In February, HouseFresh managing editor Gisele Navarro called out publishers like BuzzFeed and Rolling Stone as some of the culprits that publish content about air purifiers despite a lack of expertise — but Google rewards these sites with high rankings all the same. The result is a search results page filled with SEO-first content, designed to do not much more than rank highly on Google.
In a piece published today, she says HouseFresh has “virtually disappeared” from search results: search traffic has decreased 91 percent in recent months, from around 4,000 visitors a day in October 2023 to 200 a day today.
“We lost rankings we held for months (and sometimes years) for articles that are constantly being updated and improved based on findings from our first-hand and in-depth testing, our long-term experience with the products, and feedback from our readers,” Navarro writes. “Our article [previously ranked at #2] is now buried deep beneath sponsored posts, Quora advice from 2016, best-of lists from big media sites, and no less than 64 Google Shopping product listings. Sixty. Four.”
SEO-first affiliate content is being deployed ruthlessly at countless sites.
There is no obvious editorial necessity for Forbes to write articles like “Top 20 Largest Dog Breeds” or “What Fruits Can Dogs Eat?” — until you take a look at the sidebar of these stories, which are filled with dozens of affiliate links for pet insurance that Forbes gets a kickback from every time someone signs up.
Last year, when CNET was discovered to be using artificial intelligence tools to produce dozens of stories, it was SEO-heavy “evergreen” articles it focused on first. In the cases of Sports Illustrated and USA Today’s AI content debacles, it also was product reviews that were being churned out using automation tools.
The aggressive targeting of top Google search spots — with or without AI — by big media outlets affects small sites like HouseFresh the most. A significant loss of traffic for independent publishers is often enough to shutter an outlet entirely.
Do people who don’t follow this kind of stuff realize how dog shit google results have gotten? I accidentally googled (new phone) a Costco wine earlier and all the links were marketing garbage. DDG gives me actual reviews within 5 results.
Paging FTC, FTC. It’s gotten near impossible to find honest reviews that aren’t driven by affiliate links anywhere. So many news outlets hocking products outright, I stopped paying attention after nyt bought wirecutter.
Then there’s shit like Forbes (from the article) writing lifestyle clickbait about pets and dogs all the while advertising pet insurance.
“who do you trust, when everyone’s a crook?” -‘revolution calling’ (queensryche)
How 16 Companies are Dominating the World’s Google Search Results (2024 Edition)
Even “honest reviews” aren’t all that honest. My mother is an Amazon Vine affiliate, which is a program where they send you stuff for free and you write a review and get to keep it. They aren’t overt about it, but they make it fairly obvious that you’re supposed to write reviews that are positive overall.
Im in the Vine program (basic not the premium tier) and they are actually very explicit that you need to review the product fairly and how you actually feel about it. Ive given out 3 and two stars before for cords that weren’t as advertised, shitty build, etc.
Granted, they DO want you to pump out a review for it within a month which is bad for longevity testing.
I can’t speak for it myself. I just know she told me that they keep sort of doing a wink wink, nudge nudge about making the reviews more positive than negative.
Probably the best thing about Verge covering this is simply signal boost, getting the story out to a wider audience.
I initially thought about installing UBlacklist on Firefox and block the spam, but then I had a thought? Let us do the HouseFresh.com test on Duck Duck Go and see how far up it is?
Apparently, Housefresh.com stands behind world famous Air Purifier reviewers like:
- Best Buy
- popular mechanics
- CBSnews
- NationalGeographic
- PCMagazine
- Rollingstone
- Yahoo
- UsNews
- Forbes
- Choice
- MrGadget.com.au
- CNET
- Amazon
- TopConsumerReviews
- Bustle
- ConsumerReports
- Parents
- Health
- bhg
- thekitchn
- rd
- learnmetrics
- homedepot
- iheartdogs
- telegraph
- msn
- livestrong
- sethlui
- nytimes
- reviewed.usatoday
- popsci
- oransi
- healthline
- seattleweekly
- bestreviews
- thesprucepets
- tomsguide
- gearhungry
- consumertestedreviews
- bobvila
- prevention
- nbcnews
- nypost
- foodandwine
- consumeradvice.in
- news.com.au
- esquire
- gq
- wsj
- verywellhealth
- consumerreports
- moderncastle
- consumeranalysis
- independent.co.uk
- hollywoodreporter
- hgtv
- consumersadvocate
- thehindu
- toptenreviews
- people.com
- popsci
- money
- endadget
- businessinsider
- gearpatrol
- trustedreviews
- digitaltrends
- menshealth
- howtogeek
- techyearlab
- nymag
- livescience
- portugal(what?)
- nj
- iqair
- mashable
- billboard
- prevention
- techhive
- architecturaldigest
- huffpost
- reviewed.usatoday
- realsimple
- techradar
- wired
Well, nevermind guess. I can have either HouseFresh and literally nothing else. Or an ocean of spam, intermixed with the rare human written article that was produced by the main branch of the publisher, rather than its SEO garbage chute.
The web search is a lost cause. No wonder Kagi keeps growing in popularity.
(Also keep in mind, in that giant list? Some of those websites are so GOOD at their Air Purifying review job that they get to be featured more than once, thrice even at times)
Yeah I have been using DuckDuckGo for about a decade. I noticed a drop in quality as soon as the Microsoft Bing partnership. Now it is mostly just a Bing clone. Which is really sad. They were really good and really cared about consumers privacy. I have been moving over to Startpage but have yet to do a full read up on its policies and do a full test of the quality of the search results. Though so far I am quietly optimistic.
Really need to start using DuckDcukGo exclusively
Make a search on Bing, then make a search on DuckDcukGo. Compare the results. You’ll find out that DuckDcukGo is just a front end for another site that provides links to business affiliates.
Well damn what engine search CAN I use then?
I’ve been using Kagi for a few months and I’m liking it so far.
A search engine that specifically requires an account is pretty sus
How else are you supposed to pay for it?
deleted by creator
I’m using a French search engine called Qwant. I find it gives very good results.
Merci, je vais l’essayer
Web today is three companies in a trenchcoat. It is bit sad that the innovation of late 90’s has almost disappeared. I do hope Fediverse/ActivityPub would create this next version of free web, which is impossible for companies to control.
before:2023, choose a site, look for updated article.I’ve been using the internet since before the web existed.
I could swear there was a time that it didn’t suck, but I can’t remember when that was.
Of course, it sucks more now, but…
It sucked back then, but it sucked happily. Now it’s just sad.
Back then it was messy, you couldn’t find anything, but at least everything worked as intended. Hell you could do a whois on something and actually get data back. You could email the netadmin of whatever place you had trouble with. Now it’s just a wasteland of content free corpo sites.
Power corrupts. And those corrupted by power then redirect it to corrupt all they don’t outright conquer.
Although at least your computer doesn’t slow to a crawl every time you go to the wrong Geocities or Tripod page with a million gifs and a custom cursor. Also, would you like to install Bonzi Buddy?
Also, for all of you who lived through the Eternal September, “me too!”
The Internet has been gentrified. Sure, there were some tough places that you had to be careful about wandering into, but there were great experiences. Now it’s this homogenous, cultivated experience.
I dunno, I had this conversation in another thread recently. I was 13 in 2000. The web was a disaster then. Sure, there were good parts, but every website was an outright attack on your computer. Java and Flash were everywhere and they were so easily exploited. I’d go to websites and they’d pop up 100 different windows of hardcore porn, audio on, the whole nine.
But yeah, it’s just a different suck now.
1995-2010 were the halcyon days. I miss the shit out of the web back then. And I’ve been around long enough that I set up some of the first mail relays and usenet mirrors when I was a teen, besides having one of the largest BBSs in Canada.
You could find stuff, it was often a very tedious process though. You searched for: thing XYZ doesn’t work and found a lot of of forums with posts of people who had the same problem and with a bit of luck you found a two years old entry with an answer that actually worked for you. Now it’s 20 results from the company that created the product you have a problem with but offers no solution at all.
Might try this
