• charade_you_are@sh.itjust.works
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    4 months ago

    I’m not sure of the advantages of showing up in Google search results. It seems like something that I wouldn’t want to happen anyway.

      • TrumpetX@programming.dev
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        4 months ago

        I might be wrong, but they meta-search across multiple providers, including their own. The real benefit is that YOU can choose which search subjects to prioritize when trying to find something specific.

        For normal search stuff, this feels like “old Google” (no ai spam). For detailed searching, its better than any other engine I’ve used.

    • ZephyrXero@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      It’s definitely better…but. Thanks to Google SEO the internet it’s bringing you results from is still filled with shit

    • WhatsHerBucket@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Same! I swore I wouldn’t pay for a search engine, but I feel like it’s absolutely worth it, considering the current state of things.

  • SkyNTP@lemmy.ml
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    4 months ago

    Oh look, more anticompetitive shenanigans.

    Break Google up. Bring the full force of antitrust down on them.

    Anything else is an unmitigated disaster waiting to happen.

  • Kethal@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Google is genuinely bad now. I switched to Ecosia which is just Bing with a simpler front end and they use their profits to plant trees. I don’t think Ecosia is particularly special though. Duck Duck Go, Bing whatever, they’re all better than Google.

    Whenever I set up a new computer then search for something, I’m always surprised at first seeing the awful layout and quality of the search results before I realize that I haven’t changed the default search from Google. It’s awful now. Seriously, how are people using it?

    My new favorite way to search is perplexity.ai. It’s an AI search tool that summarizes the loads of crap out there so you don’t need to read through the junk that people write. It provides sources, unlike using ChatGPT, which is incredibly valuable. All AIs make shit up, so having links to double check it is a must. Unlike Bing Chat, or whatever Microsoft calls it this week, you can ask follow up questions to home in on what you want.

    • Squizzy@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Ddg are shit too, search a name and they will relate it you locally even if you turn off regional results.

      Click a link and go back to results and they have changed.

      Ddg is enshittifying.

    • exanime@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      I found ecosia faster and better results. Just letting you know in case you want to try

            • TheRealKuni@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              Just looked it up to confirm. From DuckDuckGo’s page on the topic:

              Most of our search result pages feature one or more Instant Answers. To deliver Instant Answers on specific topics, DuckDuckGo leverages many sources, including specialized sources like Sportradar and crowd-sourced sites like Wikipedia. We also maintain our own crawler (DuckDuckBot) and many indexes to support our results. Of course, we have more traditional links and images in our search results too, which we largely source from Bing. Our focus is synthesizing all these sources to create a superior search experience.

  • Snowcano@startrek.website
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    4 months ago

    So how do I actually opt out? My website is just some personal hobby stuff on wordpress that only friends and family look at, I don’t need seo.

  • Subverb@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    We’re at a point where not only should the Internet be classified as a utility, so should Search.

    • Gsus4@mander.xyz
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      4 months ago

      Yeah, it’s not just e.g. water that is the utility, pipes and pumping stations are part of it. Otherwise you have water…uh…somewhere, go get it yourself.

  • woelkchen@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    As I understand it, this is only about using search results for summaries. If it’s just that and links to the source, I think it’s OK. What would be absolutely unacceptable is to use the web in general as training data for text and image generation (=write me a story about topic XY).

    • elrik@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      If it’s just that and links to the source, I think it’s OK.

      No one will click on the source, which means the only visitor to your site is Googlebot.

      What would be absolutely unacceptable is to use the web in general as training data for text and image generation.

      This has already happened and continues to happen.

      • woelkchen@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        No one will click on the source, which means the only visitor to your site is Googlebot.

        That was the argument with the text snippets from news sources. Publishers successfully lobbied for laws to be passed in many countries that required search engine operators to pay fees. It backfired when Google removed the snippets from news sources that demanded fees from Google. Their visitors dropped by a massive amount, 90% or so, because those results were less attractive to Google users to click on than the nicer results with a snippet and a thumbnail. So “No one will click on the source” has already been disproven 10 or so years ago when the snippet issue was current. All those publishers have entered a free of charge licensing agreement with Google and the laws are still in place. So Google is fine, upstart search engines are not because those cannot pressure the publishers into free deals.

        This has already happened and continues to happen.

        With Gemini?

        • rand_alpha19@moist.catsweat.com
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          4 months ago

          Look at you, changing my mind with your logicking ways. I think information should be free anyway, but I thought media companies were being at least remotely genuine about the impact here. Forgot that lobbyists be lobbying and that Google wouldn’t have let them win if it didn’t benefit them.

        • elrik@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          The context is not the same. A snippet is incomplete and often lacking important details. It’s minimally tailored to your query unlike a response generated by an LLM. The obvious extension to this is conversational search, where clarification and additional detail still doesn’t require you to click on any sources; you simply ask follow up questions.

          With Gemini?

          Yes. How do you think the Gemini model understands language in the first place?

          • woelkchen@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            The context is not the same.

            It’s not the same but it’s similar enough when, as the article states, it is solely about short summaries. The article may be wrong, Google may be outright lying, maybe, maybe, maybe.

            Google, as by far the web’s largest ad provider, has a business incentive to direct users towards the web sites, so the website operators have to pay Google money. Maybe I’m missing something but I just don’t see the business sense in Google not doing that and so far I don’t see anything approximating convincing arguments.

            Yes. How do you think the Gemini model understands language in the first place?

            Licensed and public domain content, of which there is plenty, maybe even content specifically created by Google to train the data. “the Gemini model understands language” in itself hardly is proof of any wrongdoing. I don’t claim to have perfect knowledge or memory, so it’s certainly possible that I missed more specific evidence but “the Gemini model understands language” by itself definitively is not.

    • melroy@kbin.melroy.org
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      4 months ago

      that latter will be the case rather sooner than later I’m afraid. It’s just a matter of time with Google.

      • woelkchen@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        that latter will be the case rather sooner than later I’m afraid. It’s just a matter of time with Google.

        If that will actually be the case and passes legal challenges, basically all copyright can be abolished which would definitively have some upsides but also downsides. All those video game ROM decompilation projects would be suddenly in the clear, as those are new source code computer-generated from copyrighted binary code, so not really different from a AI generated image based on a copyrighted image used as training data. We could also ask Gemini write a full-length retelling of Harry Potter and just search, replace all trademarked names, and sell that shit. Evil companies could train an AI on GNU/Linux source codes and tell it to write an operating system. Clearly derived work from GPL code but without any copyright to speak of, all that generated code could be legally closed. I don’t like that.

    • douglasg14b@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      I hope it happens one day, but that’s an almost insurmountable task given the scale.

      Take the entirety of the fediverse, and it’s entire history, and you’re probably talking a days worth of search engine indexing compute & storage.

      The scale is large and the fediverse is incredibly small. Keeping my fingers crossed, but definitely not holding my breath.

      In the meantime, I’ll use Kagi.