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?

  • Supervisor194@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Everybody is blaming SEO, which is true - but Google is also hamstrung by walled gardens.

    Before Facebook, most content posted to the web was open. It could be viewed by anyone without logging in. Reddit even uses this paradigm.

    But then Facebook started putting everything behind their account login and suddenly, Google can no longer spider a significant amount of the conversation going on on the Internet - and it can’t link you to it either, because the link would be dead if you weren’t a logged-in Facebook user. And of course it’s not just Facebook.

    This is why appending site:reddit.com has come into fashion in the past couple years. Reddit, being open, viewable without a login, is a fantastic source for finding people who are talking about exactly what you’re searching for.

    And it’s another reason why Meta is cancer: all the conversations going on about whatever problem you are experiencing that made you do a search in the first place, if they exist in private groups on something like Facebook - they are useless to you and useless to anyone but the members of that private group. We are losing our giant public knowledge base because capitalism.

    • sighofannoyance@lemmy.worldOP
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      9 months ago

      Yes, the movie I mentioned was about a multidimensional entity that took hold in a biological computer created in a parallel dimension where they never got transistors but got dna instead at an early stage. Subsequently creating a biological computer that had like one giant yellor or blue eye and tentacles and just and amorphous blob of tissue in a tank.

      this thing tries to take over earth’s dimension aswell so the two protagonists go over to their dimension and kill the thing.

      • pablonaj@feddit.de
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        9 months ago

        I asked GPT and it replied (would be good to know if it’s right):

        The movie you’re describing sounds like “The Gene Generation” (2007). This sci-fi film involves a world where DNA hacking is prevalent. However, it doesn’t precisely match all elements of your description, particularly regarding the multidimensional entity and the biological computer with an eye and tentacles.

        It’s possible that the film you’re referring to is less mainstream or a mix of different movie plots. If “The Gene Generation” doesn’t sound right, could you provide any more details? That might help in identifying the correct film.

  • Send_me_nude_girls@feddit.de
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    9 months ago

    Just saw a video the other day, that said TikTok has become the better search engine. I don’t have TikTok but maybe it’s time to switch. Lol

    • toffi@feddit.de
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      9 months ago

      I know that I’m not Google, but if you’re more frequent in this situation you could use a safety razor (one blade) with an open comb. I switched to one and virtually no clogging at all.

  • Deftdrummer@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    This is why

    The long and short of it - Google search was designed at a time when the web was in its infancy. Basically just text and a few images.

    Fast forward to today, and reddit is the only one that still allows its data to be crawled.

    As media has become more social (basically all of it) the walled gardens prevent you from even viewing content without an account.

    Every platform wants you to be searching inside their service.

    Google is useless.