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‘I miss old Google’: readers tell us how they search the internet in the age of AI (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 3 days ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Google has put artificial intelligence at the front and center of its search bar. The most-visited site on the internet still shows the same list of links to users, but they have to scroll past a summarized response from an AI chatbot, a feature Google calls AI Overviews. The change to what was once the gateway to the rest of the internet has been profound, and the browsing habits of billions of people are shifting.

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[–] 57 points 3 days ago (10 children)

Nerds missed old google five to ten years ago. It was crap way before the AI garbage, but agreed that they're shoving bs on us.

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  • [–] 48 points 3 days ago (2 children)

    Google was really awesome at a point in time. You could throw it the most obscure query using natural language with in-text Boolean operators and the number one result would direct you to an html-only geocities page that hadn’t been updated since 1999 with the EXACT answer you needed and citations from 3-4 actual, physical books to back up that answer. IMHO, those were peak times for the internet as an information resource; approximately 1998-2008.

    Now every page just seems to be a bloated, poorly-coded monument to engagement baiting, subscription model services, and ad revenue generation. It’s genuinely sad to have watched the degradation over the years…

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  • [–] 4 points 2 days ago (5 children)

    SEO is what ruined Google, then AI came along and was used to SEO the shit out of the shittiest websites

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  • [–] 3 points 2 days ago (4 children)

    SEO is a never-ending arms race, and you're right - it's the real thing that spoiled the "golden web" we remember. Search engines have actually improved, but SEO has "improved" more.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago* (3 children)

    You say that, but Google has explicitly been made worse in order to force people to look through more search results, so that Google can make more money on ads. Remember when you could use logical operators in search criteria to get better results?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago (2 children)

    Yeah, Google has been trashed as well, "Don't be evil" evaporated after about 10 years.

    To get "old style results" try an AI prompt like: Give me a 2006 style Google search result of the modern web for the search “Apple Pie Recipe”

    And if you like your boolean operators you could try: Give me a 2006 style Google search result of the modern web for the search: Apple Pie Recipe Not "Martha Stewart"

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  • [–] 9 points 3 days ago*

    I think they mean google 20 years ago, like missing YouTube before google bought it, or instagram etc. back when you competed by making a better product, and not ya know, buying the better product and making it worse.

    Before Google we used to have to go to a library to source information.

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