Why Google Search Is Dying

Lately I keep hearing that Google Search isn’t what it used to be, or that the algorithm seems to have gone weird. Since this was a topic I jumped on early and wrote about in Korea back in February 2022, I was glad to see it come up again. So I’ve brushed up that old piece and added some of my more recent thoughts.

First, here’s the link to the post that originally set off the discussion in English-speaking communities:

Here’s what I wrote at the time:

Looking at the chart above, you can see that on Google Trends, Reddit and TikTok are the only ones whose popularity has continued to rise. Even Instagram, which we used to think of as “hip,” has recently started to roll over.

In particular, one piece of evidence that the quality of Google Search has dropped sharply is that when people search on Google, they’ve started using queries like “places to visit in New York reddit” instead of just “places to visit in New York.” Of course, part of this is that Reddit’s own search engine still doesn’t really do its job. But this shift is happening because people prefer the results they get from Reddit. After reading that article, I realized, “Oh, without even noticing, I’ve started using those kinds of search terms too.”

Reddit is a U.S.-based community platform where people interested in a given field can freely create boards and share opinions (or resources). Because it’s structured as a message board, you could say it’s somewhat similar to DC Inside, but personally I think that comparison is quite an insult to Reddit.

So why did people stop trusting Google Search? Ironically, the reason is AI. Google has evolved from a search engine that simply shows results relevant to your query into a search engine that shows results you are likely to click. For example, if I search for my preferred presidential candidate A on Google, without my realizing it, the search results that portray candidate A in a positive light are prioritized.