Answering a question with "google it" is self-defeating

[Riverwolf]

If I had a dollar for each time I "googled" a question I had, and the answers I kept finding were "google it", I'd be super rich.

Those kinds of answers flood search engines with circular directions that can seriously obscure the actual answers. I'd wager that most people neither have the time nor the energy to sift through hundreds of search hits to find the answers, and therefore should not be expected to.

 

[suncowiam]

My guess is they want you to build traffic and increase statistical hits to that site?

I dunno, just throwing stuff out there.

Do you have an example?

 

[Riverwolf]

My guess is they want you to build traffic and increase statistical hits to that site?

I dunno, just throwing stuff out there.

Do you have an example?

I don't feel comfortable giving out a specific example, since they generally involve other forums. Giving specific examples might teeter too close to RF's own Rule 9 for my comfort.

However, there's this website:
Let me google that for you
which has a Search Engine description that reads: "For all those people who find it more convenient to bother you with their question rather than google it for themselves."

There's a similar webpage that also takes the time to belittle a person who might have been linked to it, that has a URL I can't post because it violates RF's content guidelines by including a naughty word.

There's also images like this one scattered about:

Spoiler: fairly large picture

Whenever this sort of thing is used as a response to a question in a forum, which is far, far too common, what ends up happening is that people who actually ARE "googling it" will see these messages after clicking on a link that they hoped would have the answer to their questions. IOW, these kinds of responses are unintentional shotgun methods of rebuttal, punishing equally those who are asking stupid questions, those who have spent hours on google without an answer and decided to ask someone, and those who are in the process of "googling".

 

[Flankerl]

And yet its true. People ask questions which they can answer themself in a couple of minutes.

And obvious answers get the obvious answer.

 

[Iti oj]

I've never once googled a question and found Google it as an answer

 

[Alceste]

And yet its true. People ask questions which they can answer themself in a couple of minutes.

And obvious answers get the obvious answer.

That doesn't annoy me half as much as people aggressively and stubbornly rejecting facts that two seconds on google can easily affirm. Who do they think they're fooling?

 

[Iti oj]

Now some times Google gives me contradicting answers, or some time I don't want a google answer but to be in a discussion.

 

[Revoltingest]

If I had a dollar for each time I "googled" a question I had, and the answers I kept finding were "google it", I'd be super rich.

Those kinds of answers flood search engines with circular directions that can seriously obscure the actual answers. I'd wager that most people neither have the time nor the energy to sift through hundreds of search hits to find the answers, and therefore should not be expected to.

What are you searching for when this happens?

 

[Vinayaka]

This has never happened to me either. I've said it though, and felt like saying it often, most likely on this forum occasionally.

Does anyone here happen to know what the capital city of the United States is?

 

[samosasauce]

Google answers can't always be trusted anyway; it's to much of popular input rather than actually researched and carefully cited content, in my opinion.

 

[LuisDantas]

Googling for a subject is, in essence, surrendering the quality of the result to that of Google's search engines.

For various reasons, how good an idea that is will depend mainly on what the subject itself is. It may be useless, it may be so very worse than useless, or it may be very useful indeed.

Most of the time it is a fair starting point. Exception to most political or religious subjects, where there is too much effort made at confusing, subsumming or obfuscating issues.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Those kinds of answers flood search engines with circular directions that can seriously obscure the actual answers. I'd wager that most people neither have the time nor the energy to sift through hundreds of search hits to find the answers, and therefore should not be expected to.

Excellent: do no preliminary research because you simply flood search engines and will have neither the time nor energy to process the results. Seriously?

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Googling for a subject is, in essence, surrendering the quality of the result to that of Google's search engines.

And your alternative would be what?

 

[Iti oj]

Google like Wikipedia is only as good as the person using it.

 

[Skwim]

If I had a dollar for each time I "googled" a question I had, and the answers I kept finding were "google it", I'd be super rich.

Those kinds of answers flood search engines with circular directions that can seriously obscure the actual answers. I'd wager that most people neither have the time nor the energy to sift through hundreds of search hits to find the answers, and therefore should not be expected to.

I always check the source (it's in green right below the heading of each listing) and go only to those that are likely to actually address my issue. After awhile you'll get to know which to avoid. Sometimes I still get fooled, but not often.

 

[suncowiam]

And your alternative would be what?

Google's purpose is not to help you find the definitive answer.

It's still a business. It gives you the appearance that it can help you find solutions but the catch is that it is a social tool. It rates a site on the statistical hits. Its algorithms are not solely based on trying to find the best answer. It just happens most of the time that the best answer is the most visited but that is not true all the time.

Smaller businesses are trying to understand this algorithm so they can include content that is not visible to the people but visible to google's algorithm, to circumvent the Google's sorting. There are whole books and studies on this particular subject actually.

My point is, consider Google as a billion dollar business.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Google like Wikipedia is only as good as the person using it.

^This. And one might expand this to: Google like Wikipedia like the library is only as good as the person using it. This is easily one of the sillier threads I've seen in my history here.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Google's purpose is not to help you find the definitive answer.

Rubbish.

 

[LuisDantas]

And your alternative would be what?

As it turns out, I have something of a history of building alternatives.

Often HTML lists of links, less often mediawiki articles offering some comment and context.

Somewhere in the middle it is possible to write HTML articles with a personal touch while also readily offering access to external sites of interest.

HTML is very pleasant to code. I wonder how come so few people attempt to.

 

[LuisDantas]

Google like Wikipedia is only as good as the person using it.

I love Google and feel very confortable using it, but I still fail to see how that could be true. Google largely refrains from making value judgements about the sites it indexes, and it will fail to index quite a few for various reasons.

More to the point, it isn't really all that customizable. One may direct its search by using specific parameters, but that is about all.