Post by EmmyLou on May 1, 2024 7:20:00 GMT -6
I'm sick of Google. I hate everything about it. My income is tied, in large part, to what they do on the search engine side of things. Last fall and then again in March, they rolled out "core updates". These updates direct their algorithms and bots (are they one and the same? I'm not sure.) to scan sites and determine which sites and their pages should rank higher on search pages.
For example, if you search for "best car from the 1970s", you SHOULD get results on the first Google page of sites that are truly authoritative on that subject. You would expect a site run by an old white guy who's been around for ages, drove and maybe tested or designed cars in the 70s and now writes reviews. He's an expert and you can trust what he says.
And, in fact, last fall, Google announced their search engine would give priority to sites that were "helpful" and stressed the importance of EEAT -- Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trust.
What did we get? Freakin Reddit, Quora, TripAdvisor, Forbes (long ago bought out and is nothing like what it used to be)... Whatever question you might have, is Kevin from Pensacola really The Authority on that topic?
There's so much going on behind the scenes -- for example, most all sites that claim to have reviewed products and will tell you the best ones, their reviews just combine Amazon reviews (probably w/ AI help) and then every single product on their site has an affiliate link. Since these sites are almost all owned by big conglomerates (see below), Google gives them preference, no matter what.
So you really DON'T get info from sources that are EEAT AND there's lots of AI chicanery going on that Google professes their new updates will seek out and demote. But that's not happening.
Take a look at this graph. Traffic for five travel websites are tracked -- the websites are run by real people who have actually been to the the travel locations they write about, tasted the food, took the pics,etc. They're legit. See how Google is treating them:
free image hosting
The problem is that this is happening across the board to ALL independent sites (like mine) AND what people see at the top of a Google search are ads and pretty much only the big names.
So if I post an article on a topic that is truly helpful to people, my site has been around for 15 years, my writers and I are actual experts (published authors), and the information is formatted according to Google's preferences, chances are you will never see that article, even if you do a search for the specific key words we used. You're more likely to get whatever the goobers at Quora and Reddit have to say.
Ironically, if I come across a site that is stealing my content, I can complain to Google (as well as the site's hosting company) and they will take down the site. In the meantime, Google is scraping trillions of bits of content from websites to teach their AI so, in turn, when you do a search, Google's AI will have the answer right there for you! No need to ever click away from the Google search page -- and yet that information/answer was stolen from other sites!
This is putting businesses out of business, honestly, just to make a monopoly more monopolistic and powerful than ever, and of course, Google and the letter agencies work hand in hand.
So, I'm trying to unGoogle myself as much as possible. For my own business, I have other sites and products so, thank God, I still have income, but so many people worked endlessly on creating truly great websites only to find their traffic and income down by huge percentages.
I downloaded the search browser Yandex yesterday, and it's wicked fast. I'm going to try it for a couple of weeks, try to not use Google to search. There are quite a few other browsers that are much more private than Google -- gotta start somewhere.
I use Google Docs and Sheets a LOT,and there may not be anything comparable to switch to. And, I have a new Pixel Google phone. Ugh.
Does anyone know of alternatives to things like Docs, Sheets, and the Google photo storage? And, I DESPISE Gmail, but for business purposes, I don't know how to switch to anything more secure.
For example, if you search for "best car from the 1970s", you SHOULD get results on the first Google page of sites that are truly authoritative on that subject. You would expect a site run by an old white guy who's been around for ages, drove and maybe tested or designed cars in the 70s and now writes reviews. He's an expert and you can trust what he says.
And, in fact, last fall, Google announced their search engine would give priority to sites that were "helpful" and stressed the importance of EEAT -- Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trust.
What did we get? Freakin Reddit, Quora, TripAdvisor, Forbes (long ago bought out and is nothing like what it used to be)... Whatever question you might have, is Kevin from Pensacola really The Authority on that topic?
There's so much going on behind the scenes -- for example, most all sites that claim to have reviewed products and will tell you the best ones, their reviews just combine Amazon reviews (probably w/ AI help) and then every single product on their site has an affiliate link. Since these sites are almost all owned by big conglomerates (see below), Google gives them preference, no matter what.
So you really DON'T get info from sources that are EEAT AND there's lots of AI chicanery going on that Google professes their new updates will seek out and demote. But that's not happening.
Take a look at this graph. Traffic for five travel websites are tracked -- the websites are run by real people who have actually been to the the travel locations they write about, tasted the food, took the pics,etc. They're legit. See how Google is treating them:
free image hosting
The problem is that this is happening across the board to ALL independent sites (like mine) AND what people see at the top of a Google search are ads and pretty much only the big names.
So if I post an article on a topic that is truly helpful to people, my site has been around for 15 years, my writers and I are actual experts (published authors), and the information is formatted according to Google's preferences, chances are you will never see that article, even if you do a search for the specific key words we used. You're more likely to get whatever the goobers at Quora and Reddit have to say.
Ironically, if I come across a site that is stealing my content, I can complain to Google (as well as the site's hosting company) and they will take down the site. In the meantime, Google is scraping trillions of bits of content from websites to teach their AI so, in turn, when you do a search, Google's AI will have the answer right there for you! No need to ever click away from the Google search page -- and yet that information/answer was stolen from other sites!
This is putting businesses out of business, honestly, just to make a monopoly more monopolistic and powerful than ever, and of course, Google and the letter agencies work hand in hand.
So, I'm trying to unGoogle myself as much as possible. For my own business, I have other sites and products so, thank God, I still have income, but so many people worked endlessly on creating truly great websites only to find their traffic and income down by huge percentages.
I downloaded the search browser Yandex yesterday, and it's wicked fast. I'm going to try it for a couple of weeks, try to not use Google to search. There are quite a few other browsers that are much more private than Google -- gotta start somewhere.
I use Google Docs and Sheets a LOT,and there may not be anything comparable to switch to. And, I have a new Pixel Google phone. Ugh.
Does anyone know of alternatives to things like Docs, Sheets, and the Google photo storage? And, I DESPISE Gmail, but for business purposes, I don't know how to switch to anything more secure.
