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Original poster

To think Google search is busted?

35 replies

ThoseWeirdStones · 24/12/2025 15:10

Increasingly awful, the vast majority of results for any search (no matter how specific I am) brings either totally unrelated results to the top, or more.....bloody questions.
And most of these 'questions' are ridiculous. For example, say I search for 'how to get more fiber in my diet'
Most results will presume and anticipate me to have wanted higher PROTEIN, not fiber. If I search for vegetarian recipes or health adjacent info, it presumes, off the bat, that I wrote vegan.

And those ridiculous 'questions' that appear several results down the page, usually badly spelled or with questionable grammar: so your search for high fiber meals will result in:

  • What's the 30/50/70 rule for cancer
  • What's did Kurt Cobain think about God
  • What is fiber diets
  • Does veganism cause cancer

It's a shit show. It is either optimised to answer very low IQ queries, or presumes that I am under the age of 10.
I get that the algorithm is spewing the most searched for stuff up to the top, but it is usually the very worst and often only slightly related to what I asked. I wonder how far this will go before the damn thing is rendered useless.

OP posts:
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AngryLikeHades · 25/12/2025 15:24

Namechange568899542 · 24/12/2025 15:30

Yes it’s become shite and the sponsored results do not help.

I googled earlier which cars have front and rear cameras to get some inspo of what I might want at some point in the future as I find getting out from inbetween 2 cars on my busy street a challenge. A load of pics of cars for sale appeared along the top of the page, sponsored dealership ads, none of which had a front camera. The Google Ai result listed various models, looked up the first 3 on the list and they also didn’t have both cameras so I gave up.

I find this very annoying.
I search for items and so many search results come up that are very different from my request.

SerendipityJane · 25/12/2025 15:07

Joeninety · 25/12/2025 14:00

Don't have a massive problem with it, apart from that it's too US centric in its search results. Imo.

A feature, not a bug.

Joeninety · 25/12/2025 14:00

Don't have a massive problem with it, apart from that it's too US centric in its search results. Imo.

SerendipityJane · 25/12/2025 13:47

thedevilinablackdress · 25/12/2025 12:12

Agree with PP, I always put -ai after search terms

Whether google respects that is another matter. I've had searches where it's ignored the quotes and returned results anyway.

Enshittification is a thing. And should be recognised as such in the Chrome (proudly supplied with added "AI" by the Chocolate Factory) spellchecker.

At this rate, Google will be unusable by 2027 with a corresponding drop in productivity.

Enshittification - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification

thedevilinablackdress · 25/12/2025 12:12

Agree with PP, I always put -ai after search terms

TellingBone · 25/12/2025 11:12

Two tips for Google searching:

Use inverted commas around your word or phrase to force inclusion in results

What foods are "high fibre"

To exclude AI results, at the end of your search term put

-ai

These don't work in image search btw

SerendipityJane · 25/12/2025 10:49

Often you don't notice it doing that so press 'return' and land in a completely different universe to what you expected!

That press of "enter" is then fed back to Google as "proof" that it got the guess right, and will so is more likely to appear for the next person. It will also go towards the bonus of the executive who is telling the board how phenomenally successful the "AI" is, and so can they have a few more billions (power stations not included) to beef it up even more.

Original poster
ThoseWeirdStones · 24/12/2025 19:19

I recall the worst being when I search for a film or some artwork or other, and the search bar decides to complete my sentence for me. Often you don't notice it doing that so press 'return' and land in a completely different universe to what you expected!

For example, I once wrote Harry Price Ghost Hunter into the search bar and it completed it for me as Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Not the end of the world but infuriatingly rude.

Or you type a film title and it gives you the remake's cast list instead of the film itself, so oddly random.

I have to be honest, I don't think it matters if you use a US or a UK spelling. It's Google, it does this and it doesn't care, lol.

Anyhow, I'm off now, so Merry Xmas mumsnetters, have fun and stay safe and don't let the google search bar get the better of you GinGrin x

OP posts:
SpigTheFish · 24/12/2025 18:27

It's the enshitification of everything.

The same happens with Amazon, Ebay and Etsy now. You no longer get what you asked for, you get what the company who paid the most money to advertise gives you.

There are loads of videos on YouTube at the moment about the death of the internet which sounds ludicrous but what they mean is, it's full of slop.

madroid · 24/12/2025 18:20

Every time I ask something it takes me to Reddit for the American idiot answer (which Google owns). It's rubbish.

SerendipityJane · 24/12/2025 18:08

ApplebyArrows · 24/12/2025 18:03

It has been rubbish for years. I blame the late 2010s' obsession with "fake news", which was a great excuse for them to prioritise "trustworthy" corporate sites over those which might actually hold the information you wanted. If anything the AI summaries have improved things over what it was a couple of years ago, though you have to read them with a very skeptical eye.

Generally Gemini will throw up what it thinks I wanted to know, rather than what I actually asked, and tell me that I probably meant that.

Remember the lifts used in Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy

https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Happy_Vertical_People_Transporters

Happy Vertical People Transporters

Happy Vertical People Transporters were the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation brand of lifts in the Hitchhiker's Guide offices. Zaphod Beeblebrox encountered one of these lifts during his search for Zarniwoop. They were given Genuine People Personalities,...

https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Happy_Vertical_People_Transporters

SerendipityJane · 24/12/2025 18:06

ColdAsAWitches · 24/12/2025 18:00

I searched for your exact phrase "how to get more fiber in my diet" and every single result relates to that. The 20th is about how to increase gut health in general. That's the closest to a non-direct answer. All the "people also ask" questions are directly about gut fiber. I think this is a you-issue as I don't have the problem at all

Remember that search results are personalised (with the power of "AI").

ApplebyArrows · 24/12/2025 18:03

It has been rubbish for years. I blame the late 2010s' obsession with "fake news", which was a great excuse for them to prioritise "trustworthy" corporate sites over those which might actually hold the information you wanted. If anything the AI summaries have improved things over what it was a couple of years ago, though you have to read them with a very skeptical eye.

ColdAsAWitches · 24/12/2025 18:00

I searched for your exact phrase "how to get more fiber in my diet" and every single result relates to that. The 20th is about how to increase gut health in general. That's the closest to a non-direct answer. All the "people also ask" questions are directly about gut fiber. I think this is a you-issue as I don't have the problem at all

SerendipityJane · 24/12/2025 17:49

LemaxObsessive · 24/12/2025 17:33

It will give you American results because you spelt fibre the American way ‘fiber’

If using the US version of a word returns more results then it will show that and tell you that you mistyped the search term.

That's Gemini. Obviously no one knows what Bong does.

We haven't yet reached the AI event horizon, but I suspect come 2027 it will be all you hear about.

LemaxObsessive · 24/12/2025 17:33

It will give you American results because you spelt fibre the American way ‘fiber’

Knickersinatwist36 · 24/12/2025 17:01

I too am fed up with not getting the answers to simple questions I type. I did use Ecosia for a couple of years and found it to be fine but when searching for information on a tube station it came up with loads of explicit porn pics which was a bit 🤔, when I contacted them to let them know they just said sorry Bing brings up the search results so nothing we can do so I stopped using it (I wasn’t morally offended but I had set the kids up on it too).

I recently discovered you can change your google preferences to automatically use google web which cuts out the Ai nonsense and turn it back into the old search engine. I can’t remember whether they sift out the sponsored pages too but as the whole screen is no longer cluttered with suggestions and AI it is much easier to find stuff.

NotAnotherScarf · 24/12/2025 16:34

Ablondiebutagoody · 24/12/2025 15:57

Somebody with a reasonable IQ would be aware of what foods are high fibre. Therefore, the results will be for the dim and/or 10 year olds.

Do you want to read that back and consider how rude that sounds. I'm fairly intelligent, had a professional job and really don't know, apart from bran flakes where you get fibre in food

BertieBotts · 24/12/2025 15:59

There is a technical term for this, it's called "enshittification".

I can't find the exact video I was thinking of but if you search on youtube "google terrible" it comes up with lots of videos explaining the entire process of how google search went from fantastic to awful.

Ablondiebutagoody · 24/12/2025 15:57

Somebody with a reasonable IQ would be aware of what foods are high fibre. Therefore, the results will be for the dim and/or 10 year olds.

Original poster
ThoseWeirdStones · 24/12/2025 15:53

I think it's the 'people also ask' element that irritates me the most. My post might be more at home at pedants corner, but hey ho.
Of course, the irony isn't quite lost on me that here I am on xmas eve blithering on about google on Mumsnet when I could be watching that Doris Day documentary on BBC2. Or plundering the marzipan fruits.

I do have toothache tho so need a distraction!

OP posts:
Original poster
ThoseWeirdStones · 24/12/2025 15:48

That sounds interesting, might have a look at it.

OP posts:
Devilsmommy · 24/12/2025 15:47

This is why I downloaded perplexity. It actually searches and answers what you asked 😁

EmeraldRoulette · 24/12/2025 15:47

I thought it was AI making it useless?

But yeah, it's useless, I'm constantly having to explain to my elderly mother that whatever she's found is wrong.

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