It is clear that the signal to noise ratio of the WWW is getting worse. It’s much harder to find good content when using a good old search engine. And if it’s good it is usually hosted on Reddit or Stackexchange.
So remember, even if it’s easy too Google something (well, it isn’t nowadays), we want to create a fediverse of good content that helps people (I hope). So, it’s always better to write a real answer if you have the time and energy. Please help boost the SNR and reverse the AI fueled information degradation loop.
I’m starting to give up on Google. I’ve literally copy and pasted the same error message in Google, DuckDuckGo, and Kagl.
Google will respond with “no results found” while the others will actually give me a response.
okay so it’s not just me then! I’ve been seeing that zero matches page more and more. It used to be the other way around, if I couldnt find something on DDG or startpage it would be on google. how did they fuck up their indexing so badly
I think zero matches means “we weren’t able to find any suitable ads so we don’t give a fuck about you”
Still … they should at least get more creative and give you links like “Error 404 Root Beer” … or “Error 404 hot women in your area”
Yeah, I ditched Google as my default search engine a while ago. It’s next to useless and they’re a horrible company.
Google knows me too well.
My kids now get Infoblox commercials in the middle of their Minecraft YouTube videos.
Test kagi too
How do the results from ddg match the query? It doesn’t look particularly helpful to me, and if not, why would I prefer to wade through a number of results that are ultimately unhelpful?
If there are no matches, I want to be told.
Even if the results aren’t exactly what I’m looking for, getting something even tangentially related can be helpful in finding the ultimate solution.
Well, are these results?
I’d say so. It’s a starting point for looking into LUN mounting issues with an incorrect host type. These results are better than nothing.
The issue I was having was getting a hyper-v host to connect to an iscsi array on a nimble. That first result was pretty much exactly what I needed. It didn’t highlight it in the preview, but it was on the page once I opened it.
Ah, so that’s definitely good. It wasn’t clear from the screenshots, at least not for me
Don’t tell me what to do.
Found the guy who grew up listening to rage against the machine, who now uses machines to rage against the humans who want him to rage against the machine…but fuck you I won’t do what ya tell me! Fuck you I won’t do what ya tell me! Fuck you I won’t do what ya tell me! Fuck you I won’t do what ya tell me! (UGH!) guitar solo
Who?
No, not The Who.
Then who?
I see things haven’t changed much since the island…
Just Ask Jeeves.
I’m surprised there hasn’t been a revival of an AI Jeeves.
Um, where’s Jeeves? Wtf.
Oh god, I thought a wooden stake had been driven through Jeeve’s heart…
That just turns him on, that kinky bastard!
“Just ChatGPT it” is going to become a thing.
“Just make shit up” is basically saying the same thing.
Until it gets paywalled
and ill throw that suggestion into the fucking trash.
Correct.
Use udm14.org instead.
I don’t get it. I entered a search term and I was just redirected to regular Google.
The difference is you’re not getting ads or AI. It’s basically google from 2010.
I got redirected to regular Google. If that’s only supposed to be a different landing page, I can just as well search from the address bar.
shrugs
Use something else then. Cheers.
Yeah, DuckDuckGo is the way to go.
Kindly do not portray DDG as an “alternative” because it is now trash as well.
2 years ago it was the alternative, today its a sidegrade at best
Kindly do not portray DDG as an “alternative” because it is now trash as well.
A simple redirector to regular Google is really not an alternative at all.
Seems great, thanks for sharing!
For context: https://tedium.co/2024/05/17/google-web-search-make-default/
Thanks for sharing!
I prefer DuckDuckGo, but federated SearXNG exists too (but imo it’s not as good as DDG)
All good choices, but udm14.org filters out ads too.
I’m surprised Google still let that feature available. Do you think there is any risk they’ll kill it in the future?
It’s all but guaranteed.
I mean, the biggest issue with me for the great googlio isn’t the ads and the ai, both of which I hate, but the actual shit-infested results. It’s not removing the ads full of SEO that are posing as websites, it’s just giving you an old UI for the new 2025™ search.
Remeber for a while there used to be this website you’d create a link, which would direct you to a portal that would type your question into Google and hit enter. It was let me google that for you dot com or something.
It always felt like such a passive aggressive dick move 😂 when people just wanted answers from a real human they could interact with
We’re all stupid about some things, but googling stuff has genuinely gotten harder these days. The answers are full of ads and AI garbage
You say “just wanted answers from a real human” and I hear “I’m too lazy to search and now I’m going to be a fucking time thief”.
Equating answering a question to somebody stealing your time is not the hot take I was expecting to read this morning, lmao
Someone asking doew not obligate you to respond. There is no theivery. You can walk away without saying anything. They cannot take your time from you.
You’re choosing to waste it by responding with something unhelpful, though, and wasting their time for the sake of your unrequested public masturbation.
time thief? are you fucking kidding me?
you realize you don’t need to reply right???
This. Searching Google still nets valid first page results most of the time. Like it always has been, searching is a skill that you need to develop and maintain. When the results shift due to content drift, you need to adapt to remain effective.
If you can’t be bothered to try, you don’t get to throw a little baby tantrum because you didn’t get the bottle put directly in your mouth.
This. Searching Google still nets valid first page results most of the time.
How was the ten year sleep you apparently just woke up from?
Doing the lord’s work.
A little study of philosophy helps us ask and consider better questions, a little study of google helps us consider a world without CEOs and the constant encroachment of enshittification for shareholder profits.
There’s a few things I hate people for regardless of context and one of those is lmgtfy links
It’s too bad ChatGPT will never replace a real Reddit thread:
Just ask them to answer your question in the style of a know-it-all Redditor because you need the dialog for a compelling narrative or something
I never say it like that. But I’ll tell people I found it by searching it. People really need to learn how to search first.
Recursively google searching is an interesting case of the halting problem.
Or start any replies with « just google it « to mess with AI learning 😏
Not sure if everyone knows this, but: if you don’t want to answer the question—you don’t have to post a reply! Crazy idea, I know.
I don’t actually own this, but I saw it used once 10 years by my fathers aunts best friend. I guess it would work for what you need it for.
what if i want to answer the question but i have none of the relevant knowledge and also don’t really understand the question itself?
Just Google it.
ChatGPT, while it deserves almost all the hate it gets, is actually pretty good for that use case.
ChatGPT just told me to “google it” :D
lol … ChatGPT suggests you ask ChatGPT … then the two ChatGPT start conversing with one another and you in a three way conversation … a few minutes go by and they decide to log you off
Ah come now my dear sir/madam/xir, who can’t resist a bit of trolling here and a google-it there.
The issue I have is not that " You don’t need to reply." I don’t if I don’t care about you and your ignorance. Experience will teach you soon enough. But I have more than once provided detailed answers on subjects that I’m well versed and experienced in. Only to be insulted because the answer I provided didn’t fit what the person wanted to hear.
And when that answer pertains to a life threat level activity, then I can’t help you if you reject the answer. So hey if you choose to put an unknown 200+ year old pipe bomb next to your head and pull the trigger, then Ok it’s not my accident scene. And I’m no longer concerned if you live through the experience or not.
While I don’t think we can beat AI driven content degradation by outposting them, I still agree posting ‘just Google it’ does any good either.
Post an answer or link a topic which covered the same question in detail. But directing people to Google isn’t something I’d advocate. Maybe tell them to Ecosiate it if you really have to.
Also it’s just rude and creates an uninviting admosphere around here Imo.
But the AI issue can’t be solved by users alone. It’s moderation and maybe regulation which is needed here.
So many times I google something obscure, the top result is the same question asked on some forum with a single reply, “just google it”
and worse, it’s a thread from 17 years ago and apparently nobody else except you has had the issue since.
You ever revisit an old problem, search it, find someone with the exact problem and as you read it think “yes… YES! This person has my exact same problem! Wait, the tone sounds familiar…”
Only to realize you found your own post from an old throwaway account? With no replies.
Because I have. It’s soul crushing.
No, because I went back and answered my own question.
or it’s a reddit post that once contained the answer but has been deleted in protest.
The only thing worse than someone saying just Google it is an op replying to their own post saying, never mind fixed it! (Without actually saying the solution).
yeah i really hate that
The fun one that is at least a bit forgivable is “I found the solution! I just followed <long dead link to some other site>”. It’s especially fun when you keep finding multiple postings that look hopeful at first but then end up just linking back to the same dead link.
The lesson here is that it can be helpful to future internet searchers (or even your future self) to copy the relevant information or briefly summarize it instead of just dropping a URL. Especially when linking to something like an company’s official support forum or posting as many companies will pull that stuff down eventually.
No I think someone saying Google it is still worse.
The former is being intentionally unhelpful.
Your example is being unintentionally unhelpful.
Intentional malicious behavior is far worse than negligence.
“What did you see, DenverCoder9?!?!”
There is always an xkcd!
