986 upvotes, 27 direct replies (showing 25)
View submission: Nice one Google
I'm not so sure about this one. Pre-google, search engines looked like this[1]. Just an absolute cluster fuck of news, adverts and useless junk with the actual search bar being tiny and hidden. Google had none of that shit and it still doesn't, the home page is still an incredibly clean and minimalistic page.
Google only shows ads and weather etc in its search and that's only if it decides it's relevant. You won't be seeing local weather forecasts when searching up laptops and you won't be seeing ads for laptops when looking up the weather forecast. So I don't think this has aged like milk at all.
Comment by unpersoned at 14/08/2022 at 14:00 UTC
302 upvotes, 7 direct replies
Yeah, pretty much. And if you visit google.com, even today, you will see the company logo and a search bar. No clutter at all. Google has a lot of old milk spilled all over, make no mistake, but its main website ain't it.
Comment by Ommageden at 14/08/2022 at 13:34 UTC
107 upvotes, 3 direct replies
Yahoo only got worse too. I remember in like 2007 where it would just be a bunch of celebrity news, links to a whole bunch of shit, images. Google is literally still the same looking in terms of simplicity
Comment by JasonBob at 14/08/2022 at 14:14 UTC
52 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Yeah OP must be young. I was so confused I thought they changed the Google homepage.
Comment by 3163560 at 14/08/2022 at 14:04 UTC
11 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Why does this picture sound like an old school mouse click?
Comment by Mushy_Slush at 14/08/2022 at 14:47 UTC
17 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Portal pages looked like that because the search function was awful.
A lot of times it was easier and faster to find a relevant page by clicking through the categories rather than searching.
If you used search, sometimes you'd have to go 15 or 20 pages deep in the results to find a useful website.
The power of google was it introduced a great crawling algorithm. Their clean front page was more of a flex of how good their search function was.
Comment by drivers9001 at 14/08/2022 at 15:28 UTC*
3 upvotes, 1 direct replies
That’s not a search engine, it’s a directory. Each of those links takes you to more specific subcategories to curated lists of sites. There is a search bar to search the directory and at some point they made that do a web search using different search engines instead.
A better example is altavista https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AltaVista
Comment by 1000_words at 14/08/2022 at 16:56 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
They called it LSD for logo, search box, directory. It was thought of as the only pattern. Yahoo was the best example but ever competitor looked the same too. Google leaned into just search, but that’s only part of the reason they were successful. They were mainly successful because their results were better. They really cracked the search algorithm right away.
Comment by ngrdwmr at 14/08/2022 at 14:21 UTC
0 upvotes, 4 direct replies
i mean, it’s still visually sleek. but the results you see are different from the results someone else sees on google. the suggested searches you get are different from other people’s suggested searches.
the results themselves are selected via SEO, previous popularity, your data profile, and how likely you are to buy something. even if they aren’t labeled as ads, the first page of results is often cluttered with links to buy things. it’s hard to find information on the history of an object—you’ll be fed ways to buy it instead. and sites can use their money to appear on your screen rather than that of someone whose data makes them seem less likely to purchase.
Comment by [deleted] at 14/08/2022 at 15:07 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by Amflifier at 14/08/2022 at 15:38 UTC
0 upvotes, 2 direct replies
ads for laptops when looking up the weather forecast
Well that's kinda moving the goalpost a little, isn't it? The image says "no sponsors, no ads", not "no irrelevant ads". If you search for anything these days, the first 5-6 results that appear are promoted results. Fuck google
Comment by Tranecarid at 14/08/2022 at 16:51 UTC
0 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I’m sorry but that’s not entirely true anymore. If I search anything that google can even remotely interpret as a search for a product it will bloat the results with endless pages of stores. And then there are engine cheaters that try to catch any not so popular search. Google is becoming useless.
Comment by jrdnhbr at 14/08/2022 at 14:23 UTC
-1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
That picture triggers my "fight or flight" response.
Comment by ATXBeermaker at 14/08/2022 at 15:28 UTC
-1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
To suggest google doesn’t have ads it’s incredibly naive. That’s, like, 99% of their business and the top several hits on any search. What they’ve gotten amazing at is hiding it so you don’t always realize you’re clicking on something google has monetized.
Comment by mudkripple at 14/08/2022 at 15:25 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I assumed it aged like milk because the *company* google is now way way more than a pure search engine. Even if the main site is still mostly the same, and even if this description was all true back in the day, the corporation it became is very very different than it was in 99
Comment by mt_xing at 14/08/2022 at 16:41 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Yeah and to this day the main google.com is just as clean as it always was, which is what this blurb was talking about.
Comment by EverythingIsFlotsam at 14/08/2022 at 16:42 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
This is not really true. Before Google, search technology was so bad that the only practical way to navigate the web was through curated hierarchically categorized directories. That's why Yahoo! looked like that.
Comment by Embassador-Mumbasa at 14/08/2022 at 16:57 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Idk they kinda run something called “adsbygoogle” where scammers can run ads unchecked
Comment by MisterDonkey at 14/08/2022 at 16:58 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Google has gotten worse, recently.
Sometimes I have to scroll way down to the bottom of the page before I get past sponsored crap.
More and more frequently I am on page 2 before actually relevant links appear. Page fucking 2.
Comment by InTooDeep024 at 14/08/2022 at 17:04 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
You can ignore ads; you can’t necessarily ignore ads masquerading as search results.
Your point is exactly why Google is *worse* than the old engines; you can’t tell the difference.
Comment by bruh-iunno at 14/08/2022 at 17:19 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Plus also yknow, that's how they make money too, can't exactly avoid it without something else
Comment by danbulant at 14/08/2022 at 17:41 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Maybe they got into their test of a new homepage[1]?
Comment by d_smogh at 14/08/2022 at 17:49 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Which is why Alta Vista was popular.
Comment by s-mores at 14/08/2022 at 19:34 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
So like Google results now.
Comment by celmate at 14/08/2022 at 23:01 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I was looking for this comment. Google has a ton of features and services, but if you go to their home page it's still basically just a search engine, with a few small links to access the other stuff.
Feel like OP totally missed the point here.
Comment by Bugbread at 15/08/2022 at 03:11 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Yeah, this is just a fundamental misunderstanding of the posted image.
Here's Google's front page right now (2022).[1]
Here's Yahoo's front page right now (2022).[2]
1: https://i.imgur.com/cp4iJmy.jpg
2: https://i.imgur.com/a0OCEa7.jpg
How do they differ? Well:
┌────────────────────┬──────────────┬──────────────┐ │ │ Yahoo │ Google │ ╞════════════════════╪══════════════╪══════════════╡ │ Search │ Yes │ Yes │ ├────────────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┤ │ Weather │ Yes │ │ ├────────────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┤ │ News │ Yes │ │ ├────────────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┤ │ Sponsors │ Yes │ │ ├────────────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┤ │ Ads │ Yes │ │ ├────────────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┤ │ Other distractions │ Yes │ │ ├────────────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┤ │ Portal litter │ Yes │ │ ├────────────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┤ │ Loading time │ 3.86 seconds │ 0.89 seconds │ └────────────────────┴──────────────┴──────────────┘
There's all kinds of ways that Google isn't as good as it was back in the day, but this *particular* image didn't age like milk, it aged like...honey? Highly salinated water? A rock? It's just as true now as it was then.
