• Light/Dark
  • Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
  • We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.

The Man Who Killed Google Search

makonero

makonero

Member
Oct 27, 2017
9,693
This is the story of how Google Search died, and the people responsible for killing it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Every single article I've read about Gomes' tenure at Google spoke of a man deeply ingrained in the foundation of one of the most important technologies ever made, who had dedicated decades to maintaining a product with a — to quote Gomes himself — "guiding light of serving the user and using technology to do that." And when finally given the keys to the kingdom — the ability to elevate Google Search even further — he was ratfucked by a series of rotten careerists trying to please Wall Street, led by Prabhakar Raghavan.

Do you want to know what Prabhakar Raghavan's old job was? What Prabhakar Raghavan, the new head of Google Search, the guy that has run Google Search into the ground, the guy who is currently destroying search, did before his job at Google?

He was the head of search for Yahoo from 2005 through 2012 — a tumultuous period that cemented its terminal decline, and effectively saw the company bow out of the search market altogether. His responsibilities? Research and development for Yahoo's search and ads products.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

www.wheresyoured.at

The Man Who Killed Google Search

This is the story of how Google Search died, and the people responsible for killing it. The story begins on February 5th 2019, when Ben Gomes, Google’s head of search, had a problem. Jerry Dischler, then the VP and General Manager of Ads at Google, and Shiv Venkataraman, then
www.wheresyoured.at www.wheresyoured.at

Simply put: Fuck Prabhakar Raghavan.

Much much more at the link, please give it a read.
 
Volimar

Volimar

volunteer forum janitor
Member
Oct 25, 2017
38,816
It's crazy that Bing is actually better most of the time now, not because Bing has improved a lot but because Google has gotten so bad.
 
Squarehard

Squarehard

Member
Oct 27, 2017
26,042
The malware sponsored Google ads are probably the worst thing to come out of this, and they continue to not give a shit about fixing it.
 
Sho_Nuff82

Sho_Nuff82

Member
Nov 14, 2017
18,478
"The guy who led our biggest competitor into the ground is here for his interview."

"I stopped listening at 'led our biggest competitor,' sold."
 
OP
OP
makonero

makonero

Member
Oct 27, 2017
9,693
Volimar said:
It's crazy that Bing is actually better most of the time now, not because Bing has improved a lot but because Google has gotten so bad.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Raghavan would know since he's the idiot that licensed Bing for Yahoo instead of developing their own search product and made Yahoo a go-nowhere company.
 
septentrion2

septentrion2

Member
Apr 11, 2023
1,830
The only man who can save us:
C3069C51-0E57-7942-F9F6D90FA8C1C570.jpg
 
The Albatross

The Albatross

Member
Oct 25, 2017
39,120
Half of this article is good analysis, the rest is unhinged conjecture, unsupported bombastic claims, and irrelevance.

In the middle of analysis of emails detailing how one person, Gomes, got removed from running search, the author goes into this irrelevant side tangent about McKinsey consulting, which has nothing to do with the story, and the anecdotes the author brings up ... Purdue Pharma or the financial crisis of 2008, happened years after Pichai briefly worked there after college before getting to Google.

And then the article goes from careful analysis of emails into just bizarre territory:

Rot Master Raghavan is here to squeeze as much as he can from the corpse of a product he beat to death with his bare hands.

Raghavan is a hall-of-fame rot economist, and one of the many managerial types that have caused immeasurable damage to the Internet in the name of growth and "shareholder value." And I believe these uber-managers - these ultra-pencil-pushers and growth-hounds - are the forces destroying tech's ability to innovate.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Goes from being "it's interesting how this SVP, Gomes, was pushed out of running search after having major issues with the ads division, and then this other person Raghavan was brought in and really mismanaged the product probably turning it into the mess that it has been for the last 5 years," to "hall of fame rot economist rot master squeeze dying corpses, beating things to death with his bare hands, oh and did I mention heroin addiction and foreclosures?"
 
Last edited:
Lakeside

Lakeside

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,256
This reminds me of professional sports coaching. It seems like 95% of the time, teams will hire a retread coach that got fired for fucking up some other team rather than find someone novel that's suitable for the job.
 
AAION

AAION

Member
Dec 28, 2018
1,611
The Albatross said:
Half of this article is good analysis, the rest is unhinged conjecture and irrelevance.

In the middle of analysis of emails detailing how one person, Gomes, got removed from running search, the author goes into this irrelevant side tangent about McKinsey consulting, which has nothing to do with the story, and the anecdotes the author brings up ... Purdue Pharma or the financial crisis of 2008, happened years after Pichai briefly worked there after college before getting to Google.

And then the article goes from careful analysis of emails into just bizarre territory:



Goes from being "it's interesting how this SVP, Gomes, was pushed out of running search after having major issues with the ads division, and then this other person Raghavan was brought in and really mismanaged the product probably turning it into the mess that it has been for the last 5 years," to "hall of fame rot economist rot master squeeze dying corpses, beating things to death with his bare hands, oh and did I mention the opioid epidemic and big banks?"
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I was going to post something along the lines of this, except you did it better. All the unhinged parts are left out of the op
 
The Albatross

The Albatross

Member
Oct 25, 2017
39,120
AAION said:
I was going to post something along the lines of this, except you did it better. All the unhinged parts are left out of the op
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I read it on Reddit and thought the same thing reading it.

It's one of those things where newsletter writers would write so much better if they had an editor who circled things and asked "Relevance?" or "Source for claim?"

I was criusing along reading the article, very interesting look inside the internal emails, and then saw this"

Raghavan has never actually worked [as a management consultant].

But do you know who has? Sundar Pichai, who previously worked at McKinsey — arguably the most morally abhorrent company that has ever existed, having played roles both in the 2008 financial crisis (where it ~encouraged banks to load up on debt and flawed mortgage-backed securities~) and the ongoing opioid crisis, where it effectively ~advised Purdue Pharma on how to "growth hack" sales of Oxycontin~. McKinsey has paid nearly $1bn over several settlements due to its work with Purdue. I'm getting sidetracked, but one last point. McKinsey is actively anti-labor. When a company brings in a McKinsey consultant, they're often there to advise on how to "cut costs," which ~inevitably means layoffs and outsourcing~. McKinsey is to the middle class what flesh-eating bacteria is to healthy tissue.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

And thought... what the fuck does that have to do with anything? The author even says it like "Sorry I'm getting into a diatribe, I really want to focus on this guy Raghavan"
 
SpartyCrunch

SpartyCrunch

Xbox
Verified
Oct 25, 2017
2,500
Seattle, WA
The Albatross said:
Half of this article is good analysis, the rest is unhinged conjecture, unsupported bombastic claims, and irrelevance.

In the middle of analysis of emails detailing how one person, Gomes, got removed from running search, the author goes into this irrelevant side tangent about McKinsey consulting, which has nothing to do with the story, and the anecdotes the author brings up ... Purdue Pharma or the financial crisis of 2008, happened years after Pichai briefly worked there after college before getting to Google.

And then the article goes from careful analysis of emails into just bizarre territory:



Goes from being "it's interesting how this SVP, Gomes, was pushed out of running search after having major issues with the ads division, and then this other person Raghavan was brought in and really mismanaged the product probably turning it into the mess that it has been for the last 5 years," to "hall of fame rot economist rot master squeeze dying corpses, beating things to death with his bare hands, oh and did I mention heroin addiction and foreclosures?"
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
In general this is why I just skim Ed Zitron diatribes. His writeups are always about 2-3x longer than they should be, with about 10x the links they should have. He undermines his own ability to clearly make a point.
 
Ashes of Dreams

Ashes of Dreams

Fallen Guardian of Unshakable Resolve
Member
May 22, 2020
14,643
Yeah, Google Search and Youtube are so fucking bad now. I struggle to even pinpoint the exact problem but it's always just throwing shit that isn't relevant in my face and it takes forever to find what I actually want. I want to say the worst part about google search is how it's constantly including words I didn't fucking write but the algorithm thinks is related. But, no, I wanted to search for what I fucking searched for. I have no idea if there's an option to turn that kind of thing off but even if there is it should be default. Everything good about the internet a decade ago is fucking awful now.

I doubt the blame lies on just one person though.
 
Jonathan Lanza

Jonathan Lanza

"I've made a Gigantic mistake"
Member
Feb 8, 2019
6,867
I don't understand why YouTube will give me like 5 results based on my search and then spend the next forever giving me "related" results or "previously watched". The previously watched stuff really irks me too. Why the hell is that even a thing? Is that not what the "History" tab is for? Get outta here!
 
HylianSeven

HylianSeven

Shin Megami TC - Community Resetter
Member
Oct 25, 2017
19,148
That's awful. Google Search has gotten so bad that even putting "Reddit" after searches isn't always good enough.

I was looking for some specific from about 10-13 years ago yesterday. I googled this many different ways and I couldn't find it. I searched it on DuckDuckGo normally and didn't find it, but then put in a date range and I got it fast.
 
Cantaim

Cantaim

Member
Oct 25, 2017
33,442
The Stussining
It's amazing that in a few years Google search is neither reliable or trustworthy for most of the results it gives me.

Extra fun way for Google search is when you Google something, see an image for it in search, then swap to the image tab to see it in detail. You've got a fairly good shot the picture is just gone.
 
Bear

Bear

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,918
I've switched most search to Perplexity nowadays, it's actually really effective at surfacing results.
 
Bear

Bear

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,918
Cantaim said:
Perplexity genuinely has a shot to disrupt Google search. Best use case of gen ai I've seen outside of coding.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yep I agree. I am super split on AI search personally. On one hand, it makes finding information much easier, but also gatekeeps traffic from the sources of the information. I suppose there's not a much more elegant solution than what Perplexity has currently, maybe inserting more platform visibility in results.
 
Carbon

Carbon

Deploying the stealth Cruise Missile
Member
Oct 27, 2017
10,945
It's basically what I expected.

Capitalism.

Can't make money if the product is too effective.
 
VinylCassette64

VinylCassette64

The Fallen
Oct 26, 2017
2,440
Autumn said:
Image search sucks. Bunch of dead links or scam sites.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Or a flood of generative AI images. You now have to specify images from being posted before a certain time and/or block results from gen-AI sites to avoid those (either manually or by browser plugins/extensions). I was already starting to more regularly use DuckDuckGo as a search engine due to how lacking Google has become by comparison; but the images stuff was what pushed it over the edge for me in using the former as my new default.

A major point I agree with with the article is how instrumental Google (and Yahoo during its peak) is/was to the broader world wide web (both in terms of how widely integrated they are and how they set the template for others that follow); which just makes it all the more egregious how Raghaven has in turn (unfortunately) managed to avoid widespread notoriety for the damage he's done to both.

The Albatross said:
And thought... what the fuck does that have to do with anything? The author even says it like "Sorry I'm getting into a diatribe, I really want to focus on this guy Raghavan"
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I got the impression that the inclusion of Pichai's background was going to be setup as to why he --being Google's CEO and all-- would let Raghavan corrupt the search for profit; but there's no additional material to establish said decision-making back towards the main subject matter. "Impression" and "setup" is me doing the heavy lifting in trying to guess what the author was trying to do there.
 
BossAttack

BossAttack

Member
Oct 27, 2017
43,116
The Albatross said:
Half of this article is good analysis, the rest is unhinged conjecture, unsupported bombastic claims, and irrelevance.

In the middle of analysis of emails detailing how one person, Gomes, got removed from running search, the author goes into this irrelevant side tangent about McKinsey consulting, which has nothing to do with the story, and the anecdotes the author brings up ... Purdue Pharma or the financial crisis of 2008, happened years after Pichai briefly worked there after college before getting to Google.

And then the article goes from careful analysis of emails into just bizarre territory:



Goes from being "it's interesting how this SVP, Gomes, was pushed out of running search after having major issues with the ads division, and then this other person Raghavan was brought in and really mismanaged the product probably turning it into the mess that it has been for the last 5 years," to "hall of fame rot economist rot master squeeze dying corpses, beating things to death with his bare hands, oh and did I mention heroin addiction and foreclosures?"
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

.
 
The Albatross

The Albatross

Member
Oct 25, 2017
39,120
I have noticed Google search has gotten better in the last ~6mos from the hellscape of what it was from the last 1-4 years. It bubbles way more "genuine" human written content up in results from Reddit, forums, and elsewhere, than it was doing a year+ ago. This site actually bubbles higher in videogame related searches than it was a year ago, I had to do a couple double-takes to see whether it was bubbling this site to me because I'm on here a lot, like it was some personalization algorithm, but then testing in Private/Incognito's it was the same (of course that can't control for location and other invasive cookies/tracking, but it was the best I could do in a short period of time). For a few months this year, my post about College Football '25 still on track for summer release was a top 5 result for searching for the basic title of the game (it's still pretty high ~20th maybe, but behind EA's site and then a bunch of prominent sports/news websites)

It's still a significantly worse product than it was 10 years ago, at least for humans.
 
Doomguy Fieri

Doomguy Fieri

Member
Nov 3, 2017
5,281
Kind of perversely impressive how Google search is so useless at so many basic elements of searching, yet completely dominates the market. I think it's a combination of inertia, search being less relevant (people just visit the same 5 sites repeatedly nowadays,) and internet content reshaping itself around the corrupted results from google ad infested searches. Even if there WAS a good search engine, the top results for most results for most things would still be SEO crap because that's what's been flooding the internet for the last 10 years.
 
paftree

paftree

Member
Nov 20, 2017
136
I've really enjoyed using Kagi now that Google has gone to shit. The yearly plan feels a bit steep at first, but it's far and away the most effective search engine now, imo.

I also appreciate the business model, I'd rather pay for a good service upfront versus getting something for "free" that is compromised by data harvesting, ads, and SEO blogspam.
 
hobblygobbly

hobblygobbly

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,617
NORDFRIESLAND, DEUTSCHLAND
i use duckduckgo for last few years and it's excellent because i can actually find shit with it and google not.

so switch to duckduckgo or kagi or similar. literally zero point in using google search anymore
 
Muppet of a Man

Muppet of a Man

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,714
Google is the embodiment of Enshittification bullshit. And the 2 guys mentioned are the head Enshittifiers. Man, I love that word. It perfectly encapsulates what's happening in tech.
 
paftree

paftree

Member
Nov 20, 2017
136
Doomguy Fieri said:
Even if there WAS a good search engine, the top results for most results for most things would still be SEO crap
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Good search engines that filter out SEO crap do exist. Google, however, will always favor those kind of sites because it's how they sell the most ads.

I get that people don't want to pay a subscription fee for search, but the difference in the quality of results you get is night and day when there isn't an incentive to sell ads
 
Rolodzeo

Rolodzeo

Member
Nov 10, 2017
3,506
Spain, EU
Internet search engines are complete shit nowadays. Then again, most websites today are complete shit, focused on ad revenue above all else, with cases of webpages that are like 80% of the screen ads and SEO centric "content" that only waste space and time for the end user.
 
Lord Error

Lord Error

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,381
jotun? said:
Microsoft's Copilot (built into Windows 11, Edge, and Bing) actually does give sources for its answers
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Often times when I followed the source links, they did not back up the quote that was being sourced. Granted, I was inquiring about some pretty obscure retro computer stuff, but still - it was giving me a wrong answer, pointing out at a source that would of course not back up the answer given.
 
crienne

crienne

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,213
My biggest problem with Google search (and maybe Bing too but I barely use it so can't say for certain) is that it always seems to think I'm shopping for whatever I search for, if it's a thing that can be bought. As an example, I was looking through a local fishing shop's mailer and saw something I'd never seen called a "linecounter reel". I searched that on Google, hoping the first few results would be, at the very least, blogs or articles explaining what that type of reel was. Instead the ENTIRE first page of results was shopping links. I had to resort to the "old-school" method of forming my search as a question. "What is a linecounter reel?" I thought we were past that, but guess not.
 
eXistor

eXistor

Member
Oct 27, 2017
12,336
I tried different search engines for the last 6 months, but I gotta be honest: none come close to google in results, so I ended up reverting back to google for now.
 
beat

beat

Member
Oct 28, 2017
2,612
The Albatross said:
Half of this article is good analysis, the rest is unhinged conjecture, unsupported bombastic claims, and irrelevance.

In the middle of analysis of emails detailing how one person, Gomes, got removed from running search, the author goes into this irrelevant side tangent about McKinsey consulting, which has nothing to do with the story, and the anecdotes the author brings up ... Purdue Pharma or the financial crisis of 2008, happened years after Pichai briefly worked there after college before getting to Google.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
These bits are not directly relevant to a story about how Google Search declined, but they're relevant to Zitron's larger project about the "rot economy", which has been his theme for quite a while now. And a good theory for why bad things are happening is a lot more useful than a a disconnected accounting of bad thing 1, bad thing 2, etc.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.