That's already largely the case imo. Very general information is usually fine, but get specific at all and it seems impossible to find anything anymore.
It has started, but it is going to get so much worse. It is still at the point where you can find a contractor by putting in their exact name within the first 5 results, it is almost never the top result though. Once it gets worse than that I think yellow pages would start looking a lot more useful.
“AI” is accelerating the SEO bs as it is easier to automate. Search engines are still easier to use than looking something up in a set registry, but the clock is ticking.
One thing we still have (for now) is reverse image searching. Pro tip, if you find a piece of furniture you like on some site, you can usually back search the product image and find it on another site, often for up to around 60% of the price. This works because sellers are lazy and use the same product images and the markup is so insane that they make money no matter what you pay. If you try to search for what you want on the site, you won't get it, but reverse image search can circumvent this.
Reverse image is what I was thinking about actually, at least Googles version of it seems to be largely AI generated results, though this was me attempting to find albums based on cover art. I have not tried furniture
If you try to look up anything DIY or household related, you used to get forum posts, maybe a blog, or a at very least a company site that still made a human write a little article about the topic.
Now it's just pure ai generated garbage. They all have the same bullet-point list form, endless blabbering in a casual tone (So you like many other people want to drill a hole into a wall. Well there an many things to consider...), lack any specifics and are like three times as long as they should be. And then 10 product referrals to Amazon with names like the above.
The internet was always kinda fucked, but this feels like digital Kessler syndrome. Once you hit a critical amount of garbage, every bit of useful information will just be buried by trash.
Not sure about other languages, but it's already horrible in Portuguese. Half my search results on either ddg or Google are usually either in a different language or one of those incoherent "answer compilation" websites that are 100% just chatGPT. I think non-English users are gonna feel it worst first.
I give it 5 years before search engines are completely unusable. Back to the age of encyclopedias we go.
That's already largely the case imo. Very general information is usually fine, but get specific at all and it seems impossible to find anything anymore.
It has started, but it is going to get so much worse. It is still at the point where you can find a contractor by putting in their exact name within the first 5 results, it is almost never the top result though. Once it gets worse than that I think yellow pages would start looking a lot more useful.
“AI” is accelerating the SEO bs as it is easier to automate. Search engines are still easier to use than looking something up in a set registry, but the clock is ticking.
I've noticed that as well. Trying to find specific things using search methods I've been using for years doesn't work the way it used to.
Difficult to find images as well
One thing we still have (for now) is reverse image searching. Pro tip, if you find a piece of furniture you like on some site, you can usually back search the product image and find it on another site, often for up to around 60% of the price. This works because sellers are lazy and use the same product images and the markup is so insane that they make money no matter what you pay. If you try to search for what you want on the site, you won't get it, but reverse image search can circumvent this.
Reverse image is what I was thinking about actually, at least Googles version of it seems to be largely AI generated results, though this was me attempting to find albums based on cover art. I have not tried furniture
If you try to look up anything DIY or household related, you used to get forum posts, maybe a blog, or a at very least a company site that still made a human write a little article about the topic.
Now it's just pure ai generated garbage. They all have the same bullet-point list form, endless blabbering in a casual tone (So you like many other people want to drill a hole into a wall. Well there an many things to consider...), lack any specifics and are like three times as long as they should be. And then 10 product referrals to Amazon with names like the above.
The internet was always kinda fucked, but this feels like digital Kessler syndrome. Once you hit a critical amount of garbage, every bit of useful information will just be buried by trash.
They already are
Not sure about other languages, but it's already horrible in Portuguese. Half my search results on either ddg or Google are usually either in a different language or one of those incoherent "answer compilation" websites that are 100% just chatGPT. I think non-English users are gonna feel it worst first.