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Is it just me, or are search engines getting worse? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by DeltaWingDragon@sh.itjust.works to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.ca

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My main focus isn't on quality of results.

The real problem is, whenever I type a query that's even the slightest bit out of the ordinary, I get no results. Google, Duckduckgo, Startpage, Searx, all of them.

It strains credibility that these advanced pieces of technology could not find anything among billions of websites, when in the past, less-advanced versions of these engines could find results for similar queries among smaller numbers of websites.

To reiterate: My problem is not with SEO, or spam, or AI-generated websites, or irrelevant results. My problem is getting no results much more frequently than in the past.

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[–] BussyGyatt@feddit.org 16 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

There's a host of factors that lead into the degredation of (at least google) search over the last decade or so. Many have already been brought up, but one that hasn't is the result of the SEO arms race. When google first got popular, people realized they could game the algorithm by embedding keywords in their page to make the page appear in more searches. Google found a way to correct that, but it's been whack-a-mole with the so-called "Search Engine Optimization" industry ever since. These days, google says 'eh, fuck it' and basically runs a pay-to-play service to rank up people who are willing to pay to have their page listed higher. Most people don't even click past the first page, so not getting on the first page is effectively a death sentence for that page/site. It's a real incestuous/autocannibalizing cesspool anymore. Google search is now quite literally an ad listing rather than a search index.