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Comment by nicbou | Hacker News Reader

Ironically, articles got pointlessly long because of Google. Everyone stretches their content because long form ranks better.

A few hours ago I wanted to know the difference between a typhoon and a hurricane. Here is the answer: they're the same thing, just in a different ocean. I clicked three or four articles and had to read for a few minutes to get to that answer.

It's even worse with videos. It takes 10 minutes to answer the simplest questions, because that's the ideal length for monetisation.

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> A few hours ago I wanted to know the difference between a typhoon and a hurricane. Here is the answer: they're the same thing, just in a different ocean. I clicked three or four articles and had to read for a few minutes to get to that answer.

I just googled “what is the difference between typhoon and hurricane”

Top result is from the Red Cross, with this blurb conveniently extracted so I don’t even need to click into the article unless I’m curious more deeply:

If it's above the North Atlantic, central North Pacific or eastern North Pacific oceans (Florida, Caribbean Islands, Texas, Hawaii, etc.), we call it a hurricane. If it hovers over the Northwest Pacific Ocean (usually East Asia), we call it a typhoon.

With this Search Lab enabled Google just gives you the answer above all the results.

""" The only difference between a hurricane and a typhoon is the location where the storm occurs. If a storm is above the North Atlantic, central North Pacific, or eastern North Pacific oceans, it's called a hurricane. If it hovers over the Northwest Pacific Ocean (usually East Asia), it's called a typhoon. """

The search labs are not available in my country and I get the quick snippet response anyways

Although they do look similar, there are quite significant differences between a Hurricane and a Typhoon.

A Hurricane has a ~1000hp early Rolls Royce Merlin engine and a top speed of about 350mph; a Typhoon has a 2000hp+ Napier Sabre engine and a top speed of over 400mph.

The Typhoon was actually intended to be the replacement for the Hurricane, but challenges in the high altitude interceptor role led to the Typhoon taking on a more fighter-bomber role as the war went on.

A Tornado is of course even more powerful. It has a pair of Turbo-Union RB199 afterburning triple-spool turbofan engines with 9800 lbf thrust each (17300 lbf with afterburners on) and a top speed of Mach 2.2 with the wing swept back.

Edit: at full afterburner, it burns fuel at a heat output of 235 MW (expressed as horsepower: 315140)

The Eurofighter Typhoon houses two EJ200 engine with 60 kN (13,500 lbf) of dry thrust and >90 kN (20,230 lbf) with afterburners. I believe there are experimental versions of EJ200 with >100 kN thrust but since Typhoon is being retired across Europe and no oversea sales, we won't see Typhoon armed with them.

A land route exists, so not technically overseas, this Typhoon is sometimes observed outside its signature range, eg over Yemen.

I had understood that the Hurricane was a stop gap interceptor/air superiority fighter until more Spitfires were produced. I'm quite surprised that the Typhoon wasn't seen as redundant, unless it was intended early in the design phase for bomber interceptor, but the need for that waned.

This is astonishing: https://archive.ph/fbLlZ

> "Let’s start with some research from Hook Agency, which claims the best content length for SEO in 2023 is between 1,760 and 2,400 words"

The source, however loathsome, is probably correct. The front pages of the internet have become saturated with garbage ultra-long-form articles... not even "articles," really, more like ramblings. And it's Google's fault.

We traded a sane web experience for a better search experience and now both are trash and filled with ads. The modern internet really sucks

Yes, I can tell you the difference between a typhoon and hurricane. But first, let me tell you a story about how my grandmother once survived a typhoon ... etc. etc.

I'm just waiting for the shitty recipe sites to start hiding the recipes in the content...

* Rosemary - I remember the first time smelling fresh rosemary, it was the spring of 1989 and I was in my dear aunties kitchen...

* 1 boneless skinless chicken brest - Chicken breasts are a common ingredient in many dishes throughout the world. This hearty chunk of meat contains a high amount of protein and is quite versatile...

Google shifted ranking to length under the guise of quality to cover for the increased ad impressions they were getting for those junk rambling articles.

Google has been enshitifiying the web for a good while now, and I used to work there! I worked hard to make the core product more efficient but ultimately your internal goals just override the external ecosystem. And with so much power google was able to exert a shifting force on the web.

That's actually not the main reason at all. It's so more ads can be inserted.

The classic example is mega-long intros for recipes. But if you look into it, the primary reason is to be able to include 10 ads on a page instead of 2.

For questions such as the difference between typhoon and hurricane, ChatGPT and Claude give accurate answers in just a couple of seconds. It’s such a different experience compared to the search engines.

Yeah, search engines give accurate answers for that question with no noticeable latency, providing a much better experience.

That was the difference you meant to highlight, right?

Worst part for flow is how fast chatgpt logins expire. Ironically probably some kind of anti-botting measure or is there a better explanation?

But how do you know if they’re accurate?

You don't. Just like before generative AI responses. If accuracy is required, you have to check the citations and make a judgement call. And no, people generally won't do that just like they didn't do that before.

Google's "featured snippets" make it too easy for content farmers to thrive. As long as someone has the exact search "What is ___?", "How do I do _____?", etc formatted as an h2 with a simple explanation underneath, they have a pretty good shot of getting a feature. There's really no quality control.

I got sucked into a clickbait recipe video for "2 ingredient cake". The video was just over 10 minutes long, which I think puts it in a different monetization category on youtube. I spent wayyy too much time out of my life trying to find out what 2 ingredients are in the cake.

Answer: apple sauce and gelatin

Next time you should copy the transcript into chatGPT and ask for a summary.

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