<story><title>The End of the Googleverse</title><url>https://www.theverge.com/23846048/google-search-memes-images-pagerank-altavista-seo-keywords</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>amrocha</author><text>What changed is that people post their content on platforms now, instead of on the open web.</text></item><item><author>ethbr1</author><text>I can&amp;#x27;t believe &amp;#x27;There&amp;#x27;s no good content anymore.&amp;#x27; There are more people; there&amp;#x27;s more connectivity; there are more digital cameras.&lt;p&gt;IMHO, the thing that changed was the signal:noise ratio.&lt;p&gt;When Google started, it was, what? 1:10? 1:100? Interesting pages : crap.&lt;p&gt;Now it&amp;#x27;s... 1:10,000? 1:1,000,000?&lt;p&gt;That turns a challenging problem into a possibly impossible one.&lt;p&gt;Granted, Google bears culpability in this, because at some point they realized: we can make as much or more money if we optimize for ad delivery than user search intent. And once they showed those cards with a wink, content optimized to this for its own monetization.&lt;p&gt;FFS, look at National Geographic these days: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nationalgeographic.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nationalgeographic.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>smogcutter</author><text>The problem is that the internet we remember from when google was good no longer exists. Blogs are dead. Personal websites are dead. Noncommercial, informational or niche interest websites are dead. Search sucks primarily because there’s nothing worth searching for anymore.&lt;p&gt;Yes, we can most of us name real websites that we still read &amp;amp; rely on. When did those sites &lt;i&gt;start&lt;/i&gt; publishing? How many of the creator-controlled, non-commercial websites&amp;#x2F;blogs you read began less than say 5 years ago? I bet the number rounds down to 0.&lt;p&gt;Google search sure as hell played their part in creating this world, but fixing search isn’t going to bring back an internet worth searching.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jonathanlb</author><text>Also, early web content was text-heavy due to bandwidth limits and lack of quality cameras. Now, video platforms like TikTok and Instagram dominate.</text></comment>
<story><title>The End of the Googleverse</title><url>https://www.theverge.com/23846048/google-search-memes-images-pagerank-altavista-seo-keywords</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>amrocha</author><text>What changed is that people post their content on platforms now, instead of on the open web.</text></item><item><author>ethbr1</author><text>I can&amp;#x27;t believe &amp;#x27;There&amp;#x27;s no good content anymore.&amp;#x27; There are more people; there&amp;#x27;s more connectivity; there are more digital cameras.&lt;p&gt;IMHO, the thing that changed was the signal:noise ratio.&lt;p&gt;When Google started, it was, what? 1:10? 1:100? Interesting pages : crap.&lt;p&gt;Now it&amp;#x27;s... 1:10,000? 1:1,000,000?&lt;p&gt;That turns a challenging problem into a possibly impossible one.&lt;p&gt;Granted, Google bears culpability in this, because at some point they realized: we can make as much or more money if we optimize for ad delivery than user search intent. And once they showed those cards with a wink, content optimized to this for its own monetization.&lt;p&gt;FFS, look at National Geographic these days: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nationalgeographic.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nationalgeographic.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>smogcutter</author><text>The problem is that the internet we remember from when google was good no longer exists. Blogs are dead. Personal websites are dead. Noncommercial, informational or niche interest websites are dead. Search sucks primarily because there’s nothing worth searching for anymore.&lt;p&gt;Yes, we can most of us name real websites that we still read &amp;amp; rely on. When did those sites &lt;i&gt;start&lt;/i&gt; publishing? How many of the creator-controlled, non-commercial websites&amp;#x2F;blogs you read began less than say 5 years ago? I bet the number rounds down to 0.&lt;p&gt;Google search sure as hell played their part in creating this world, but fixing search isn’t going to bring back an internet worth searching.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pphysch</author><text>Has the # of &amp;quot;open web&amp;quot; users actually decreased? The proportion obviously has, but what about the absolute number?</text></comment>