alt Hacker NewsThis relates to Chrome, not to search. In regard to search, they have taken a new direction that I don't think is going to change any time soon. Some time in the last 2 years, they started removing any thing that doesn't get significant natural traffic (ie: have a 30 year old user manual for something odd that people only search for once in a while? -> removed). Last few months, I noticed that they will not index anything that seems broad (ie: if similar content exists, they won't index it regardless of your page authority).
Basically, they are turning search into Tiktok. If you try to make a search, you'll notice that now they give precedence to AI overview, Youtube, News stories, Maps, Products, etc. Anything but content.
tl;dr: content is dead in Google search.
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What aggravates me is that somewhere at Google headquarters some asshole thinks he's a fucking genius for turning the web into nerfed walled garden
I'm actually surprised when I hear someone technical say they still use Google Search (the search product specifically - they still reign supreme with Maps, etc). I used to love it, but that was quite a long time ago.
I personally use Brave Search and perplexity for those very rare instances when brave search doesn't instantly find what I am looking for. Literally the only thing I (rarely) miss from google is super-deep support for boolean search operators, but then I just tag a !g (exactly like DDG's brilliant bangs) on the end and that works. (I also tried Kagi and did like it, but didn't find compelling differences over Brave Search, especially compared to brave search's excellent and free AI.)
Try Marginalia Search but be warned it doesn't index the entire web
> This relates to Chrome, not to search.
To me, it appears to relate to search
> Pages that are engaging in back button hijacking may be subject to manual spam actions or automated demotions, which can impact the site's performance in Google Search results.