Google search as we know it and even the internet itself, perhaps its days are numbered, and we may be watching the beginning of the end from a box.
Stop to think: have you also had the impression that Google searches are getting worse and worse results and what you are looking for is increasingly difficult to find?
Your experience is not individual. I’ve lost count of how many times a friend has commented on how they can’t find anything else on Google and how information is increasingly hidden.
Complaints accumulate and vary between the number of ads displayed as results – “they take up half the page” – and the number of sites that repeat the same information among themselves, but which end up in the vast majority of cases not delivering what is being sought.
We know who the culprits are – or at least, we have an idea. And since we’re here to name things, let’s choose at least three: SEO, artificial intelligence (AIs) and Google itself. But let’s go in parts.
What is SEO and how it works
SEO (Search Engine Optimization – in Portuguese, optimization for search engines) can be defined as a set of ranking techniques that seek to improve the positioning of websites in search engines such as Google, Bing and the like.
But despite the definition, SEO has been around for a long time. In fact, since the beginning of the internet there have been people focused on trying to manipulate research – and since the very beginning there have been people condemning those who do this, declaring the end of its usefulness.
In the principles of the network, page ranking worked in a different way. Search engines at the time listed pages solely based on how many times a certain term appeared on the site and in its tags.
So what did SEO professionals back then do? They stuffed their sites with keywords and resubmitted their URLs to search engines, hoping for better rankings. This way, they got more clicks and, consequently, more money.
But as you can imagine, this behavior greatly worsened the quality of results at the time, and users, as well as researchers, complained about how these attitudes were degrading and making search engines unusable.
Are you noticing the beginning of a cycle?
Google: from rise to “fall”
It was in this scenario that Google emerged. At the end of the 90s, the company entered the scene and completely changed the game, changing the way websites were ranked.
From there, the sites would be ranked based on the number of links that came from other sites, seeing each link as an “additional vote of confidence” for the domain, attesting to the quality of the content.
But as you can imagine, the obvious happened. Those who worked with SEO at the time quickly adapted and a secondary market for links was born. Firms in the Philippines and India generated thousands of links from blog networks to the sites, circumventing the ranking created.
Then, a real cat and mouse fight ensued that continues today. Google launches search updates, trying to solve ranking problems, and some SEO professionals try to find the next hole in the algorithm, exerting influence on searches and, consequently, earning more money.
But before they attack us, we emphasize that this is not a generalization of SEO professionals, but rather a snapshot of the “bad practices” of some of them.
We recognize that most professionals are responsible for increasing page loading speed and rewriting texts, producing content following Google guidelines; which means – in some cases – not even thinking about it.
After all, Google searches sites for humans to read, not machines. But we cannot ignore the fact that many people are just scammers, applying ranking techniques that ruin the ease of searching.
The fall may never exist
In this battle ring, Google established itself as the ultimate reference in internet research and dethroned dozens of competitors throughout its existence. So, saying that the company’s search engine will end may be an exaggeration.
See, Google is now one of the largest technology companies in the world, leading some market fronts, and history itself plays in the company’s favor.
After all, crises and alarmism about the end of web searches, including Google, are not exclusive to today – as we have already made clear.
There are those who even claim that the search results are currently the best the company has ever offered, since a possible curation by the algorithm is refining the results in order to avoid the spread of fake news.
The tool has taken into account other factors than just the popularity of the pages. Somehow, authority, trustworthiness, experience and knowledge are being measured by the search algorithm, especially on topics related to legal, health and financial advice – and this has directly impacted the results you see.
But this can also contribute to the problem. After all, these results can only endorse an institutional vision and erase the debate on other topics. The current results curated by artificial intelligence that appear at the top of the search may even reinforce this institutional authority.
Ultimately, information controlled by a private company will always be subordinated to that company’s financial objectives.
Google itself as a problem
And this vision, in some way, can be reinforced by the behavior of the company itself. After all, it is not uncommon to perform a search on Google and the first results are sponsored links and videos from YouTube – which is also from Google and sees its revenue grow with each advertisement displayed.
But I need to clarify: I’m not against Google making money. The problem, in my point of view, is the high dose of these sponsored links and the perhaps exaggerated (and unique) offering of videos from its own platform.
Like it or not, these actions make it difficult to find relevant and organic results. And YouTube’s exclusive offer could fit the company into an oligopoly attempt – but that’s not the topic for now.
The problem with AIs
But while Google can measure the amount of advertising and be regulated in some way to display results from other video platforms, it cannot control artificial intelligence.
Despite the company being one of the largest investors and researchers within this field, AIs are a major problem for search.
Look at the scenario: before, for someone hunting for clicks to be able to rank their page well in the search, it was necessary to generate dozens or even hundreds of pages with some content. This content would have to be written from scratch with some knowledge to make a good word soup or, in the worst case, be copied from a source.
Today, with intelligence, anyone can just copy the title of an article and ask ChatGPT to write a new text with the same theme and with a certain number of words. Then it would be necessary to just throw this text online and, with some knowledge of SEO, rank the page well.
Did you notice the problem? With some automation, this could pollute hundreds or even thousands of search results, with content generated solely by artificial intelligence; which guarantees zero assertiveness and makes the search difficult.
“But other intelligence can already identify content written by AI.”
This is a relatively common statement, but not necessarily correct. Have you ever tried to deliver a text you wrote to ChatGPT and asked if that text was generated by AI? He will probably answer yes hahaha.
Joking aside, as much as the tools capable of identifying evolve, those that write are also in a constant process of evolution, and this in itself makes the process dubious and, inevitably, makes Google’s work difficult.
But of course all this could be mitigated by the company’s current attempt to define authority, reliability and knowledge in pages and articles, but in this light, we return to an already known problem: the “lack of results” and the lack of presentation of several faces of the same problem due to the need to define an institutional vision.
The need for reinvention
All of this puts Google in need of reinvention. After all, there’s no point in me or the company itself saying that search results are better if, in practice, people don’t feel that way.
In reality, this need is best posed by the change in habits observed in the current generation. Generation Z, which corresponds to those born between 1997 and 2010, for example, no longer sees Google as the main search source.
They choose to search on TikTok – especially when it comes to reviews of products and experiences. They state that it is more difficult to find content made purely by artificial intelligence that is posted just to fool the viewer and reinforce that the results presented appear to be more legitimate.
For those who insist on Google, regardless of age, the most recurrent behavior has been returning to forums and social networks. Due to the low confidence in the content offered by the pages at the top of the search, many have looked for comments written by humans who have addressed the same problem or who have already experienced a similar situation. As a result, searches with “term + Reddit”, for example, are increasingly common.
The future
To stay relevant, Google needs to find an effective way to combat results with AI-generated and SEO-driven content while reaffirming its commitment to providing plural and relatively neutral results. And all this, without destroying your own business model.
But the truth is that there are no easy solutions to difficult problems.
Although history benefits the company, it also plays on other sides, so perhaps we are about to see the emergence of a great exponent who will dethrone Google in its own business – just as the company did with its competitors in the late 90s .
However, we cannot say that Google will wait idly.
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