Comment by bgun
3 days ago
Not sure why you’re being downvoted, this is a pointed analysis of why crawl-based search is insufficient for an Internet of our current scale. There is no corporate-curated algorithm that is up to the task, especially when the primary purpose is to profit from advertising.
Google is remarkably effective at handling the scale. It doesn't seem up for handling the sheer army dedicated to misleading it. Especially now that they've been given tools for automating crap generation.
Ironically, Google itself was a key developer of that tech.
If there is any solution it would seem to involve removing the incentive to merely look at your page. That problem seems remarkably stubborn.
It "doesn't seem up for handling" it because it profits from showing you those ad laden sites. It's intentional, not incompetence.
I think that they'd rather show you the right answers, if they can. Those sites will often have exactly the same ads, and they won't make you think about jumping ship to Bing or Kagi. And advertisers will pay more for sites that actually have good reputations.
Search engines are the picks-and-shovels of the Internet gold rush. They profit either way. They want to do it in a way that keeps the gravy train going.
I'm no starry-eyed capitalist. I'm sure that Google would sell their own grandmothers for a few ad clicks. But occasionally the cynical thing to do is actually the right thing.
>There is no corporate-curated algorithm that is up to the task, especially when the primary purpose is to profit from advertising.
I think this is the root cause of the problem. Google can easily put a big dent in this problem by allowing users to create their own importable/exportable filters and support the dissemination of something like "EasyList for search results." But that kills their golden goose of advertising influence.
> "EasyList for search results"
Who will be in charge of curating that list? We know that crowd-sourced stuff is easily abused (see Amazon reviews, see YouTube comments).
It would indeed be crowd-sourced, but with a core set of maintainers. Wouldn't be all that different from EasyList or Steven Black's HOSTS file. They basically take in merge requests from the community and serve as an initial filter against garbage. [1]
And unlike Amazon reviews or YouTube comments, anyone can fork it if they think they can maintain it better.
[1] "The filter lists are currently maintained by four authors, Fanboy, MonztA, Khrin, Yuki2718 and PiQuark6046, who are ably assisted by an ample forum community." https://easylist.to/