What comes next for websites, after the effective 'death of Google'

For the past 5 years, many have noticed a decline in search results returned by Google and other search engines. The decline is real and is driven by a few factors, including.

• Google now returns results based on what their AI thinks your “intention” is. Your query will be partially ignored if what your searching is considered niche to return search results, suited for a general audience.

• Commercialisation of the internet has created an industry of “SEO experts” who turn out articles without “substance” but with large word counts and checked for spelling and gramma. You know the article that never answers your question but somehow ranks well on Google.

• The worst, however, are AI generated articles. Complete nonsense content automaticity, written in a way, sounds plausible to the AIs used to rank websites on search engines. The articles written by AI are often full of misinformation and barely readable by humans and are just designed to collect AD revenue (I wonder why Google cannot ban AI spam websites…….).

These two points above mean that search engines have “died” as a useful way of researching new topics or finding niche websites.

What will replace Google?

I think a split will happen. Normies will completely move to social media to find new content to consume. More technically focused people will probably return to old ways of finding content.

I think that manually created website directories and Webring’s will regain popularity. I have a plan to create my own directory and there have been several new Webrings created recently. Including;

indiewebring

Heaven Tree (For websites created by “faithful Christians”)

Geekring (Webring for non-commercial websites)

LOW TECH WEBRING

The Yesterweb Ring

Published: 30th January 2023