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Google Is Killing Retro Dodo & Other Independent Sites (retrododo.com)

submitted 8 months ago by BrikoX to c/gaming

10 comments fedilink hide all child comments

It honestly breaks my heart to write this article, but I want to be as transparent as possible with our readers because you are the ones that have quite literally…View Post

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

They mention in the article about Reddit now being included in search results and I've noticed that as well. The irony there is that Google results have been so overrun by shitty content farm sites that searching for specific things like reviews or troubleshooting for products or games was virtually useless unless you also included "Reddit" as part of your query since you were more likely to see legit people talking about product issues and solutions. Not to say Reddit isn't astroturfed but certainly not to the level that Google's results are. I'm not totally convinced that Google's deal to crawl Reddit for AI purposes is directly related since bumping Reddit up in the search priority does make search results more relevant in a lot of cases.

It does seem to be an awful time for independent websites and has been for years since the big tech companies have been doing everything in their power to keep people within their walled gardens.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Huh... I'm not sure. Retro Dodo is got nice enough YouTube videos, but their written content could be summarized as:

"Reviews" for devices that didn't come out yet, with extremely generic predictions and very little content.

"Top games" lists or other low effort retro gaming content, some of which was borderline AI generated given the whole "Super Mario is a classic that all gamers must play, move Mario and jump to excite your day"

And reviews for actual products that came out, though often suspiciously positive and unaware of issues other reviews had caught.

Which ultimately is going to get interpreted by Google as low effort content farming, which is indeed how Google should interpret it, as it's correct.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

You're right. Everything is suspiciously wordy, substance is sparse, and every headline is clickbaity. It's like they tuned the content specifically for google, not human readers...

EDIT: Because my comment was also lacking substance: e.g. the Steam Deck review in "30 Best Retro Handhelds Of 2024 [All Reviewed]" says "Yes it’s big, and the battery life… pretty terrible", then gives no further information about size or battery life, which seems extremely relevant to potential buyers. They wrote 8 paragraphs and shared only 3 shallow facts.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago (1 children)

That's the point. This entire thing is complaining about SEO. If your business model is serving ads with SEO and not retaining people with quality content, I'm not going to get too upset about it.

Google is killing itself with this shit, but it doesn't really matter. People will move back to Link aggregators and actually working to get the search results they need.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

People will move back to Link aggregators

For link aggregators you mean social media like Lemmy or Reddit, or pages like FMHY which curate its content thoroughly? I found the latter a very good resource, I'd waste too much time finding all the links shared there using any search engine.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Any of the bug. I left i vague because I think there's still a chance for a disruptive force to enter the market.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

TBH I have always found his videos pretty average, good shots but much blah blah blah, Retro Game Corps, and heck even Wulff Den provides better reviews.

[–] Blizzard 4 points 8 months ago

I'm the last person to defend Google, but I'll address some of the allegations mentioned in the post:

I nowadays mostly search on my phone looking for quick answers so those instant anwers (if accurate) right there in the search results are what I expect. Sorry. If I want to dive into the subject and make a proper research on a subject then I might visit yours and other sites.
Ads / sponsored results have always been part of Google - that's pretty obvious. I despise ads, I refuse to see them, I think everone should use adblockers. If they don't, that's their problem
Reddit is showing up in the results a lot because Google search in general got shitty and people started adding the word "reddit" to their search phrase. I myself too prefer search results from reddit because they simply answer my questions that other websites wouldn't.

[–] Magnetron 3 points 8 months ago

If I search "best home arcade machines" on my trusted DDG, Dodo is second from the top.

I'm also going to agree with the majority here. If I use Garble, that means I'm looking for results from Reddit 100% of the time.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Better Offline (https://www.betteroffline.com/) had an episode recently talking about how private equity has been killing journalism. This seems like a case for the site offering a subscription rather than just giving up. Video game journalism is kind of uniquely positioned to move to that model, especially something niche like a site that covers retro gaming. If they do it well, and I assume they do, their audience is likely willing to pay a few bucks a month for their work.