What’s replacing Google Search, not ChatGPT

After Microsoft and OpenAI teamed up , Google was struggling to deal with it.

Bard, which was launched overnight, made frequent mistakes after it was launched, causing the stock price of Alphabet, Google's parent company, to plummet.

At the same time, the status of Google search seems to be under attack. Just last week, the number of visitors to the new Bing combined with OpenAI exceeded 100 million, and a small result has been achieved.

Seems like it's only a matter of time before cannibalizing Google searches.

In addition, the idea that Google search is gradually dying has been mentioned again. This statement has been made several times before the ChatGPT generative AI.

What they're referring to isn't that Google Search is less intelligent and human, it's that Google Search's authority, usability, and accuracy are rapidly declining.

It's not that fast, accurate and ruthless Google anymore

In the beginning, Google search tended to provide a strong correlation with the search term, and there were few so-called advertising options.

However, with the increase in search market share and gradually controlling the vast majority of users, Google has made several "fuzzy" processes for search quality.

It is no longer mandatory to match search terms, and at the same time, some precise search methods such as quotation marks and plus signs commonly used in traditional search engines have begun to ignore their limitations.

Tend to give more search options. The most important thing is that among the first few items in the search results, there are more and more advertisements (ads), sometimes even filling the entire screen.

In addition, among searches for other keywords, such as product features and specifications, there are many links related to Amazon purchases that appear first.

In discussions related to DKB Blog, Reddit, and hackers, it is believed that Google search is becoming "confused".

Even though Google officially stated that it is using the so-called "thousands of people and thousands of faces" algorithm to accurately estimate your true intentions.

In fact, such an adjustment by Google is more like interspersing some advertisements or promotions reasonably, and ignoring some subsequent restrictions.

Simply put, Google Search is becoming impossible to find what you want. Advertising psoriasis and useless information are increasing.

But from Google's business perspective, the ambiguity of search results is a logical change.

As early as 1998, when Google first started to search, its founder Sergey Brin said that "the business model of search engines is advertising", "the growth of advertising business will make search engines gradually favor advertisers instead of users' needs ".

Google Search is constantly being "refined" to accommodate 80% of common queries, and it's getting worse for technical and explicitly targeted queries.

Google will also forcibly associate many words with less similar meanings. After you turn a few pages, the search page results will have nothing to do with your search.

In this state, many users also began to add keywords such as Reddit and Hacker after the search term to specify the search scope.

Advanced users will directly use high-level qualifiers such as site: to conduct precise searches to avoid Google's free play.

Be quick, look for communities like Reddit

The Reddit community was repeatedly mentioned when discussing how to quickly find the results you want.

And Reddit is also becoming a "search engine" to solve problems. DKB ridiculed in the blog . At present, the only one who doesn't know that Reddit has become a popular search engine at present may only be the Reddit team itself.

After all, they didn't make a decent "search interface", but that didn't hinder their growth.

Paul Graham, a well-known American programmer, believes that Reddit still hasn't reached its peak, and their numbers are still growing.

Compared with the inaccurate and authentic Google search results, Reddit is much more efficient and accurate.

Founded in 2005, Reddit initially focused on allowing users to share interesting content they found on the Internet and discuss it together. In fact, it is similar to domestic post bars and communities.

Over time, Reddit has grown into a massive social media platform with 440 million active users, more than 130 million communities, and more than 100 million hours of viewing time per month.

The biggest advantage of Reddit lies in its personalization and customization. Users can obtain information and news according to their own preferences.

Compared with traditional search engines, it can provide more vertical information. In addition, Reddit can accurately grasp the needs of users, and it has 1.3 million active boards.

In fact, not only Reddit, but many other similar communities or websites have also become frequent visitors of search engine keywords.

Providing more authenticity is one advantage they have over Google search.

In 2021, the Atlantic Monthly put forward an "Internet Death Theory", referring to the fact that most of the content on the Internet is generated by artificial intelligence and comes from paid keywords.

Of course, this is a very radical point of view, but it also shows from the side that under the mature commercial operation of search engines, most of the content occupying the first few pages of search is marketers who use SEO rules.

They are like robots, marketing, selling, and earning your clicks and browsing time all the time, many of which are useless information.

In contrast, communities such as Reddit, Hacker news or Stack overflow are discovered and are gradually becoming a new search engine.

In China, the information on Xiaohongshu and WeChat Souyisou is also becoming the first-hand choice for many people to find useful information.

Google Search is draining trust from users

The business model of Google search engine advertising has existed for more than ten years, and the SEO mechanism has also been in operation to this day.

Every once in a while, there will be bloggers and community boards discussing the topic of "Google is dying".

In related discussions on Hacker News, there have been 1561 replies so far. It's almost as if Google search results are flooded with ads and useless information.

However, even if the grievances are deep, Google's search business has not declined, and its market share has not decreased significantly.

But at present, the strong emergence of generative AI such as ChatGPT is rewriting and redefining search. Although the new Bing is not perfect, it still gives people new ideas about the future of search.

And Google's chaotic countermeasures, as well as the lack of a clear roadmap, seem to be frantically squeezing every search and click of users before it collapses, in order to squeeze out every cent of advertising fees.

At the same time, Google's approach is actually overdrawing the user's trust. Before generative AI officially became mainstream, users only used Google for search.

For example, the default entry of Android and iPhone is Google search, and few people don't know how to change and adjust.

According to a research report by Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi, Google will pay Apple $15 billion in 2021 to buy out the default search engine in Safari.

The same is true of the Android system under Google's control. Not only search, but also various services are almost built into the system.

The cooperation between Microsoft and OpenAI, as well as the influence of communities such as Reddit, are gradually subverting people's search habits, and are also constantly impacting the status of Google search.

When Google continues to use accuracy and authenticity to overdraw every user's search, it may be just a matter of time before Google search collapses.

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