Comment by csomar

3 days ago

This relates to Chrome, not to search. In regard to search, they have taken a new direction that I don't think is going to change any time soon. Some time in the last 2 years, they started removing any thing that doesn't get significant natural traffic (ie: have a 30 year old user manual for something odd that people only search for once in a while? -> removed). Last few months, I noticed that they will not index anything that seems broad (ie: if similar content exists, they won't index it regardless of your page authority).

Basically, they are turning search into Tiktok. If you try to make a search, you'll notice that now they give precedence to AI overview, Youtube, News stories, Maps, Products, etc. Anything but content.

tl;dr: content is dead in Google search.

20 comments

csomar

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rbits  3 days ago

> This relates to Chrome, not to search.

To me, it appears to relate to search

> Pages that are engaging in back button hijacking may be subject to manual spam actions or automated demotions, which can impact the site's performance in Google Search results.

  • csomar  3 days ago

    Good point. Chrome has a “feature” where if your website is google-flagged, it’ll display a danger alert when visiting it. For some reason I confused that with this.

    • mimsee  3 days ago

      If you're referring to Google Safe Browsing lists, all major browsers check agains the same list. I've managed to get mine listed there and immediately banned on all major browsers.

      2 replies →

gunapologist99  2 days ago

I'm actually surprised when I hear someone technical say they still use Google Search (the search product specifically - they still reign supreme with Maps, etc). I used to love it, but that was quite a long time ago.

I personally use Brave Search and perplexity for those very rare instances when brave search doesn't instantly find what I am looking for. Literally the only thing I (rarely) miss from google is super-deep support for boolean search operators, but then I just tag a !g (exactly like DDG's brilliant bangs) on the end and that works. (I also tried Kagi and did like it, but didn't find compelling differences over Brave Search, especially compared to brave search's excellent and free AI.)

  • eks391  2 days ago

    As I read your comment, I was thinking "Really? Is it that surprising?" Then I remembered you said "someone technical", and no longer am surprised. Although I work with some technical people, I'm also surrounded by fools. Just the other day, I watched someone at work open a new tab to Google search, type "Google" and then click on Google search in the results, bringing them to the same page they had just left. With how quickly they did it, I can only imagine it is muscle memory and they haven't noticed yet that their new tab is Google search, or that this is better somehow.