More than once I’ve had Google return a years old reddit thread with only 2 or 3 comments that just say “I don’t know, let me know if you find out.” What in the shit is going on that THAT is somehow the SEO winner?
Anybody remember this site? Google used to be so good that anybody with half a brain could find a good result if they would just type a basic phrase into it.
My sweet summer child, issues with google search existed in 2008, things just accelerated at a massive rate once it became the de facto standard and people figured out how to manipulate search results.
I tried to get into making Skyrim mods, but some basic info just isn’t on any forums. I then find it discussed on discord servers as if it’s common knowledge discovered a while ago, but those same servers also perpetuate myths from Morrowind that were debunked a decade ago by an experienced modder. However, that modder is also a toxic asshole who’s now impossible to work with, so finding reliable info from him after 2018 is hard. All the while I’m just sitting here wondering if it’s even worth the effort.
a friend of mine discovered the tip to add “before:2025” (or, the current year+1) to your yt search to improve it. i have no clue why that does anything but it reverts it to pre-enshittified functionality
To give google 1(one) droplet of credit, the enshittification didn’t come from them alone. In fact I’m fairly sure that if they could get their way, the page would still return useful results, only, JUST below all the paid ads. SEO Spam doesn’t help THEM either.
The problem is… A lot of the “good” results on google came from like. Enthusiast websites. Webforums. And… Reddit.
Enthusiast Websites are much rarer now. They got consolidated into media conglomerates and then closed down. Only a few remain.
Webforums are in a similar zombified state, most got vored by “social media” and Discord (P.S.: if you are a dev or artist or whatever and use a Discord server as the main helpline/download source for a project you’re doing, fuck you very much, you are the ACTUAL worst <3), which aren’t indexed by search engines.
Then Reddit got Spez’d, so THAT avenue is fucked too.
Fedi isn’t indexed by search engines either (AFAIK), so you can’t do the old “<Search terms> reddit” trick replacing reddit with lemmy. It won’t work.
I hate that shit. People answer with “check page 72 of your car manual” and it’s like … you clearly pulled out the manual to pull that page number, I’m under my car right now, just copy the damned sentence.
Lmgtfy used to be a great site to send to people when they asked easily googled questions. Now it’s a bloated shit site that barely works if it even still exists. It would do a flash animation on how to go to Google.com, type in their question and click search. I always got a kick out of sending it to people. R.i.p old Internet. You were great.
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