You can divide searches into 1. Shopping searches where you want to buy something and 2. Non shopping searches. This article is about a type of shopping search.

Lots of us have little interest in doing shopping searches on Google--we search directly on Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Target or whatever.

With respect to non-shopping searches for a huge proportion of queries the top page of results are dominated either by shopping responses or fluff articles.

Wow, I'm not sure it ever occurred to me to use Google for shopping. In my head it's an information search engine that is better when you search an error string than DDG, but otherwise not worth the costs. If I want to buy something, I decide "oh, this will be better on Ali Express" or something. I think there's a few specific things I've tried to buy, but it really ends up just being a longcut to the place I was searching anyway.

I have had great success using Google for shopping. Their paid price comparison results are better than most organic ones.

And Google wants to know what you're searching to shop for, as its better for their ads business. They do seem to have trackers on most e-commerce websites, so they might know anyway.

The guidelines say "Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents." IMO it's not useful or interesting to repeat the generic, endlessly belabored complaint that Google results are getting less relevant. It's much more interesting to discuss the article on its merits.

The response is related and non-tangential. The “endlessly belabored” argument that results are less relevant is an important discussion with many merits. It is true that there is value in shopping results and information results. However, there is a more optimal balance between the 2 that will improve the usefulness of the internet for many users.

Does this discussion have merit? It's hard for me to tell. Nobody provides any details. There are no exemplar queries where someone suggests a better result. Nobody is saying anything that isn't said in every other discussion where Google search results are even tangentially mentioned. You've got the classic DDG shoutout. The classic "Google used to be better" subthread. The classic "But if you type in specific terms" tree. And a nice tangent on tracking just for completeness sake.

You could copy and paste this thread into the comments of any other article about Google search in the past few months and it would be no less relevant. Only, you needn't bother, since this discussion gets rehashed every single time, so there's already a discussion with much the same points as this one, and much the same value, already there. That's a good sign that the discussion is lacking the nuance that I always hope to find here. But what's actually happening is a complete lack of engagement with what was ultimately a pretty interesting article.

> Does this discussion have merit? It's hard for me to tell.

In that case, why try to make a judgement? If you can't make a judgement but it irritates you, why not just spend your time on another page? Surely a discussion about the discussion is always going to be less useful and relevant than the discussion that organically develops out of the same topic.

If the heading is "Google search", asdfasgasdgasdg could just spend their time elsewhere.

The fact that fifty thousand people have already had their say doesn't mean that the next hundred people who want to have their say is a subset of the first, and thus may benefit. And, moreover, if people keep writing articles about related topics, related discussion is going to keep coming up.

Thanks for the advice, but I prefer to use what small influence I have to encourage better and more thoughtful discussions.

Because the ten-blue-link results are trash.

And counterexample - every time I look up a hotel, I want to go to their actual homepage because I find the aggregators often intermingle pictures of the different room types and I want to see what the actual actual suite I'm booking looks like.

And Google buries the actual hotel homepage pretty deep, in my experience.

I've also found I could get the same deal or better when I book directly with the hotel. And when I check in, if I've booked with a third party booker, it's impossible to change the reservation at the hotel itself, and things that are normally free (like wifi or a ride to the airport) suddenly cost extra. Many hotels hate the outside bookers and either lose money on those bookings or don't make as much, and they're happy to split the booker's fee with the customer who books directly.

If people realized how much money of their hotel booking was going to Google and the OTAs, they would piss their pants. It is an excessive, useless, and largely avoidable tax.

* also note it’s driven substantial consolidation in the hotel industry, because big companies like Marriott can just rake in their direct bookings.

You'd think that by walking in or calling you could get the price around 10% below booking.com or Agoda, but it's almost never the case from my experience booking budget accommodation in Europe & Asia. Most of time they offer standard rate which is _higher_ than what you'd find on OTA.

Booking (iirc) forbids hotels from having better deals on their own site than what they offer on booking.

It's even worse when you just want to find a menu for a restaurant.

Alas for this task, Google seems best. Just take a look at the photos of the place in Google Maps. The menu is usually there.

It's becoming better for finding products and other stuff to spend your money on. Digging out real information on topics is what is becoming useless

Welcome to the free market!