i've been thinking that google could use its own AI to evaluate URLs instead of relying on pagerank and backlinks which are almost completely valueless as a signal in 2025. in my niche there's more slop than ever being produced daily and it's all hitting rank 1. it's tragic what google is doing to the internet.

In my industry it just returns hindustanitimes slop

In my niche these links are all going to indian scam sites for years and years. Right now can google "taehyung" one of the largest kpop idols and see it live. Count the indian links that have been dominating without any particular expertise thanks to google's changes (indian scammer site kickbacks etc)

at this point, i've built a massive platform for ten years and watching the seoers die might be worth it losing it all for. it'll at least kill off all the indians that have been scamming in my niche for three and half years with impunity

let me tell you briefly how search works in my main's niche of kpop, where i had about 3m monthly sessions last month for august on my platform (kpopping.com)

for 20 years, websites that released idol nudes dominated (https://www.change.org/p/allkpop-com-shut-down-allkpop )

then the first wave of slop that figured out you can buy links (https://x.com/paulkimio/status/1550532282288508929)

and now for the past three and a half years it's been indian news websites that dominate

good riddance to the search-powered internet and seoers, i don't mind bleeding-- i've been bleeding this whole time :)

I think the real frustrating part is that they're using your data, scanning every driver's license etc that comes onto the google play store-- and there's still scammers etc using official google products that people catch everyday on twitter now that scambaiting is becoming a popular pastime.

My niche is more like an indian bus stop after three years of google deciding that's what Korean news needed. Consider yourself lucky.

has HN always been this bad

when discussing politics, yes. read tech stuff instead.

has anyone had to help any elderly relative with the million scams they've downloaded from google's app store? google does not give a shit about helping regular people avoid scams, it's all just bullshit.

not even to mention the h1b indian kickback stuff that's about to hit them. couldn't happen to a nicer company.

Helping elderly with scams: Yes, today, with Google Chrome. They got tricked into allowing desktop notifications and they look super legit on Microsoft Windows, styled like antivirus notifications and everything, covering the browser UI to get to the settings. I don't see how using closed software helps here

The demographic of people being scammed in the primary regions impacted typically do banking with their phones and not a PC.

in my industry (korea) google has been actively promoting scammers for almost four years now, trust search results at your own peril