Time for a new search engine - GOOGLE re-style to maximise profits

jpaul · 22 May 2019 at 08:35

Why have google messed with the desktop search engine style/content ?
... and what ff add-on, or, alternative search engine, do I need to change too, to get back to something productive ?

The image below shows yesterday and today
- easy access to filter options on left is gone
- search results occupy more space, and no cached option
- cannot jump directly to the n'th page of search result

this article appears to show their motives https://www.growthmanifesto.com/google-search-change/

The change they have made is now live on commercial search terms and here’s what you’ll notice:

They have removed all sidebar ads from the search results.

They have added a fourth advert in the centre above the organic search results.

Product listing ads (Google Shopping) and some knowledge graph ads will still appear in the right column.

They have two main objectives:

To increase their revenue from every search – this can be done by increasing search volume, increasing the cost per click for each search term OR by increasing the click through rate of ads.

To ensure their search results give users what they want – to keep Google’s market share where it is, and users coming back again and again, they need to ensure people find the exact information they are looking for, and fast. Google is unlikely to make a major change that improves revenue if it leads to their market share declining in the long term.

possibly I need to configure the browser user agent. ?

Deleted member 77746 · 22 May 2019 at 09:13

Duckduck Go? Google is becoming a horrible platform. These online companies can't leave things alone.

Hades · 22 May 2019 at 09:53

startpage.com?

Cromulent · 2 Jun 2019 at 14:06

mrbell1984 said:
Duckduck Go? Google is becoming a horrible platform. These online companies can't leave things alone.

I've just switched to DuckDuckGo in the last month. I do notice that search results are not quite as good as Google, but the other advantages it has, such as privacy overcomes that problem.

LiE · 3 Jun 2019 at 09:23

Doesn't seem to be any difference for me?

I don't mind a few ads for a superior service. I could switch from Gmail, Photos, Calendar, Keep, YouTube, Chrome, Maps etc but they are really good, the alternatives aren't as good and not as integrated with my Pixel phone.

jpaul · 3 Jun 2019 at 14:20

I had read a few search engine reddit threads, duckduck and startpage may have limitations, like

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17944991

I use “alternative search engines” daily. However, I have to crawl back to Google if I want to find things that were published in the last two weeks. Even Microsoft Bing can’t keep up with all the content that appears on the web every day...

Startpage and the like don’t get everything you find on Google. E.g. you can find today’s articles from even the most obscure blogs on Google. Searching for the same article won’t return that result on Startpage until at least a few weeks from now. I’m not sure if this is Google holding back on the good stuff, or if it’s Startpage not being willing to pay a higher fee.
...
[ Cooperating websites can subvert first-party isolation by redirecting the top level page through multiple first-party domains (with an ID in the URL). And Google does exactly that when you login. How to properly prevent it is still an open question:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1319839 ]
.

but had been sidetracked by trying to find a good anti-tracking mechanism to accompany search engine, to reduce browsing cpu resources, as much as anything
I currently forbid 3rd part cookies and use fpi+noscript in ff and ublockO in chrome.

But it seems FPI is inadequate (first person isolation)

Cross-site trackers have started using first-party sites’ own cookie jars for the purpose of persistent tracking. The first-party storage space is especially troublesome for privacy since all tracker scripts in the first-party context can read and write each other’s data. Say social.example writes a user tracking ID as a news.example first-party cookie. Now analytics.example, adnetwork.example, and video.example can leverage or cross pollinate that user tracking ID through their scripts on news.example.

https://webkit.org/blog/8613/intelligent-tracking-prevention-2-1/

purging cookies after 7 days seems a good solution, as suggested.

https://www.ghacks.net/2018/08/18/browsers-have-cookie-and-anti-tracking-enforcement-issues/

Who Left Open the Cookie Jar? A Comprehensive Evaluation of Third-Party Cookie Policies

Deleted member 77746 · 3 Jun 2019 at 14:29

Make a script on the desktop to clean tracking, run it every week and leave it in the background to run itself. Doesn't take long to write one.

jpaul · 3 Jun 2019 at 15:22

mrbell1984 said:
Make a script on the desktop to clean tracking,

Ok - I was being flippant - read through some of the links .. purging cookies whilst it helps is tip of the iceberg
eg. ghacks link

All browsers did not block cookies for certain redirects regardless of whether third-party cookies were blocked or tracking protection was enabled.

Glanza · 3 Jun 2019 at 15:41

Cromulent said:
I've just switched to DuckDuckGo in the last month. I do notice that search results are not quite as good as Google, but the other advantages it has, such as privacy overcomes that problem.

DDG heavily use Yahoo for their search results, it's gotten better the last 12 months but still has issues now and again with finding results Google does straight away.