Google search results have been ruined by ads, AI, and SEO, says DKB. In a recent essay, the pseudonymous author writes that better search results can be found by appending "site:reddit.com" to Google search queries, which restricts the results to Reddit, where people have honest discussions about the things you are interested in learning about.
If you've tried to search for a recipe or product review recently, I don't need to tell you that Google search results have gone to shit. You would have already noticed that the first few non-ad results are SEO optimized sites filled with affiliate links and ads.
Google still gives decent results for many other categories, especially when it comes to factual information. You might think that Google results are pretty good for you, and you have no idea what I'm talking about.
What you don't realize is that you've been self-censoring yourself from searching most of the things you would have wanted to search. You already know subconsciously that Google isn't going to return a good result.
In an appendix to his essay, DKB included this post from a Reddit user explaining why Reddit is better than Google:
I think I understand what this article is trying to say. It's not saying that Google's search technology is worse or that people don't use Google to search. It's saying that people trust less of the results Google shows compared to seeing discussions of it on Reddit.
For instance, if I'm looking to see reviews of the Honda Civic 2022 or whatever, I actually do find myself typing "Honda Civic review reddit" instead of "Honda Civic review". This is because I want to see what real people and enthusiasts (on r/cars or whatever) are talking about the car, rather than the top results at Google which are basically just paid reviews advertising the car anyway.
Even though I kinda know people in Reddit are just as capable of spouting BS that are completely wrong, I find the discussions more authentic anyway than the corporate speak the "big websites" have on their articles that Google shows me. — u/a_latvian_potato
