One for the Geeks (& any fish who happen to swim by): Is the Internet getting harder to search?

[Mike Oxsaw]

I only ask because I decided to update some of the icons I use on my media server.

Some of the media is in folders in date order so I simply typed the date in the search bar (as I had previously done, albeit about 10 years ago), and every search brought up pages and pages of CARS, of which I've never, ever shown an interest in or searched for, with the odd picture of a GUN, again not something I'd ever searched for.

3/4 pages down before anything remotely useful to me appeared - remotely being the operative word here.

Before, I could get (and mostly still have) images of significant (but obviously non-commercial/moneytizable) events - tsunamis, earthquakes, major fashion changes, law changes being among the most prominent (e.g 1976 drought/heatwave).

Is it just me, or is history (deliberately) being hidden from us?

[F 129 Row66]

Why have they made porn so difficult to access (I'm told it is anyway)

[SurfaceAgentX2Zero]

The increasing use of AI may be affecting algorithms.

I presume AI searches the internet and then forms intelligent answers to question from the sites it accesses. The search terms it uses may affect how often sites get hit and thus move them up and down the list of relevant 'hits' for individual user defined searches. Making the results 'look funny'.

Or something.

[Exiled In Surrey]

Couple of points
- no single search engine covers the whole internet.
- search engines serve results based on reasons not obvious to the end user.
- the search engine user is not the customer, they are the product.

At least triangulate, apply critical thinking.

[Mike Oxsaw]

Riveting thread, OxBORE

Riveting enough for you to find the time to make it the most important thing in your life to read and then reply to it.

The art of fishing without fishing. Into the keep-net with you, you soppy tart..

[Come On You Irons]

Riveting thread, OxBORE

[wils]

Easier with the advent of AI.