Google search failed to even find a hollywood movie, even after 1 hour of attempts. I don’t really care about the movie, but I am terrified by the prospect that google now ceased to function on this basic level. Why is this happening?

I understand the explanations of seo and other stuff like spam content. But why are there NO relevant results at all.

I wouldn’t mind having to start wading through results at page 2 or even 10 but now it utterly fails to find even the most basic things.

Things you found on the first attempt even just a year ago. Now they are effectively hidden.

To me functionally the entire internet has now vanished. I cannot access anything that I am searching for. Might as well not exist at all.

Has anybody found a way around this?

Is this on purpose? Is this an attack on the free internet, herding people to just the top 5 sites like facebook, youtube, tiktok, and so forth?

Are there search engines that still work?

  • banneryear1868@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    63
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    11 months ago

    Google was really valuable before web services were so monopolized and consolidated like they are now. It’s almost more useful to use the specific websites search function for many things now. Before this, you could run searches and it would have all these personal and small websites indexed. Oh look, here’s a guy who lives his whole life as Peter Pan and has a website about it, cool… now it’s just a profile on some social media site same as anyone else.

    • merc@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      33
      ·
      11 months ago

      It’s almost more useful to use the specific websites search function for many things now

      Except Amazon’s search of their own store has been so enshittified that it’s normally better to search for a product on Amazon using Google.

      • this_1_is_mine@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        11 months ago

        I do the same except once I find it I go to that specific manufacturer and I buy it directly from their website more often than not

        • burrito@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          10
          ·
          11 months ago

          So AliExpress? I swear 95% of the stuff sold on Amazon is just crap people are reselling from AliExpress.

        • wrekone@lemmyf.uk
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          8
          ·
          11 months ago

          That’s a good way to do it, whenever possible. Unfortunately most of the results on Amazon these days are from companies with word salad names, like ENGRTSIAL or LOFRABTAN.

          • SeaJ@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            11 months ago

            Do not use Amazon unless you know exactly what you want. The reviews are almost all fake. What’s annoying is that if you search for review sites on a type of product you do not know much about, they funnel you back to Amazon’s “highly rated” ones and get a kickback of you but the no name garbage. Also annoying is that those words salad companies are all the same manufacturer for the most part. They set up a ton of different names to flood the search results and then throw up a bunch of fake reviews. Some of that shit can be dangerous. Louis Rossman just did a video testung out some highly rated fuses and one of them by Nilight did not blow until 5x its amperage rating. That can easily lead to a fire. He also did one on crimping cables a bit ago that absolutely failed to crimp. Amazon removed his negative review.

    • mwproductions@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      18
      ·
      11 months ago

      Oh look, here’s a guy who lives his whole life as Peter Pan and has a website about it

      Holy shit, I haven’t thought about that guy in something like 20 years! I wonder what he’s up to these days. I like to imagine he and the berries and cream guy are pals.

      • banneryear1868@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        14
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        11 months ago

        Him, berries, and the rubber guy are probably all buds.

        The early to late 2000s was definitely a special time on the internet. I logged on in the early-mid 90s but I think it peaked in the late 00s. Consolidation of services/monopolies and saturation of smartphones I think killed it. Internet used to be something you did actively, now it’s a thing in your pocket you distract yourself from shitting with that beeps at you all day.

        I met a friend’s partner for the first time and she said something funny that had this unique quality I instantly recognized. She was in fact another rare woman /b/tard. We can crack each other up at any moment and our professional colleagues haven’t a clue about this weird online subculture with its twisted sense of humor. It’s not even just repeating memes its like a whole mindset you get infected with for life. You can almost instantly recognize when someone else has had their minds ruined by late 00s 4chan. That type of stuff just doesn’t happen now, it’s just like “hueheu look dis,” “euheuhue omg funny, look dis now hgurhehue.”

        • EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          7
          ·
          11 months ago

          I remember somebody talking once about how you could tell what part of the internet people frequented back in the 2000s and 2010s by their sense of humor and how they talk, and it’s crazy how accurate that is. To this day, you can tell who was a 2014 Tumblr girl and who was taking sharpie baths and wearing horns at conventions simply by what they find funny and what mannerisms they picked up from those subcultures.

          The fact that anybody could go online and start their own subculture out of nowhere just by hosting a forum was a real Wild West experience. The walled gardens of today don’t allow for anywhere near that kind of natural growth. It had some real downsides, but it’s sad to see that kind of sheer freedom disappear.

          • banneryear1868@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            11 months ago

            Yeah it’s super weird how these internet cultures developed their own idiosyncrasies that show up in real life. Nerd culture kawaii humor around the turn of the decade is super recognizable as well, waffles being a meme (not the blue ones), and lolcats (debatably appropriated from 4chan), Natalie Dee comics. As these things were commodified during the 2010s into pop culture it all sort of washed away subculture connection. There’s a kids book series now called Narwhal and Jelly where the dialogue is basically all internet-speak from this era and I’m guessing most parents have no idea and just think its a quirky kids book.

        • Exocrinous@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          11 months ago

          I don’t think there’s any value in a style of humour that uses slurs that way.