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Has anyone else noticed how search quality on YouTube and Google have worsened? (lemmy.world)

submitted 14 hours ago by nerdhd@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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In the case of YouTube, only after a few results they become completely unrelated to my search.

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[–] otp@sh.itjust.works 2 points 11 hours ago

Search has been becoming smarter for years (decades?) by now.

The problem is that search has been made to work with the "you know what I mean" factor... fixing spelling mistakes, considering different tenses or forms of words, including related words...

Search became more friendly to the average non-technical user, but it became harder for users who know/knew how to search for exactly what they want.

Other factors include...

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) where websites try to appear for as many searches as possible, occasionally regardless of relevance
Monetization of search, where people with SEO and a lot of money pay to be included in as many "relevant" searches as possible
AI incorporated into search by trying to find additional relevant pages
Search engines being reluctant to return zero (or few) results and padding the results with other things you "might be interested in"
Also, search trying to use what you "might be interested in" based on what they know about you/your account/your IP address/your location based on your IP range.