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?

  • Dozzi92@lemmy.world
    53·
    6 months ago

    I think the point is you can’t put a search term into a search engine and get results from some random Discord. No body is going to go trawling through Discords to then use the search function to potentially find information from it. Now, if chats were somehow archived and could then be searchable, different story, but I don’t think that’s what people using Discord want from Discord.

    • UnRelatedBurner@sh.itjust.works
      1·
      6 months ago

      yeah, this is a problem. But in practice i found that if your searching for one niche problem and your only lead is discord, the people there are going to be kind and help.

      I know the pain on having to join something’s discord to get info, but it’s usually fast after I join.

      • EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        12·
        6 months ago

        But the bigger issue appears when you don’t have a clear place to go. It’s like we’ve gone back to before written records were common. Once that server goes and the people scatter, that information might as well never have existed. 5 years after Discord disappears, the only knowledge people will be able to find of it will be a handful of old messages complaining about some dude who scammed a bunch of people with low quality iron Doge coin.

          • EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone
            3·
            6 months ago

            I can’t see downvotes, but I imagine that people just took it as you disagreeing and saying that it’s not a problem.

            I was thinking of stuff that’s super niche anyways, like if you’re trying to keep a program running that your company’s database relies on that hasn’t been supported since Windows 95 or something absurd like that. For most stuff, it’s still possible to find at least somebody with an answer, even if you have to go to a Discord server for it. But when nobody has documented stuff that’s super obscure? Good luck!