People are beginning to build a bandwagon to criticize Google. I don't really want to be a defender of Google as it has devolved so suddenly.
But consider this: it used to be that before computers came along every municipality had its own phone book. White pages for just people, yellow pages for businesses. Everyone and everything was listed except those who paid extra to be delisted.
You could find everything and everybody. Alphabetically for people. Alphabetically by trade if you were a business.
Handy, no?
And distributed for free. Paid for by costly long distance charges.
Google's first task was to replace the phone book. But not for a municipality. No. By idea, by question. As it grew, decades later it provided information and a gargantuan who-to-call list for the entire world. But most people never went past Google’s first page.
SEO to the rescue for advertisers. Well, mostly for Google, but hard to monetize.
Who gave the best answer to your query? Who made the best software for whatever, then broken down by best overall, best expensive, best inexpensive, best this/that/the other.
Then videos! Yay. TV.
Two decades ago you could find phone numbers by name and/or by number. Reverse lookup. What a deal! Easy peasy. For free. Then…well, not for free. Then not by phone number. Just too many phone numbers.
Then there were too many companies so constant SEO tweaking was required to become evergreen or to stay on top if you couldn’t keep your wares evergreen.
SEO started as a formulaic repetition of your keyword and you did your best to appear within the top three on page one of Google. That devolved into unacceptable repetition as counts per click, er…., counted.
So Google tweaked with new algorithms to provide some order, which grew more complicated and more specialized, and your keywords couldn’t be longer than 60 characters including spaces and…and…and….
The algorithm to reach the epitome of algorithms became the answer’s direct usefulness to the query. These were the golden days for queriers’ searches. SEO became more specialized requiring convoluted searches for your keyword with just the right numbers so you could get your name and answer on page one of Google under that category of search…depending upon matching the most popular wording of your listing. SEO specialists commanded mad respect and $$$.
Then, suddenly, it became too much. Or Google just decided to put paid ads up top on page one. Phew. Hard to keep up.
I don’t know. Not being part of the enterprise, from the outside I think of Sysiphus finally giving up against that boulder in Google’s labor stations and it began looking for a way out.
Then came AI to the rescue. SEO be damned. AI makes it easy. No more on top of page 1. Nope, AI substitutes for canned responses and the repetitious of a poorly executed AI sprung on the world too soon. AI summations are up top, followed by sponsored ads.
My take? Google just got tired of replacing the globe’s only phone book and encyclopedia and trying to be of service when people only look at page one. AI came along at just the right time.
Then there’s the other side of the Google search. Scamming.
I've now been scammed at least 5 times in the last few years and whereas we only had to worry about local criminals way back when, we are now privileged to be served by a whole world of criminals whom you'll never see, never meet, never know their name or where they live and they will happily screw you out of your hard earned money.
Just pick a scam and plunder away! Beats high seas piracy.
The latest scam hub that I’ve experienced? The Philippines. And they have a menu of scenarios to consult before contacting you. It’s great fun.
This time I didn’t get scammed. Turns out I didn’t have the predicate kind of transaction they were flogging. I Googled others with the same 63 country code and found two more numbers.
I reported all three phone numbers to the FBI. That used to work. Not so sure now.