Google search failed to even find a hollywood movie, even after 1 hour of attempts. I don’t really care about the movie, but I am terrified by the prospect that google now ceased to function on this basic level. Why is this happening?

I understand the explanations of seo and other stuff like spam content. But why are there NO relevant results at all.

I wouldn’t mind having to start wading through results at page 2 or even 10 but now it utterly fails to find even the most basic things.

Things you found on the first attempt even just a year ago. Now they are effectively hidden.

To me functionally the entire internet has now vanished. I cannot access anything that I am searching for. Might as well not exist at all.

Has anybody found a way around this?

Is this on purpose? Is this an attack on the free internet, herding people to just the top 5 sites like facebook, youtube, tiktok, and so forth?

Are there search engines that still work?

  • I remember somebody talking once about how you could tell what part of the internet people frequented back in the 2000s and 2010s by their sense of humor and how they talk, and it’s crazy how accurate that is. To this day, you can tell who was a 2014 Tumblr girl and who was taking sharpie baths and wearing horns at conventions simply by what they find funny and what mannerisms they picked up from those subcultures.

    The fact that anybody could go online and start their own subculture out of nowhere just by hosting a forum was a real Wild West experience. The walled gardens of today don’t allow for anywhere near that kind of natural growth. It had some real downsides, but it’s sad to see that kind of sheer freedom disappear.

    • @banneryear1868@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      26 months ago

      Yeah it’s super weird how these internet cultures developed their own idiosyncrasies that show up in real life. Nerd culture kawaii humor around the turn of the decade is super recognizable as well, waffles being a meme (not the blue ones), and lolcats (debatably appropriated from 4chan), Natalie Dee comics. As these things were commodified during the 2010s into pop culture it all sort of washed away subculture connection. There’s a kids book series now called Narwhal and Jelly where the dialogue is basically all internet-speak from this era and I’m guessing most parents have no idea and just think its a quirky kids book.