Although over 80% of the population still uses Google as their primary search engine, I have written on this Substack before about Google’s potential bias. Dr. Robert Epstein has continued to accumulate evidence that Google may be swaying elections. I have also pointed out that other search engines may deliver superior, or at the very least additional, results.
The recently-produced youtube video Google Search Decay, Internet Rot delves into the history of changes made to the Google search engine over time and the subsequent decay of search results. Several of the comments further illustrate the deterioration:
I remember in like 2008 you could verbatim search on google and find exactly what you were after. Even like a specific youtube comment
The worst problem I’m seeing is google’s complete inability to accept “weird” searches. It takes what people search for most often and gets perfect results for that, then any slight modification and you get NOTHING.
My favorite is when I'm looking up a technical issue, and every answer is 8+ years out of date so when I filter for "this year" (not last year, or 365 days, so early in the year you gotta specify the month of last year) the results get completely randomized. It's like, because I'm not part of the herd asking the same question, my results are intentionally obfuscated
I miss the web surfing days of yore. It was a fun experience as a kid. Now we just go where people are, to the road heavily trodden by. Back then, you can discover different things and curiously strange things. Now it’s all just billboards you see while driving through the finitely yet vast deserts of the internet.
Google doesn’t do what it used to do. I can’t even force keywords anymore. It arbitrarily removes them from the query for some reason and no amount of plus signs or quotes can get around it.
The video also examines the state of the internet more broadly through the rate of link rot, something I have noticed in the short time span I have published pieces on Heterodoxy in the Stacks (already many of the links in my earlier pieces are broken). The video takes a closer look at the rot rate of links in the digital version of The New York Times as well as in online library and information science journals.
Will people increasingly turn to search engines other than Google as its utility declines? Or does the broader internet decay indicate that we are moving into a future of online searching that will entail verbally asking a question into a mobile phone to retrieve an AI-generated answer?
Top image: Abandoned and rotting fishing boat hulks near Salen, Isle of Mull/ Wikimedia Commons
I've been using Duck Duck Go and Brave search for a while now and while the results are different from Google, I don't think they're necessarily "better". Usually, I can still punch through to what I'm looking for with Google due to its mostly predictable behavior. Afaik, quotes and negatives still work, as well as domain type specific searches. I suspect part of the challenge with search is that the web has so much more junk now that is specifically designed to game search engines. I'm willing to try other search engines if you have any to recommend.
I still use Google for the basics (directions, nearby restaurants, class schedules, etc.). If I want privacy or to research something more in depth I will use Brave or occasionally Presearch. I recall sending a librarian to a training on Google searching where he learned some tips to get better results, but the general public are probably unaware of those tips.
I stopped using Google except as a last resoet about 2018. It was for exactly the reasons in this article. Herd search is all its good for. I too temember being able to do precise, obscure searches. I miss that.
I've taught advanced Google search and yes, most people are unaware of it. Though I'd say that hasn't changed over the years regardless of search results. Advanced search has always been for power users.
Duck Duck Go is basically just a Google annonimizer- it strips your identifying metadata from search requests first, then delivers the non-ad results plus ads for DDG. So any bias from Google will be reproduced in DDG searches. Presearch is one of the only other native search engines of any consequence. Tucows is also, I believe.
I like the privacy aspects of Brave but haven't used it's search engine much. I just looked it up - apparently, it's based on a native engine developed by Tailcat or Cliqz (hard to say which), that they bought. It has an option to use anonymized Google search results too, but the default is to use their native search engine. That would be a big plus in my opinion - otherwise, you're just getting anonymized Google bias results like DDG. I'll have to try some searches side by side - Brave's engine and Presearch - and get better acquainted with it.
I've been trying to come up with a word or expression to describe this phenomenon I run into with search engines now - where you are looking for something that is either esoteric, or in a technical domain, but it uses one or more relatively common words. One used to be able to find such things if a few extra specific words or phrases were thrown in. But the search engine tendency to assume you are looking for what the herd is looking for and don't really mean what you typed ends up completely shadowing or eclipsing what you're looking for - especially if one of your words has any commercial applications. Then you get rained on with ad links. Even as late as seven or eight years ago, if you doggedly went through page after page, you would find it eventually, maybe 20 pages down. Now, Google will just stop. "No more results". It's like you've hit the end of the Internet. It's such a chilling contrast with the way it worked in the early 2000's. And it's really too bad that libraries seem to be converting themselves into Google-appendages so that the shadow extends over them, too.
Interesting, now that you mention it I've noticed something similar. Bing is even worse, with its annoying insistence on replacing my results list with AI-generated responses.
And because we remember "the way it was" we can force it to be better. For those who don't...they have little idea.
On a related note-- https://unherd.com/?p=494473?
I've been using Duck Duck Go and Brave search for a while now and while the results are different from Google, I don't think they're necessarily "better". Usually, I can still punch through to what I'm looking for with Google due to its mostly predictable behavior. Afaik, quotes and negatives still work, as well as domain type specific searches. I suspect part of the challenge with search is that the web has so much more junk now that is specifically designed to game search engines. I'm willing to try other search engines if you have any to recommend.
I still use Google for the basics (directions, nearby restaurants, class schedules, etc.). If I want privacy or to research something more in depth I will use Brave or occasionally Presearch. I recall sending a librarian to a training on Google searching where he learned some tips to get better results, but the general public are probably unaware of those tips.
I stopped using Google except as a last resoet about 2018. It was for exactly the reasons in this article. Herd search is all its good for. I too temember being able to do precise, obscure searches. I miss that.
I've taught advanced Google search and yes, most people are unaware of it. Though I'd say that hasn't changed over the years regardless of search results. Advanced search has always been for power users.
I'll have to give Presearch a try.
Duck Duck Go is basically just a Google annonimizer- it strips your identifying metadata from search requests first, then delivers the non-ad results plus ads for DDG. So any bias from Google will be reproduced in DDG searches. Presearch is one of the only other native search engines of any consequence. Tucows is also, I believe.
I didn't know that about Duck Duck Go-- interesting! What do you think of Brave? I don't love the search results there but appreciate the privacy.
I like the privacy aspects of Brave but haven't used it's search engine much. I just looked it up - apparently, it's based on a native engine developed by Tailcat or Cliqz (hard to say which), that they bought. It has an option to use anonymized Google search results too, but the default is to use their native search engine. That would be a big plus in my opinion - otherwise, you're just getting anonymized Google bias results like DDG. I'll have to try some searches side by side - Brave's engine and Presearch - and get better acquainted with it.
I've been trying to come up with a word or expression to describe this phenomenon I run into with search engines now - where you are looking for something that is either esoteric, or in a technical domain, but it uses one or more relatively common words. One used to be able to find such things if a few extra specific words or phrases were thrown in. But the search engine tendency to assume you are looking for what the herd is looking for and don't really mean what you typed ends up completely shadowing or eclipsing what you're looking for - especially if one of your words has any commercial applications. Then you get rained on with ad links. Even as late as seven or eight years ago, if you doggedly went through page after page, you would find it eventually, maybe 20 pages down. Now, Google will just stop. "No more results". It's like you've hit the end of the Internet. It's such a chilling contrast with the way it worked in the early 2000's. And it's really too bad that libraries seem to be converting themselves into Google-appendages so that the shadow extends over them, too.
I have had those same frustrations with my searches, and yes I have hit the Google "end of the road" way too early.
My simple response: stop using Google.
I still use it for basic searches but use other search engines for privacy or additional research.
I still don’t use it whenever possible.
Interesting, now that you mention it I've noticed something similar. Bing is even worse, with its annoying insistence on replacing my results list with AI-generated responses.
I wrote this post before I had heard of "dead internet theory": https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/apr/30/techscape-artificial-intelligence-bots-dead-internet-theory