S.E.Oh-No: Google Search continues its move to Garbage-Town

Google Search, once a reliable source of information back in the day, is becoming increasingly, I have no other words….shit. The November 2023 algorithm update, prioritized forum results from Reddit and Quora. Brands have seized this opportunity, exploiting these forums as marketing channels, which further dilutes the authenticity of user-driven discussions.

The other unintended consequence of this change has also resulted in an AI-Hallucination Flywheel. This issue arises when human input and AI-generated content reinforce each other, creating a cycle of unreliable information; case in point is Quora, which shifted away from Human Generated Q&As into crappy GPT-based ones.

The result of all this garbage I/O is that finding genuine, unbiased information is the new challenge. Forums, once spaces for real conversations, are now overrun with brand-driven content, making the search for truth more difficult. The frustration is palpable to me: can we not just have one internet thing untouched by commercialization?

This decline in search quality signals a broader problem with how we access information. With Google Search results becoming less reliable, alternatives like SearchGPT sound very compelling. But I remain cynical because optimizing websites and keywords for conversational queries will be the next obvious SEO Gold Rush.

The decline of Google Search is more than just a nuisance; it‘s signaling the end of an era by turning the internet into Garbage Town. As brands continue to exploit the system (as they have no incentive not to), the demand for better, more reliable search tools will grow. It’s time to rethink how we search and what we expect from the results.