Why Google Search Isn’t So Useful Anymore
Here’s why Google Search results are not as good as they used to be and what platforms are taking their place lately.
Google has become less useful when it comes to finding high-quality information on the internet.
Good old Google never ends to surprise me (for bad lately).
Nowadays when we google some questions, we get ads, irrelevant content optimized for SEO, or long YouTube videos that don’t have the answer to our question.
Over the past years, Google has changed and it’s not the search engine we used to love. Here’s what happened to Google Search.
How the internet used to be
When the internet first started it was a completely different place from what we know now.
The internet was full of independent resources, and blogs that had a lot of useful information, but with one single problem — it was a mess.
And that’s how Google conquered the game. Back then, Google provided the best way to find anything you wanted. Google’s job was to dig up the necessary information in the fast-growing internet world.
But then things changed when social media entered the game.
The most interesting conversations, ideas, news, and trends began to take place on platforms like Facebook, Reddit, Myspace, and Twitter. The main goal of these platforms was (and still is) to keep the attention of their audience.
And that was a problem for Google.
You see, sites like Facebook or Instagram are not designed to work with the Google search engine. Why?
- Most of its content is not searchable
- They encourage users to use their platform from their apps
- You need to log in to their platform to have full access to their content
Google keeps updating its search engine, but the relevancy of its results has been sinking and there’s a reason for that — SEO.
How Google search results lost relevance
When search engines became indispensable in our daily lives, it didn’t take long for entrepreneurs to understand that having their websites on the first page of the search results was the most effective marketing move.
I mean, nobody checks the 2nd or 3rd page of the search results.
Soon entrepreneurs realized that instead of paying for advertising, they should get new users coming to their websites from the search results. But how to get on the first page of Google?
To begin with, you had to pick a niche, choose different topics, and write articles on your website.
But to get to the top, you didn’t have to make high-quality content!
You could select some keywords for your product and hire low-cost copywriters to churn out many articles optimized for SEO. They’d create long articles with irrelevant information and full of keywords that help their clients rank their websites on the first page of Google.
That’s why nowadays some pages on Google search results are full of useless information. So when people don’t find the information they’re looking for on Google, where do they go?
To places that are free of SEO.
Reddit is Real
When it comes to finding solutions to your problems and good advice, Reddit is probably a good replacement for Google.
Flooded with low-quality SEO content, Google has lost the trust of people. Especially in the younger generation.
Over the years, it’s been those tired of useless and standard SEO content who unconsciously contributed to the growth of the most extensive community where everyone can share their opinion on any topic — Reddit.
Over the past 15 years, this platform has retained its popularity, bringing together different audiences who are tired of Google’s artificial (not intelligent) answers.
Even when using Google search, some people often enter the word “Reddit” at the end to avoid the content optimized for SEO.
But Reddit isn’t the only place free of SEO where young people look for information.
Younger generations are using social media as a search engine
Younger generations might create a new type of Google search
The senior vice president of Google reported that Tik Tok and Instagram are the most used “search engines” among 40% of young people. At first glance, it is difficult to call them “search engines,” but the uniqueness and relevance of these platforms’ content are growing daily.
The world is becoming faster and more visual, and now even images are not enough — the trendiest type of content is short videos. You find this type of content not only on TikTok but also on YouTube as “YouTube Shorts.”
Currently, what’s on most people's agenda is ChatGPT. Some claim it will kill Google, while others are trying to make money with it. However, this technology is still developing, while platforms like TikTok and YouTube have been out there for some time.
Google is still the king, but how long will its kingdom last?
Despite all of this, Google is far from leaving the first position as a search engine.
Many users still have Google as the default search engine in their browsers. That’s one of the main reasons why Google created Google Chrome.
Every year, the company conducts “expensive” negotiations with Apple to maintain the default search engine status on iOS and macOS devices. However, it seems that Apple is planning to develop its own search engines to rival Google.
If Apple launches its search engine, Google’s market share could drop by 20–30% in just one day.
For the first time since the Internet magically appeared in our lives, Google has begun to disappoint users and even now has alternative replacements such as Reddit and Tiktok and serious competitors like the new Microsoft Bing powered by ChatGPT.
The only thing good old Google can do now is to come to its senses, react with innovations before it’s too late, and start providing useful information from the real world as it used to be many years ago.
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