When you ask the company, the search giants PR teams promise its flagship product is best in class.
In fact, were told Google Search is better than ever.
It all comes down to something called affiliate marketing.
Image: Melnikov Dmitriy (Shutterstock)
Even if you dont know the term, youve seen its effects.
One path to monetization for a lot of websites is product reviews and roundups.
These articles include special links to buy products from retailers like Amazon, BestBuy, and Walmart.
Just about every journalistic outlet does this, Gizmodo included.
Major publishers tend to have strict policies that firewall reviews and editorial decisions from these business concerns.
There are lots of tricks to show up higher on Google, some more vile than others.
As a whole, these strategies are called SEO, short for Search Engine Optimization.
Google even encourages it.
Lately, it sure seems like they have the upper hand.
In other words, the jerks pumping out garbage content to make a couple of extra dollars are winning.
These changes often lead to a temporary positive effect, but the spammers just find new loopholes.
The study did find, however, that Google performed significantly better compared to Bing and DuckDuckGo.
Also, despite the severity of the problem, Googles results did improve over the course of the study.
A Google spokesperson told Gizmodo that the research doesnt capture the full picture of Googles overall performance.
Bing and DuckDuckGo did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Weve never seen Google in this state of disarray, she said.
Thecompany is aware it has problemsin these areas, and its hard at work to fix them.
Google isconstantly reviewing websitesand revising its systems to try and improve results.
These efforts are impactful, but so far, some evidence suggests they may not be enough.
Google has been getting better in certain ways, but in others, its getting worse, Ray said.
But this isnt the first time researchers have demonstratedGoogle is on the decline.
Thats to say nothing of an endless list of anecdotes.
Google maintains that its ad experience is useful, relevant, and non-intrusive for users.
But the SEO problem is an entirely different animal.
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Meta Pissed Off Everyone With Poorly Redacted Docs
Meta is being very transparent on accident.
