Revered American journalists ask whether or not Google Search is degrading and considerably worse

A couple of respected American journalists asked on Twitter the other day if you noticed that Google search has become “significantly worse” than in previous years. Journalists like Jesse Eisinger, Chris Hayes and Herb Greenberg got involved on the issue and Danny Sullivan, a former journalist who now works at Google, caught the eye.

Who are these journalists?

• Jesse Eisinger is an American journalist and author. A 2011 Pulitzer Prize Winner for National Reporting, he currently works as a Senior Reporter for ProPublica. (Wikipedia link)
• Chris Hayes, an American commentator and TV newscaster for MSNBC. (Wikipedia link)
• Herb Greenberg, a very respected American journalist. (Wikipedia link)

Jesse Eisinger asked further Twitter “Saw something of it on Twitter and then experienced it for yourself: Have others noticed that Google search has gotten significantly worse?” Chris Hayes replied, “Without a doubt. The timeliness bias is grueling.” Herb Greenberg did an in-depth look at the issues while searching for breaking news.

Here are these tweets with Danny Sullivan’s replies:

If you’re ready to share, I’d love to know what you were looking for and how the results didn’t help. Same goes for everyone else in the thread. Concrete examples really help us to find ways to improve.

– Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) October 25, 2021

I find this is particularly targeted by journalists trying to research older stories as opposed to most users who tend to want the freshest. But there is a solution you can try: Our Before: and After: commands might come in handy. More here: https://t.co/Xcu4GPvKeG

– Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) October 25, 2021

It sounds like you want to try our Before: and After: commands. More here: https://t.co/Xcu4GPvKeG

– Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) October 25, 2021

I’ve heard rumors from major media outlets that Google searches may be going down on quality. It sounds like Google’s Danny Sullivan knows this and thinks it’s all about looking for newer news. I remember the days before Google Panda when Google got a ton of bad PR on search quality. Panda came out and really fixed a lot of it. But now we are a decade later and it seems some notable people are of the opinion that Google search is degrading.

I wonder if that has to do with the ongoing problem of new pages falling in and out of the index?

What do you all mean?

Forum discussion at Twitter.

Update: One more thing:

This is very helpful. So you did the search like this, IE: [My vote can’t be bought but it can be rented] or did you use quotation marks like [“My vote can’t be bought but it can be rented”]. I don’t see DDG showing it if you did the first; we have a reference …. pic.twitter.com/4PDakvDGWX

– Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) October 27, 2021

I will submit both versions for review so we can understand how we can better improve. In any case, if you or anyone else has examples that come up, you will be very grateful if you want to share them.

– Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) October 27, 2021