And why you shouldn’t trust product reviews from big media publishers ranking at the top of Google.
Google regularly launches updates to its algorithm to continuously improve search results quality. Think of these updates as a refresh of the system where rankings change: some websites see an improvement while others see a decline.
We know that at the end of the day, Google will reward us if our readers find our articles useful.
Or that’s what we thought.
You might have noticed that no matter what you google, there’s always a selection of the same publishers showing up at the top of the results.
it's so hard to watch people in late-stage capitalism still have faith enough in the integrity of the whole thing to give a go at it, and inevitably get smacked down by the few with all the dollar, as if it werent all rigged against them from the beginning. I hope theyve learned and pivoted their efforts into helping press the big RESET button rather than kicking the can down the road, no matter how pure the intentions
there's a class war on, and we're losing. honestly, truly, maybe we don't need an ethical review website right now, unless youre reviewing torches and pitchforks? I say this out of frustration that so many of the people behind that site will just pointlessly try to play by the rules again. the war needs more good fighters, not people who continue to swallow the lie that the way forward is playing by the current, just so laughably rigged game
Worst I ever seen of this is when discord was doing some NFT bullshit and everyone spent a week doing a boycott and making it clear they were never going to see a dime out of them, then Discord did like a 40% off sale on Nitro and suddenly they all went 😵[boink] 😃💰
Nobody is against capitalism because it's an immoral system, just because it isn't benefiting them personally enough, it's fucking exhausting.
Google regularly launches updates to its algorithm to continuously improve search results quality.
Does anyone still believe this? Their quality has been dog shit for a decade, and gets worse with every update. They change the algorithm to push what is profitable.
That ain’t no joke. Pisses me off that information is gatekept and shopwalled. Almost rverything off the net is monetized, why does cyberspace need the same treatment?
How about YouTube? Video dislikes were a reliable indicator as to which videos to avoid. Now it's full of shitty clickbaits like 'NASA lied'. What was their excuse again?
This is so depressing... I'd been seeing it in effect but I didn't know all the context. We need more and better alternative search engines, like Stract.
EDIT: Actually, are any of the searXNG instances including Stract yet?
I searched for best motorcycle and got lists of best motorcycle accessories.
Then I searched for best motorcycle twisties, and got one gem of a website about some nice roads in WA but the rest of the results were unrelated to roads.
Then I searched for best motorcycle twisties in my state, but got "best mountain bike trails," and some more unrelated sites including a site about porn sites.
If I'm getting porn-adjacent websites when I search for the best twisty roads I'm never gonna use your search engine no matter how much I hate the alternatives.
This article is also a form of advertisement and self-promotion, though it does have a point about the proliferation of absolute garbage "review" and "ranking" pages you get whenever you try to figure out which doodad to chuck money at.