Comment by Denzel | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Denzel | Hacker News Reader

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> Google uses legitimate sites to make their search engine a viable product and at the same time directs traffic away from those legitimate sites towards SEO spam to generate revenue.

[Disclosure: Google Search SWE; opinions and thoughts are my own and do not represent those of my employer]

Why do you assume malicious intent?

The balance between search ranking (Google) and search optimization (third-party sites) is an adversarial, dynamic game played between two sides with inverse incentives, taking place on an economic field (i.e. limited resources). There is no perfect solution; there’s only an evolutionary act-react cycle.

Do you think content spammers spend more or less resources (people, time, money) than Google’s revenue? So then the problem becomes how do you win a battle with orders of magnitude less people, time, and money? Leverage, i.e., engineering. You try your best and watch the scoreboard.

Some people think Google is doing a great job; some think we couldn’t be any worse. The truth probably lies across a spectrum in the middle. So it goes with a globally consumed product.

Also, note, Ads and Search operate completely independent. There’s no signals going from Ads to Search, or vice versa, to inform rankings; Search can’t even touch a lot of the Ads data, and Ads can’t touch Search data. Which makes your theory misinformed.

> Why do you assume malicious intent?

Not GP, but to me, admittably a complete non-expert on search, there are so many low-hanging fruits if search result quality was anywhere on Google's radar that it is really difficult not to assume malicious intent.

Some examples:

- why pinterest is flooding the image results with absolute nonesense? How difficult it would be to derank a single domain that manages to screw google's algorithm totally?

- why there is no option for me to blacklist domains from the search result? Are there really some challenges that can't be practically solved in a couple of minutes of thinking?

- Does google seriously claim they can't differentiate between stackoverflow and the content copying rip-off SEO spam sites?

> why there is no option for me to blacklist domains from the search result?

You might already be aware of this, but you can use uBlock Origin to filter google search results.

Click on the extension --> Settings --> My Filters. Paste in the bottom

    google.*##.g:has(a[href*="pinterest.com"])

Every time I get mislead on clicking onto an AI aggregator site, my filter list grows...

The issues you pointed out might be due to a company policy of not manually manipulating search results and leaving it all to the algorithm. It can be argued that this leads them to improve their algorithm, although at this point I don't think any algorithm other than a good and big LLM/classifier-transformer can solve the ranking problem, and that is probably not economical or something. But OTOH they manually ban domains they deem to be not conformant to the views of the Party. (not CCP, 1984)

Also, note, Ads and Search operate completely independent

That’s the mistake. They should be talking. Sites that engage in unethical SEO to game search rankings should be banned from Google’s ad platform. Why aren’t they? Because Google is profiting from the arrangement.

> Why do you assume malicious intent?

There doesn't have to be any malicious intent, just an endless chase for increased profit next quarter. SEO spam has more ads, thus generates more income for Google. Even if Ads and Search operate "completely independently", there must be a person in the corporate hierarchy which has control over both and could push the products to better synergize and make that KPI tick up.

Actually deranking sites which feature more than three Google Ads banners would improve search quality (mainly by making sites get to the point rather than padding a simple answer into an essay like an 8th grader at an exam) - but it would reduce Ads income so you cannot do it, no matter how independent you claim to be.

I think dismissing the relationship and impact adtech and search continue to have on web culture is an incredibly pointy-headed misstep. It's the sort of willful oversight that someone makes when their career relies on something being true.

Unless you have a clear view by leadership of what they desire the web should be and are willing to disclose it in detail, then there's not much to add by saying you work in Search.

When I enter a search query, that goes into Ads so that half the page can be relevant Ads instead of search results. That's a signal.

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