It started when Google made a hard push to improve search for everyday people. They essentially nerfed "expert google skills" to bolster "noob google skills".

Regular people are/were really bad at using google, so google moved towards showing what it thinks you want rather than what you want. They paved over the skill gap between people who understood keywords and word order, and people who just typed in a quasi legible sentence to find something. In doing so though, they killed a lot of skill that people had developed with google for years.

Basically they made the game worse for pros so it could be better for amateurs. I have never heard a non-tech person complain about google getting worse over the years, and they seem to overwhelmingly use AI overviews now too.

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xp84 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> they seem to overwhelmingly use AI overviews now too.

Hard agree. The only thing I've ever witnessed another person do on Google (this is only an incredibly slight exaggeration) is:

1. Type a 'query' - either a brand/website name or some kind of stream of thought like "dishwasher error 03F" (without quotes)

2. Click or look at the very top thing in the results.

This used to mean 80% of the time they'd click the top ad, 20% the top organic result. Then they started putting non-clickable "answers" in that top spot, which would always be accepted as 'the right answer'. When those appeared, approximately no one would ever click any 'blue links.' These started out pretty reliable because they were just direct extracts from sites like IMDB: "Brad Pitt is 44 years old" etc.

Now it's like 60% of the time an ad, 40% of the time their bargain-basement-model "AI Overview" slop. Either way, approximately all users always just use whatever is on top and ignore everything else.

	▲	esseph 37 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> Either way, approximately all users always just use whatever is on top and ignore everything else. Wtf

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pbhjpbhj 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>"a hard push to improve search for everyday people"

Citation needed. A hard push to change their search offering, sure. To improve it? Well, if by improve you mean 'require more interaction and viewing of more adverts on average before leaving' ...

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WarmWash 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Again, if you have been on HN since 2009, you are likely on the far fringe of Google's user demographics, which at this point is pretty much "The average human being on Earth".

I would bet all of my money that you never once did a Google search (pre-LLM mania, but maybe even after) that looked like

"What kind of clothing is best for when you are going hiking around the lake, so my feet don't get so cold?"

Sadly, this is how most humans have used a search engine for decades now.

	▲	watwut 10 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I find that weird assumption. Why would you expect HN people not do such searches? They worked for years. And you frequently ended up finding a discussion forum with around that question and relevant discussion under it.

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esseph 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I just don't know what I'm doing different, I'm just keyword searching and using a couple of inclusive/exclusive flags.

Was I the frog in the pot and now I'm cooked? I don't feel like in search Google any different from maybe 2005 or so.