I don't put dates on articles, because I'm prone to arbitrarily re-write them at random times. I dare say every page on this site received the "Special Edition" treatment at some point. So I'll start this piece by noting I originally posted it in late July 2024 because there was nothing else interesting happening in the world. It is perhaps, or hopefully, outdated by the time you are reading it. The screenshots for sure will be out of date eventually.
I've been using search engines for as long as they've been around. I've even been around long enough to remember the books of URLs you'd have to buy before search engines existed:
WebCrawler was my go-to for a while. It was fine except it always included a few adult sites in the results. Maybe that was a feature to some. Like nearly everyone else I eventually gravitated to Google because it provided accurate results.
Google was good for a long time, let's go with 20 years of goodness. As many, many others noted lately... Google search is kinda bad now. I can't describe what exactly is off about it. It's just... OK, let me try putting it this way... remember when you were 21 and went to bars with your loser friends? At some point you walked into a bar and went "yeah, no". There was something about that place that made you turn right around. That's what Google search results feel like to me now.
Luckily I recently ran into two examples that illustrate the odd brokenness of Google search. I think these two finally gave me the ability to articulate what specifically is wrong now.
I have this little password manager application that I update from time to time. Summer 2024 was one of these times. I decided to make some changes so it can better work with sites that have odd password rules. So I was checking the password limits of some popular sites and ran into this:
Huh? "Up to 16 characters" that's not right. My current Amazon password is longer than that. Amazon is a smart enough company to not have a restriction like that. Where is Google getting this and why is it the first impression?
The URL looks like something that would direct to Amazon's official policy. The text rendered and the actual href target don't have to match. In this case they don't.
Following the link goes to the Q&A section for a random USB drive. That drive may or may not have a 16 character password limit. I don't care. Whatever the case, this is definitely not the password policy for Amazon. AKA "the thing I was searching for". Google decided this USB drive review is the authoritative answer to questions about Amazon's password limits. It's not even close to correct.
I don't personally burn calories looking at my Google stats. I don't care if anyone ever visits and bashing Google search is unlikely to improve my rankings. There are a couple things that I know this site is the authoritative answer for though. They are all things I searched for at some point, couldn't find, and figured out myself. They are some of the most unimportant things ever but as of right now this is the only site documenting them.
One of the most completely unimportant things on this site is how to win It Came from the Desert on the TurboGrafx-16 CD. It's possible this is the most unimportant information in the history of mankind. It's here though. Does Google know it's here?
I bet you thought this article would be about Google's completely awful AI summaries then were all disappointed at the first example not being about that. Well here's what you were expecting. You ask Google how to defeat the last boss in a video game and it describes a movie currently on Tubi. Tubi. Yes, Tubi.
Look, I like Tubi but I also like bad movies. Any movie on Tubi should never be the answer to any question. Also the movie came out in 2017 according to every other source I could find.
Anyway, refining the question doesn't help:
That could be the answer for the Amiga version. I haven't played it. Side note, it's the weird FMV that I like about the TurboGrafx-16 version. The actual game play is not great. It's a bad game made entertaining by the trippy FMV.
Anyway, this, this right here is the problem with the Google AI summaries. Rather than say "I dunno, here are some links with matching keywords" it makes some garbage up on the spot. It's Bart Simpson's book report on Treasure Island.
That's the whole problem with Google results now. Correctness is no longer important. It's the obnoxious know-it-all blowhard with a GED sitting at the bar you just walked out of. Ask that dude a question and he'll answer it as confidentially, and wrongly, as Google search.
On the bright side, it feels like 1998 internet again.
As for this summary...
...maybe I'll save that for another time.
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