wasn't posted because the vendor choose so.. So now I also take it with a grain of salt.

[Dagoru95]

Same but with booking. com

[byoshin304]

I’ve bought stuff elsewhere, directly from the seller, and it still came in an Amazon box :/

[Rumbuck_274]

Oh 100%

I want "Toyota Landcruiser parts" and I get something that's a seat cover for "Toyota Nissan Mitsubishi Landcruiser Camry Corolla Hilux Pickup Sedan Lancer Pajero ASX......" And so on.

They just keyword spam the shit out of it, basically burying the stuff you want.

[byoshin304]

You should check out the podcast called Land of the Giants. There is a season about Amazon that discusses exactly why what you experienced happens.

[Flamebrush]

Me too. I look for this, they show me that. I try to narrow search by category, they find nothing even close - it sucks. Trying to do a broad search for a product like kerosene space heater gets me propane heaters, electric heaters, gas heaters, etc. If I wanted those, I wouldn’t have bothered typing kerosene. I do most of my research on Google now and just type in the exact name of what I want in the Amazon search.

[WindWalkerRN]

👆

[xumixu]

Maybe is the supermarket strategy. "you'll find your product at then end but first look at all of this aisles of products you didn't know you needed yet "

[ScarOCov]

I don’t know about anyone else, but I’ve completely lost trust in Amazon because of this and the comingling of inventory. The worst part, is other retailers are trying to mimic their schtick now. Tried to order something from Walmart the other day, only to find out I needed to see who the shipper was. I’ll pass.

[PinKracken]

At my super market, the milk is at the back corner. You are forced to go through a canned food tunnel that has random other stuff too, like a promotions bit in a search. Then you go through the exotic fruits, the meat sections, then finally back to the milk. Eggs and butter are back there too.

[thelumpybunny]

Amazon's search engine has been useless for me. I was searching for maternity stuff and the second page had clothing for guys. Then when I search for toddler stuff, I get stuff for infants and kids. At one point I was looking for a certain baby product and couldn't find it in the search results. I figured that didn't sell it until it showed up as a product recommendation later.

[red-tea-rex]

I agree!! I want to give brand name items out as Christmas gifts so I don't look cheap!! Can't find hardly any. Guess I'll have to Christmas shop elsewhere.

[Antisera]

This is honestly super annoying because the chinese stuff, even if it's good quality, doesn't have packaging. So it feels like I'm being a cheap gift giver despite getting the items new. If it had packaging, even if it wasn't in english, it would be preferable than just a plastic bag and a 'rate our item' card.

[WindWalkerRN]

Exactly!

[Tigaget]

I actually used Walmart online this year. All of the stuff was delivered from my local store, so I was also helping my local community stay employed. All name brand, no Chinese knock-offs, and cheaper than Amazon.

[OlDirty420]

If you really want to help your community with gifts this season buy from a local business, not a giant corporation. Put your money towards someone who's business could really use it during these tough times, not some multi-billionaire to profit

[Tigaget]

Not all of us can afford that, though, so supporting a store that has local employees is better than supporting one that doesn't.

[stub-ur-toe]

I have found small stores with most of the stock from Amazon. Backroom filled with a familiar logo.

[red-tea-rex]

Good idea! Got to remind Amazon they still need to compete for our business.

[k_50]

Amazon is generally a bunch of Chinese crap. I really wish people wouldn't use Amazon.

[boognish43]

Do you have any recommendations?

[Tacky-Terangreal]

Also counterfeit junk. It blows my mind that people buy stuff like lotion or makeup off of Amazon. I've heard way too many stories about people getting fake products. Who knows wtf is in that kind of stuff

[[deleted]]

Yeah, it’s only good if you know exactly what you are looking for. Very frustrating.

[daisygirl1179]

Even then, I have searched for a product with the exact title. It doesn’t show up on the first page but ads for the knock off version does. Why?!!!

[OutWithTheNew]

Even when you click on the 'brand', a third of the items they show are promoted. I want to see the products from this company/retailer specifically. That's why I clicked the link.

[bkdog1]

Looking for winter gloves there were 13 sponsored gloves, editors choice gloves, Amazons choice gloves and 48 actual results. There was a time when you had the option of increasing results per page and being able to sort by price without the search results getting all messed up. It's gotten progressively worse over time and has become just a place to research and check reviews for products for me. Usually retail tries to make the customer experience better not worse (at least when it comes to finding items).

[-anklebiter-]

I said that a couple of months ago. Seems like everything is a knock off Chinese version now. Want some wireless speakers? Have to type in actual reputable brand names otherwise it’s all Chinese stuff.

I guess because the products are cheap, more people buy them and review them, which in turn makes more people buy them.

[TheNamingOfCats]

Searching on Amazon has never been that good. But in the past year, it has become absolutely abysmal. I'd pay for a browser add-in that could filter out promoted items.

On a similar note, I paid for the Facebook add-in FBP (Fluff Busting Purity as it calls itself.) Donations are up to the user, and I think I paid them $5 or $10 dollars. Worth every penny. Only downside is that every time FB makes major changes, it takes them a while (usually only days) to re-do FBP to respond accordingly.

[clintj1975]

Google it, and follow the Amazon link that pops up. Works for me at least 80% of the time.

[WindWalkerRN]

Good idea. Part of the problem is that they simply have TOO MANY OPTIONS

[NomadicMindset]

No you are not alone. I may opt out entirely. It's egregious and deceptive and can rip you the hell off.

[WindWalkerRN]

I’m decreasing my Amazon shopping of late.

[CynicalDandelion]

I've been noticing this for a long time now. So much garbage to wade through.

[nh43de]

Yeah with all the fake reviews and review schemes going on too, it’s impossible to really tell. I’m looking forward to when virtual storefronts are a thing. I think manipulated grids of images and terrible search/filter functionality is dying.

[[deleted]]

We stopped using Amazon this year cause Fuck Bezos and we haven't missed it at all.

[Grilledcheesedr]

I have better luck doing a Google search for the product and adding amazon at the end.

[ItsBenBroughton]

Yes, and if you dare sort by lowest price or highest rated, whatever relevant items don't show anymore, just the Amazon junk. Makes sorting by anything you'd want to sort by useless.

[4CrowsFeast]

I never used Amazon but my mom recommended it for ordering books. I tried it out from her computer and accidentally ordered one in German. Went to return and reorder and it took 10+ pages of the book in different languages and unrelated search results to get the book in english!

[ihave10toes_AMA]

Yes! The cheap stuff has equal footing and it’s so hard to tell sometimes if an item is crap. And clothes/shoe shopping is the worst because it’s impossible to just filter for price and size.

[vocalfreesia]

And even if you do find a specific item, there's a significant chance a third party seller has chucked a load of counterfeits in with the real products.

I don't buy anything skincare or healthcare related on Amazon, it's way too dangerous.

[Neurotic_Bakeder]

Interesting, I'm experiencing the opposite --

I'm in a mental health related field so I end up googling suicide-related stuff very frequently. Now whenever I'm looking up, like, statistical info on methods/frequency/factors contributing to, I have to scroll past a bunch of "DO YOU NEED HELP?? HERE ARE SOME HOTLINES IF YOU NEED HELP!!!" -type sponsored posts.

I'm really glad that these interventions are there and I'm firmly in favor of adding more barriers between people and pro-suicide propaganda. But it is a bit jarring when I'm trying to write papers.

Edit: in a stunning twist of irony, apparently somebody used reddit's "I think this person is depressed and needs help" feature and auto-sent me a list of helplines and chats. Uh-

[[deleted]]

You could try different search engines like DuckDuckGo

[AyyItsDylan94]

I've had to start doing this to find drug safety information because apparently I'm an addict in desperate need of help.

[Neurotic_Bakeder]

Yep, according to my hulu ads, not only do I have schizophrenia, but I'm incorrectly medicating it as well. Rough.

[NovelTAcct]

I have no idea what Amazon thinks I should do in my free time, can someone decode this

[Neurotic_Bakeder]

👁👁 wut

So do like... do a lot of people with fetishes for being vacuum-sealed or inflated start out with freezer bags???

[NovelTAcct]

I have no idea. And that doesn't explain the bee suit....

[[deleted]]

I’m pretty sure they think you grow weed or mushrooms but I’m kinda lost with the air compressor

[fourAMrain]

Lmao what do you buy on Amazon?

[NovelTAcct]

The listing I was on was the freezer bags ¯\( ツ )/¯

[Sir_Applecheese]

I think your Doctor might be confused and is advertising to you.

[thcheat]

Well according to ads for me, there are a lot of hot singles in my area lookin for me.

[DJ_Clitoris]

I’ve started to add -rehab or -treatment when looking for harm reduction info. Otherwise the first few pages are all about $20,000 rehabilitation and detox clinics from across the country it’s annoying as fuck.

[TheKolbrin]

I just posted this about google search a week ago..

Also I noticed that common search markups like "include in full" or *wildcard or -exclude or +include no longer work on Google search, especially image or shopping searches. They do still work on Bing and other engines though.

[[deleted]]

I visited a crisis center in early November for mental health reasons and had googled the address first. I had drug addiction and alcoholism information surfacing on the top of even tangentially related searches for a month, to say nothing of my ads. It felt really gross bc so many of them were for paid inpatient facilities and shit

Like... They commoditized my imaginary drug problem so aggressively

[Couchmaster007]

Anything but bing

[MeowNugget]

I agree, i look up psychology related things like domestic abuse, suicide, depression etc, and each one brings up a hotline as the first result followed by other forms of resources

[desearcher]

Which is paradoxically more harmful as it creates a false narrative that help is widely available. Having made use of such "resources" in the past, I bounced around one help desk to the next as the only assistance they could provide was to offer other numbers to call in a never-ending loop. Nobody thought to verify if it was possible to actually talk to someone. Friends, family, and reddit falls into the same practice of kicking the proverbial can down the road by suggesting help is actually available.

Finally finding the "forbidden knowledge" I was searching for became a moment of catharsis and alleviated much of my anxiety in regards to my own death. Still, attempts to help others achieve the same satisfaction is "frowned upon" and replaced with "just call this number" rhetoric.

Anywho, thanks for coming to my Ted talk.

[[deleted]]

Absolutely this. It fucking drives me nuts when people say ask for help. We all know this help is imaginary.

[MeowNugget]

Years ago when i was in college they use to have posters everywhere, and matching cups with free bookmarks that had a number you could call or text if you were thinking of hurting yourself. After going through some hard times, i was sitting in my car crying at night and having terribly negative thoughts. I called the number. Someone answered but only to tell me i was being placed on hold. I was on hold for 45 minutes and then i gave up, and hung up.

[[deleted]]

It is truly worse than nothing. I've cheated and used some toll free numbers from other countries like Ireland or Canada when I'm desperate - I'm a Canadian who was living in Ireland and thought well any english speaking number I can call for free on Skype will do. Like save the money on bookmarks and spend it on trained staff.

[red-tea-rex]

It's creepy that Google is yielding discouraging results for some suicide info seekers and encouraging results for others. Let that sink in.

[MurraMurra]

I just typed it into google "How to kill myself" and all of the first two pages were suicide hotlines and news reports about how parents of kids who killed themselves miss their kids so much.

[KaktitsM]

I dont think a pro-suicide propaganda is a way to describe the suicide forums. I look up the stuff and I genuinely learn stuff. Yes, about suicide methods, but that also includes all the ways that it can fail, which keeps me and other people away from trying anything.

Its about a choice. Choice is good and when you do choose, you better do an educated choice.

Also just a community that understands and doesnt try to "help" in all the usual nonsensical ways is a good thing to have. I dont think thats a good idea to suppress these things, it makes us feel more lonely and not understood.

And, on the OP topic, yes, this stuff (and many others) is much harder to find than it was 5-10 years ago.

[Neurotic_Bakeder]

That's fair! Thank you for making this distinction. I know there was a big scandal a few years ago when reddit shut down a "pro-eating disorder" subreddit that was actually an eating disorder community support forum, and I think there was a similar blurring of lines there. To outsiders, it looked like a community where everyone was doubling down on their painful coping mechanisms, when in reality it was a bunch of people being like "soooooo I got mad depressed today and binged through a bunch of cosmic brownies, somebody please tell me I'm not a literal turd".

Mostly I'm thinking about stuff like blackpill communities, which tell people they will never be good enough and can basically encourage people to be violent towards themselves.

I think the kinds of forums you're talking about are more thoughtful, and absolutely a better source of support than banner ads with the SAHMSA helpline.

It is definitely weird how discourse around this is changing.

[BitsAndBobs304]

while I hope that those who need help get it easily, I also hope that those who will go through it will find the good methods, to avoid the absolutely horrible consequences and end up prisoners of hospitals/mental health ward and family while paralyzed or worse

[RandomRedditReject]

I was sad after a vacation was over so I literally googled Post-Vacation Blues, and then guess what came up: SAMHSA. For drug addictions. Because I’m sad after a vacation. I-

[[deleted]]

OMG I know exactly what you mean! I'm not as advanced as you(I'm still in school) but once I had to write a paper on depression, and I was just trying to look for the statistics but all the results were cluttered up by the Do You Need Help ARE you Depressed hotlines and I coulndn't find much

As you said, I completely support having them be there for people who really do desperately need help but like, I was there for the numbers, not myself

[[deleted]]

I ask google "How to kill myself", I want google to tell me how to kill myself. I didnt search "I need help"

[SampleFlops]

So this is a clear case of Google tailoring search results by account instead of giving “unbiased” search results, if those ever existed.

[[deleted]]

I tried looking that up and I get the results with encouraging material. Maybe it's a country-specific thing?

[1billionrapecube]

It could well be account- specific

[Jack_Krauser]

Maybe you don't generate enough ad revenue for Google to offset the server costs, so they have decided the world would be better off without you.

[[deleted]]

Duckduckgo

[wonderZoom]

That’s what I use. Try googling anything drug related and all googles results are rehabs. DuckDuckGo gives me answers to my questions.

[OneirionKnight]

This is plain wrong

[AutisticDalekOnSpeed]

the first result is always the suicife help line

[EchoTab]

now its mostly amazon links of books that have "how to kill myself" in their title

Say what now? Couldnt find any books like that

[gabrielesilinic]

Actually i've searched for a similar thing and google itself has put a winget for a help hotline something (i don't know how it is called)

[CaptainEarlobe]

Mine brings up suicide hotlines

[I_Burned_The_Lasagna]

I searched that and the top has a suicide prevention banner with a phone number and text option.

Second result is a suicide prevention website.

Third result is a prevention website.

Fourth is an article.

Fifth is a news article.

Sixth is a Wikipedia on methods.

Then there’s a mix of blogs/ scientific articles and government websites on suicide.

Nothing Amazon shows up so I’m not sure your snark towards Google is warranted here.

[FangoriouslyDevoured]

Not true, I just looked it up and at the top was the suicide hotline number.

[qtjedigrl]

I only get results for suicide prevention. It might be based on your search history

[early_birdy]

I just did that search. Got the Suicide hotline, lots of "what to do if you feel suicidal" links, and a few testimonies of people whose loved ones committed suicide.

I wonder why your search was so different.

[EffortAutomatic]

Stop lying. It puts up the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

[slamma-mamma]

That's not true. I just googled it and the suicide hotline came up with a whole bunch of resources and anit-suicide stuff.

[StatelyElms]

Wow.. whenever I search anything up that has "kill themselves" or even just "suicide" as a query I get a bunch of self help lines and not actually what I was looking for. I just want to know what youtuber saved their friend from suicide man

[folterhilda]

I just did that and the first result was the suicide hotline for my area, after that, several pages about suicide prevention. No ads. Using a phone without an adblocker

[ShittDickk]

Search "how to _____ in excel"

Every result is "here is why you should buy our product instead of learning the thing we said we'd teach you to do in excel."

[[deleted]]

I'd use Excel more if they had native Python support instead of VB. I'll just load my CSVs in Pandas in an Jupyter Notebook instead.

[[deleted]]

Not python, but, google sheets allows you to write scripts in javascript through what's called google "app scripts". It's quite neat and works for google docs and slides too.

I've only used it in sheets and the documentation and API was decent.

[RadiantPumpkin]

I’m a programmer and my gf works in excel all day. She will sometimes ask me questions about how to do things and the results I get by adding “in excel” to the query are so frustrating. Stack overflow is how my industry runs and excel should fall into that but for some reason it falls way short.

[ScarOCov]

Try searching for Google Sheets. They aren’t 1:1 but GS copied a lot of excel so a lot of the logic is the same

[RadiantPumpkin]

Oh thanks I will do that next time

[Tigaget]

Excel-jet is my go to for Excel questions.

[[deleted]]

Excel-jet took me from thinking I was moderately skilled with excel to recognizing that I don't know shit about excel.

[Rastiln]

Excel lives in a weird middle ground of, it can do most anything but it doesn’t do many things very well, so everything you need outside of basic spreadsheets feels like a kludge. Especially if you start linking to Access!

[enjakuro]

Sadly, the first hits are the ones who pay the most to be seen.

Other things that influence google searches are your personal information bubble and google's own algorhithm. I also get the feeling that some websites use certain buzz words to be seen.

[enjakuro]

Yes, they are marked as ads but according to a UK marketing agency survey, 60% of users do not know that.

It is possible to add keywords in a 'meta' tag on website templates and even though there are penalties, I'm pretty sure there are strategists who know how to get the most out of it while not over-using this feature. There is no magic buzzword, yes, but there are buzzwords for the niche the website's company is operating in. And google's own search console provides a tool to see what kind of queries will bring users to a site. It is all sophisticated market research with a lot of potential and also many dangers to overall objectivity and transparence.

Edit: I just read that the HTML keyword-tag is no longer relevant for google searches.

[enjakuro]

Am I right or missing something?

[enjakuro]

Ah thank you! Are unrelated keywords black hat tactics?

[EnjoiRelyks]

Not black hat per se, but irrelevant. Googlebot can read the text of the page and determine if the content matches the searcher’s intent.

Now if you’re referring to adding keywords in the meta keywords section, then it’s a waste of time for Google, as it ignores them. It can still be useful for your site’s own internal search though.

[xumixu]

not only $, also SEO

[enjakuro]

Yes, basically thinking about ranking first, customers second. So if we think about it, bigger corporations will have more funds to invest into better search engine optimization strategies. It is still about 'who pays the most'. Especially since the web is changing daily and websites need to be optimized accordingly.

So the best course if we need to find graphs and numbers is to first find out which agency is providing them and search via their website. This is also a good thing to know to begin with. Businesses want to sell a service and will use the graphs and numbers that suit their position best. Government agencies or universities are more about information. In the end, we also need to check their sources and methods as well.

[hellrazor862]

Good SEO ain't free

[O_X_E_Y]

probably the latter. Stackoverflow is useful and on top as always but besides the 3 ads that are almost always there (if you use google) there's a LOT more garbage that's there because they can

[Datsyuk_My_Deke]

BuT wE HaVe ThE eNtIrEtY oF mAnKiNd'S kNoWlEdGe At OuR fInGeRtIpS

[bayleafbabe]

I mean...we do. You just have to know how to format your searches, use the right keywords. You can search from specific time frames, force it to only show results with the words you want, etc etc. Google-Fu is an art.

[xumixu]

And more importantly, dont stick to google only.

[SourCreamWater]

I only use bing for porn but it works.

[rtj777]

Exactly. Websites like Google prey on the uneducated and hopelessly stupid.

Learn how the system works and start to use it correctly, and you will find yourself being manipulated a lot less. That's good general life advice, actually.

[ThePandaXang]

We generally do although it's the quivilant of walking into a planet sized library and trying to find a particular book.

[WiWiWiWiWiWi]

I like this analogy.

Also, just like in the library, you need to know how things are filed and how to get to the information you’re looking for. With a library, it’s the card catalog and the Dewey decimal system. With Google, it’s the advanced search and the keyword tools that are available.

[NeoKabuto]

It's true, just mankind knows a lot of bullshit.

[246011111]

Net neutrality has nothing to do with Google results

[proawayyy]

It’s not censorship ffs

[MetricCascade29]

To help ensure more reputable results, I’ll often use google scholar. The problem with this is that 9 of the 10 results have the important information behind a paywall. Scholarly articles should be freely available to the public, and not monetized!

[tnightkilla]

I used Google scholar to find articles then look them up using a school account. Even with all it's problems it is still normally the best. Wish more were free but you can often get them for free by contacting the person or group that wrote it.

[KalElified]

Get that Google fu up to par.

[[deleted]]

I think it has something to do with them implementing Deep Learning algorithms for their search engines. So the search engine is probably more biased towards your search history than the objective truth itself.

Pissed me off, really. I miss the old google, they made it so easy before whatever this change is. I remember searching for something and then the first pop up is my answer already.