The Decline of Google Search: It's Worse Than You Think

Google Search was completely reliable; the user simply entered any term into the bar, and within a matter of tens of seconds, up popped the results. But that experience has been so altered over the years. A once elegant, clearly focused application dedicated to the end user has turned into a struggling application caked with advertising coupled with rather doubtful results, and millions of users contemplate whether Google search is useless. In my research study about this problem, I discovered three reasons why Google Search has become much worse.

The Invasion of Ads and the Loss of Transparency

When you search for something simple like "how to secure my data," you’ll first notice four sponsored ads at the top of the page. This wasn’t always the case—Google’s early days prioritized organic search results over ads. Imagine if every YouTube video you clicked started with four unskippable ads. That's essentially what Google Search is doing. Sponsored links have not only increased, but they’ve become more challenging to distinguish from organic content.

A decade ago, Google highlighted sponsored ads in yellow, making them easy to spot. Today, these ads are camouflaged to look like organic results, with only a tiny "sponsored" label in the corner. Users must scroll past these ads to find what they're looking for, making the experience frustrating and time-consuming.

What's worse is the concept of "the fold"—the screen portion you see before needing to scroll. While newspapers once placed their most critical stories above the fold to attract readers, Google now places almost all its sponsored content above this line. Users must scroll past the ads to reach any genuine information.

Shopping Results Dominated by Ads

The typical results page will be filled with advertisements when using Google’s search engine to find something. In the latest search for a new chair, I was met with a roundabout of shopping suggestions, no pure search results. Nevertheless, it is essential to remember that these shopping ads occupy 34% more screen space than they did three years ago. Not only is there an excess of information on the page, but it also appears as if Google is trying to devalue organic product offerings and forcing people to use sponsored advertisements.

For example, I found what I was looking for when using words like “the thinnest mini fridge” among the sponsored links. However, scrolling down to the organic results, I found products that didn’t fit my description—short and wide fridges, the opposite of what I wanted. It's puzzling because Google can give me the right results, but they seem to reserve that accuracy for paid advertisers.

The Growth of SEO and the Flood of Poor Content

Google Search isn’t just being affected by the company’s business practices. SEO (search engine optimization) has become a massive industry, with websites now competing to rank higher on search engines using a variety of tactics. This often results in poor-quality content flooding the internet. Websites are now more concerned with gaming Google’s algorithm than creating genuinely helpful information.

A classic example is recipe sites. A simple cookie recipe now starts with long-winded stories about a grandmother’s cooking stuffed with keywords designed to capture as many search queries as possible. Websites frequently update old articles with new dates to rank higher, even if the content hasn’t changed.

This manipulation of Google’s algorithm by content creators means that users are likelier to encounter articles and reviews with affiliate links. These sites are more concerned with earning commission than giving you the best recommendations. It's gotten to the point where searching for "best products" often leads to lists designed not by experts but by marketers aiming to get a kickback when you buy.

Google's Business Model: A Conflict of Interest

Ultimately, Google’s business model explains much of this decline. In Q2 2024, the company made $847 billion in revenue, with over 76% of that coming from ads—most of which are from Google Search. As Google focuses more on generating ad revenue, user experience takes a back seat.

Google doesn’t make more money by helping you find the best product on the first try. They profit from keeping your attention and ensuring that companies pay to appear at the top of search results. The rise of generative AI models in Google’s search interface complicates things further. These AI snippets often pull incomplete or outdated information, reducing the need for users to click through to the original websites that produced the content in the first place.

If Google continues to take this approach, it could transform from the magic of a search engine to the ‘mall of the web’, cluttered with advertising and users having to pay for the answers they seek.

Google’s Journey to “Unification”

The decline of Google Search reflects a broader trend in the tech industry, a concept known as "unification," coined by Cory Doctorow. Companies start with high-quality, user-centric products to attract a large audience. Once users are locked in, the company gradually worsens the experience to serve their business interests, maximizing profit at the user's expense.

Google is well on its way into this final phase. The once-beloved search engine has become an ad-driven platform, more focused on squeezing out revenue than providing users with the best results. And unless something changes, it’s only going to get worse.