When did Google get so f-ing weird?

I recently had an experience while doing a simple Google search that was so profoundly weird that it stopped me in my tracks. Understanding this Google se...

The enshittification of online search? Privacy and quality of Google, Bing and Apple in coding advice

Even though currently being challenged by ChatGPT and other large-language models (LLMs), Google Search remains one of the primary means for many individuals to find information on the internet. Interestingly, the way that we retrieve information on the web has hardly changed ever since Google was established in 1998, raising concerns as to Google's dominance in search and lack of competition. If the market for search was sufficiently competitive, then we should probably see a steady increase in search quality over time as well as alternative approaches to the Google's approach to search. However, hardly any research has so far looked at search quality, which is a key facet of a competitive market, especially not over time. In this report, we conducted a relatively large-scale quantitative comparison of search quality of 1,467 search queries relating to coding advice in October 2023. We focus on coding advice because the study of general search quality is difficult, with the aim of learning more about the assessment of search quality and motivating follow-up research into this important topic. We evaluate the search quality of Google Search, Microsoft Bing, and Apple Search, with a special emphasis on Apple Search, a widely used search engine that has never been explored in previous research. For the assessment of search quality, we use two independent metrics of search quality: 1) the number of trackers on the first search result, as a measure of privacy in web search, and 2) the average rank of the first Stack Overflow search result, under the assumption that Stack Overflow gives the best coding advice. Our results suggest that the privacy of search results is higher on Bing than on Google and Apple. Similarly, the quality of coding advice -- as measured by the average rank of Stack Overflow -- was highest on Bing.

Why Google’s New AI-Saturated Search Page Will Be A Disaster

Google didn’t invent full-text search of the Internet – that honor belongs to early pioneers such as WebCrawler, Lycos and AltaVista. But for the last 25 years or so, Google has…

Remembering the pre-Google web, when search was an experiment

Most people have completely forgotten how chaotic it really was."

Google Is Building an A.I. Fence Around the Internet It Once Championed

As Google incorporates more artificial intelligence into search, people are spending more time on Google. Some website operators are crying foul.

Google Is Building an A.I. Fence Around the Internet It Once Championed

As Google incorporates more artificial intelligence into search, people are spending more time on Google. Some website operators are crying foul.

The Perfect Webpage

The web is filled with content designed for Google, not humans.

Search has its own bitter lesson

Human incentives to make content findable to your search matter more than technology

Google’s broken link to the web

With AI search results coming to the masses, the human-powered web recedes further into the background

Google Search is now using AI to replace headlines

Let us know if you see more.

Google Search is now using AI to replace headlines

Let us know if you see more.

You Should Still Fact-Check the 'Expert Advice' in Google's AI Summaries

Google's AI responses will now show expert advice pulled from online forums like Reddit with specific quotes and links to discussions related to search queries.

The Case Against Google (Published 2018)

Critics say the search giant is squelching competition before it begins. Should the government step in?

Google Search Changed: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of AI Search - Boxcar Marketing

Google Search is not longer about indexing the web, it's about being an AI assistant.

Google Search Is Dying. What Comes Next Is Worse | The Walrus

As AI eats the web, the internet’s collective memory is disappearing