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How Google Alters Search Queries to Get at Your Wallet (www.wired.com)

submitted 11 months ago by misk@sopuli.xyz to c/technology@lemmy.world

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Google likely alters queries billions of times a day in trillions of different variations. Here’s how it works. Say you search for “children’s clothing.” Google converts it, without your knowledge, to a search for “NIKOLAI-brand kidswear,” making a behind-the-scenes substitution of your actual query with a different query that just happens to generate more money for the company, and will generate results you weren’t searching for at all. It’s not possible for you to opt out of the substitution. If you don’t get the results you want, and you try to refine your query, you are wasting your time. This is a twisted shopping mall you can’t escape.

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[–] CriticalMiss@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I’m genuinely interested in trying out Kagi, it seems like a much better experience than whatever Google has to offer. With SEO being implemented everywhere it has gotten quite annoying that every time I search for something the first 5 results are some AI generated website that copies information from other sites.

[–] otterpop@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Try it, you won't regret it! I find myself not even reaching for Google anymore.

[–] CriticalMiss@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

I genuinely want to but I hate subscriptions simply because I’m poor at managing them which is why I’ve stuck with Google all this time.

[–] misk@sopuli.xyz 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I've recently found Qwant which I can recommend trying out. It's a European search engine with it's own index, independent from Google or Bing, privacy focused and free. The search results are pretty good, not sure if that's because it's just not affected by SEO focusing on Google.

The biggest issue I have with all of the alternatives is that Google Maps is just so much better than anything and integrating Maps results is extremely useful. Qwant integrates with OpenStreetMap but obviously that's just not the same.

[–] herr@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Qwant is unfortunately owned by Axel Springer, truly one of the worst German companies in existence. They're the publisher of the most popular (and unfortunately highly politically biased, filled to the brim with dishonest exaggerations and occasionally straight-up lies) German newspaper Bild.

Whatever comes out of Qwant if it actually becomes popular, you can rest assured it will be nothing good.

Just use DuckDuckGo and be done with it.

[–] misk@sopuli.xyz 3 points 11 months ago

As much as I dislike Axel Springer, they seem to own just 20% of Qwant.

In my experience DDG kinda sucks, when I gave it a honest try (~1 month of having it as default) I kept going back to Google too much.

I don't have any trouble dumping services when they go bad. I'm on Lemmy after all.