> Is it just me, or I feel like Google does not provide anymore good results for me.

I am starting to suspect that there might be nothing to find.

I just don't think people (other then the tech oriented) are creating websites and running forums - and why would they? Reddit might be be only place you _can_ find that type of content. What should search engines do then?

With a tiny number of exceptions, it might be that people chat on reddit, read Wikipedia, ask questions on the stackexchange network/Quora, local communities use facebook groups, and businesses have a wordpress site with nothing more then a bit of fluff, a phone number and an email address.

On a tangent, google seems to turn up lot more obnoxious Quora results rather than reddit ones. Anyone find that to be the case?

Kagi's "noncommercial" lens, search.marginalia.nu, and engines that don't parse JS (e.g. Mojeek) can add some variety. Another thing I like doing is adding phrases like "creative commons" to already-long queries to filter out some corporate results, or adding `-gdpr -ccpa -"sell my info"` to limit results to sites made by small orgs and individuals who don't collect enough data or make enough money to warrant compliance measures.

Might be an instance of Goodhart's law: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart's_law

If all websites try to optimise for SEO, they undermine the assumption that the evaluation of a search engine is the pure consequence of how well a site satisfies a query.

I really think than one, we are going to have to end up with search engines managing a curated list of 'roots', and two, those roots are going to end up consisting substantially of a mix of more 'human' sites and, let's be honest with ourselves, a certain amount of content that is paying for favoritism.

I think it's very possible that we have effectively raised the noise floor so high that there is no signal, but also likely that perverse incentives from trying to profit off of search engines have made them our enemies instead of our friends.

For instance, does Google favor sites that run their own tools on them? I've stopped paying attention but recall hearing mutterings to that effect. If so then running the tools is a protection racket.

For other perverse incentives: if you try to rank sites by how long someone stays on them before backing out, or searching again, then you end up favoring rabbit-hole sites, that either string you along or suck you into a tangent. "Oh, this must have answered their question about keeping bees," no, they're reading gossip about the Queen of England and have forgotten all about beekeeping.

Oh, look! It’s the same „flaw“ people have been explaining each other for a decade. We’ve all seen it dozens of times, yet Google apparently remains in the dark.