It's probably because you don't know how to search
this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
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All of a sudden? It's been terrible for at least 10 years now. I have about 5 or 6 FireFox extensions just to make Google not suck.
My guess would be that it's increasingly using AI/ML and natural language over search terms to sort the results, which results in much shittier results. Power users are used to specifying the search term precisely and it no longer does anything about it.
It tries way too hard to also return news articles and blog posts instead of forum posts and other types of user-generated content. If it can find a plain "well written" english blog it'll return that over a 10 year old forum post that's super detailed but full of grammar mistakes. It's gone full corporate and strongly favors corporate interests and pushes commercial offerings more.
It used that ads were clearly labeled ads but it wouldn't surprise me now regular results gets quietly prioritized based on some sort of financial incentives.
I think you're right (and I recall Google engineers have been open about using AI in past press releases.)
I suspect that Google is on the bleeding edge of what happens when a bunch of AIs try to convince other AIs to pick their schlop over the next schlop over. Very few of the involved parties are still focused on helping people (it's hard to get an AI to focus on anything) and it's starting to show.
Google has really gone down hill to the point I can no longer find obscure searches anymore. Even youtube searches sorting by new has gone downhill to the point that most of the results are youtube shorts with half of them having multiple hashtags in the title.
I've found myself using DDG and Bing (fucking BING!) more than google lately.
You are not alone, google search results quality has declined.