What the heck is happening with Google?

[excalibur]

They are changing their algorithm yet again and optimizing it for AI generated returns. So far it seems like a stepped up version of their pay to play search returns of yesteryear except instead of getting pushed down, websites are being disappeared.

Silly, everyone knows Al Gore has no rhythm.

 

[Natural Citizen]

I like startpage.com

I've used it exclusively for many years.

 

[JGalt]

What the heck has happened with Google? Now when I search hardly anything comes up. I got a text that is likely phishing or scam so I searched the phone number and only got a few foreign sites and no phone number searches at all. It is weird. It was a dozen entries in total. Where I used to get thousands of results, now it is dozens with about 50% "sponsored".

I am not a happy customer. Maybe I should go full Karen on them.

Your Google is broken. I put my landline number in Google and the first hit returned a page with my full name, address, age, gender, date of birth, wife's name, a previous phone number from 1999, three previous addresses, a previous email address, a previous wife's name, age, and city of residence, the names of four current neighbors, three of whom I don't even know, and more information if you joined their consumer reporting agency.

 

[BULLDOG]

Your Google is broken. I put my landline number in Google and the first hit returned a page with my full name, address, age, gender, date of birth, wife's name, a previous phone number from 1999, three previous addresses, a previous email address, a previous wife's name, age, and city of residence, the names of four current neighbors, three of whom I don't even know, and more information if you joined their consumer reporting agency.

I never tried that before. After reading your post, I entered my land line number into google, and the first link was to a Galveston escort service.

 

[NewsVine_Mariyam]

I tried just straight numbers. then with parentheses around the area code, then with dashes.

Coyote, did it return anything at all? Because usually when that happens is because the phone number is not a real phone number.

The format that most of the people search engines utilize is xxx-xxx-xxxx with x representing each digital of the phone number. No country code prefacing the number

 

[NewsVine_Mariyam]

Your Google is broken. I put my landline number in Google and the first hit returned a page with my full name, address, age, gender, date of birth, wife's name, a previous phone number from 1999, three previous addresses, a previous email address, a previous wife's name, age, and city of residence, the names of four current neighbors, three of whom I don't even know, and more information if you joined their consumer reporting agency.

Google provided all of that for free? I mean they didn't direct you to a site where the site would provide you with the information for a fee?

 

[NewsVine_Mariyam]

I never tried that before. After reading your post, I entered my land line number into google, and the first link was to a Galveston escort service.

I entered my personal phone number that I've had for more than 20 years and it didn't come back with any information except showing it belonging to a female whose name was not familiar to me.

 

[Foxfyre]

What the heck has happened with Google? Now when I search hardly anything comes up. I got a text that is likely phishing or scam so I searched the phone number and only got a few foreign sites and no phone number searches at all. It is weird. It was a dozen entries in total. Where I used to get thousands of results, now it is dozens with about 50% "sponsored".

I am not a happy customer. Maybe I should go full Karen on them.

I'm having the same problem. All these services are starting to use AI technology and it is not improving them at all.

 

[BULLDOG]

I entered my personal phone number that I've had for more than 20 years and it didn't come back with any information except showing it belonging to a female whose name was not familiar to me.

Perhaps she works at that escort service in Galveston.

 

[NewsVine_Mariyam]

Perhaps she works at that escort service in Galveston.

Maybe, I'll have to go back and look

 

[braalian]

Google lens (the reverse image search) totally sucks now. All you get is shopping suggestions

 

[justoffal]

What the heck has happened with Google? Now when I search hardly anything comes up. I got a text that is likely phishing or scam so I searched the phone number and only got a few foreign sites and no phone number searches at all. It is weird. It was a dozen entries in total. Where I used to get thousands of results, now it is dozens with about 50% "sponsored".

I am not a happy customer. Maybe I should go full Karen on them.

Yeah.... The hijacking of almost any normal search has become almost intolerable.

 

[JGalt]

Google provided all of that for free? I mean they didn't direct you to a site where the site would provide you with the information for a fee?

The first link at the top of the Goggle search was to a website that provided that information. More information could be had for a fee.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

What the heck has happened with Google? Now when I search hardly anything comes up. I got a text that is likely phishing or scam so I searched the phone number and only got a few foreign sites and no phone number searches at all. It is weird. It was a dozen entries in total. Where I used to get thousands of results, now it is dozens with about 50% "sponsored".

I am not a happy customer. Maybe I should go full Karen on them.

No doubt your browser has been hijacked by malware that is redirecting your Google searches to somewhere else. This is a fairly common virus so to speak.
Download and use MalWareBytes
It will get rid of it.

 

[DudleySmith]

Soon every site will be pay for view, so not only will you be paying through the nose for an IP you will be charged for actually using it. lol welcome to 'privatization' and the next scam and 'profit center' for big tech. Stockholders deserve every penny they can swindle out of you.

 

[DudleySmith]

No doubt your browser has been hijacked by malware that is redirecting your Google searches to somewhere else. This is a fairly common virus so to speak.
Download and use MalWareBytes
It will get rid of it.

Google is malware itself.

 

[Coyote]

Coyote, did it return anything at all? Because usually when that happens is because the phone number is not a real phone number.

The format that most of the people search engines utilize is xxx-xxx-xxxx with x representing each digital of the phone number. No country code prefacing the number

It did not return any of the usual phone number look up sites, there were several foreign sites that made no sense to me abd had nothing to do with phone numbers.

 

[Coyote]

Yeah.... The hijacking of almost any normal search has become almost intolerable.

I have been noticing that overall I get fewer returns, more and more are "sponsered" and most not particularly useful. Plus I am getting the AI at the top asking if I want help searching.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

Google is malware itself.

It use to be so awesome.
In the 2000s, you could get unfiltered information about anything. It was literally an endless encyclopedia.
Now it is carefully filtered by who pays them the most - and VERY altered responses based on political agenda.

Do this......
Google - Joe Biden. The response is about 80% positive for him with a few purely informational.
Google - Donald Trump. It is 100% negative for him with a few purely informational.

 

[Coyote]

It use to be so awesome.
In the 2000s, you could get unfiltered information about anything. It was literally an endless encyclopedia.
Now it is carefully filtered by who pays them the most - and VERY altered responses based on political agenda.

Do this......
Google - Joe Biden. The response is about 80% positive for him with a few purely informational.
Google - Donald Trump. It is 100% negative for him with a few purely informational.

While I disagree on political agenda you are absolutely right on filtering abd fewer returns. I've noticed that over time.