←back to thread

Google stops letting sites like Forbes rule search for "Best CBD Gummies"

(arstechnica.com)
212 points pseudolus | 2 comments | 20 Nov 24 21:07 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
Show context
simonw ◴[21 Nov 24 02:31 UTC] No.42200491[source]▶
An interesting intellectual exercise is to think about how a search engine could provide the best possible answer (from a user satisfaction perspective) to a query like "best CBD gummies".

A lot of people have a significant financial incentive to win at that search query.

What would the perfect top search result for that look like?

It would probably be an article written by professional writers in a trustworthy publication with a strong ethics policy, provably followed over the years, concerning whether they accept payment for promoting specific products in supposedly impartial reviews.

If you can figure out how to algorithmically detect that kind of content you could build a pretty great search engine!

replies(4): >>42200528 #>>42200544 #>>42200585 #>>42201140 #
1. ameliaquining ◴[21 Nov 24 02:47 UTC] No.42200585[source]▶
Are we assuming that this search engine is only used by a few nerds, or is the idea to build something that remains good even if it gets popular enough that webmasters have strong financial incentives to game it like they currently do with Google Search? Because the latter sounds like a much, much harder problem, and in particular like it probably requires huge financial resources in order to win the ongoing cat-and-mouse game, if that's even possible.
replies(1): >>42200861 #
2. simonw ◴[21 Nov 24 03:38 UTC] No.42200861[source]▶
For the sake of this exercise I want to hear how people would solve that harder problem.