[HN Gopher] search.marginalia.nu: A Theoretical Justification
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       search.marginalia.nu: A Theoretical Justification
        
       Author : notpushkin
       Score  : 30 points
       Date   : 2022-08-24 21:53 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (memex.marginalia.nu)
 (TXT) w3m dump (memex.marginalia.nu)
        
       | marginalia_nu wrote:
       | Just a warning, this text is both fairly dated with its
       | description of how the search engine works, and fairly
       | incomplete. Was just today thinking about expanding on it.
       | 
       | There's a lot to be said about how search engines not only
       | mediate the Internet as it exists, but actually shape what gets
       | created. If you want free and independent websites, you need a
       | free and independent internet mediator that lets people find and
       | partake in such a community online. That is not Google, nor
       | Reddit, nor Facebook, nor Twitter.
       | 
       | Right now, while a sort of stubborn counter-culture exists in the
       | fringes of the internet, it's just a shadow of what the internet
       | could be. Small websites just can't compete against the SEO-
       | industry on Google. So they're almost impossible to find, and
       | struggle to find visitors. It's a real tragedy how many brilliant
       | and fascinating websites are languishing in obscurity. Instead we
       | get listicles, content farms, click funnels.
       | 
       | I think ultimately, for the sake of both culture and democracy,
       | what we need is a service akin to a public library, to complement
       | the shopping mall that is Google Search. (Although even the
       | commercial side of search is pretty lacking, but that is a
       | separate problem)
        
         | cmeacham98 wrote:
         | I hate SEO-optimized garbage as much as the next person, but I
         | don't see how this avoids that problem other than being small
         | enough that nobody is optimizing for your search engine.
         | 
         | If this was to become popular I suspect it would be overflown
         | with SEO garbage just like Google. I guess that means we can
         | use it while it lasts.
        
           | marginalia_nu wrote:
           | I'm not convinced. I'm not convinced I'll ever get big enough
           | for that to be a problem. Even if I'm 5 times bigger than
           | every current competitor to Google combined, I've only got
           | few percent of the market share.
           | 
           | But sure, even if that would happen, I have an ace up my
           | sleeve. An devastating and incredibly simple way of limiting
           | spam, which is to go for the wallet and de-rank sites for
           | having ads.
           | 
           | Google could and would never do that, of course, because they
           | are selling the same ads. It would undermine their entire
           | business model. This conflict of interest is the core of
           | Google's search engine spam problems.
        
           | qsort wrote:
           | SEO only exists because search engines are user-hostile
           | garbage. Imagine being able to blacklist domains from your
           | results. That would basically solve the problem, because the
           | first time you encounter spammy garbage you'd simply nuke it
           | forever.
           | 
           | You could even have pre-made open source lists. Basically
           | ublock origin for SEO crap.
           | 
           | In a very real sense, it only happens because it's being
           | allowed to happen.
        
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