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A comment on If Google sucks then why is everyone still using it?. Parent comment

Re:If Google sucks then why is everyone still using it? by supernovae on Friday March 18, 2022 @07:25PM (#30728946)
none.. it’s all because of paid placement taking priority
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:If Google sucks then why is everyone still using it? by bushbaba on Friday March 18, 2022 @07:59PM (#30729252)
Search, "what hotel to stay in san francisco soma". You'll see that every single result above the fold is an Ad.

In fact it doesn't even give me a single useful piece of information. #1 result is a link to expedia. #2 is to hotels.com, #3 to the trip advisor. Scroll down Google Hotels widget. Then on the 3rd browser viewpoint page I get actual query results.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:If Google sucks then why is everyone still using it? by emmelaich on Friday March 18, 2022 @08:36PM (#30729565)
The result I got was a list, with maps and prices with an option to refine stay dates.

Not sure how that could be improved to be honest.

Next entry was a non-ad from Tripadvisor.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:If Google sucks then why is everyone still using it? by bushbaba on Friday March 18, 2022 @10:02PM (#30730182)
Here's my results: https://ibb.co/cv06gHg https://ibb.co/BwZX9FQ https://ibb.co/NCnBC6b
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Re:If Google sucks then why is everyone still using it? by emmelaich on Saturday March 19, 2022 @12:00AM (#30730855)
Yeah the second looks like what I got. (BwZX9FQ)
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Re:If Google sucks then why is everyone still using it? by heavyset_go on Saturday March 19, 2022 @01:43AM (#30731441)
When weird search results get posted on HN, they're sometimes fixed within minutes. I wouldn't doubt that the search term was "fixed" by someone reading HN.
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Re:If Google sucks then why is everyone still using it? by asiachick on Friday March 18, 2022 @08:45PM (#30729633)
I got a list of hotels. not sure how it could be more useful

https://ibb.co/JxfY6BX

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:If Google sucks then why is everyone still using it? by bushbaba on Friday March 18, 2022 @10:02PM (#30730183)
Here's my results: https://ibb.co/cv06gHg https://ibb.co/BwZX9FQ https://ibb.co/NCnBC6b
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:If Google sucks then why is everyone still using it? by unlikelymordant on Friday March 18, 2022 @11:32PM (#30730715)
You are using an adblocker though
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Re:If Google sucks then why is everyone still using it? by Nextgrid on Saturday March 19, 2022 @12:04AM (#30730881)
It's less about paid placement taking priority (as in intentionally degrading results) but more that there's no incentive to spend money improving organic search results where at best it'll do nothing and at worst decrease the profitability of paid results (people are less likely to click on them if the organic results are good), not to mention that crap organic results also benefit Google as these websites often have Google Ads or Analytics.
[ Parent | on HN ]