Hi Google, please stop pooping the bed: a desperate plea from the indie web

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Growing frustration with Google’s declining search quality and ad-heavy, SEO-gamed results is leading many indie publishers and technically savvy users to call for a shift toward alternative search engines like Kagi, Brave, DuckDuckGo, and Perplexity. Commenters argue that Google’s ad-driven incentives, monopoly power, and possible overreliance on opaque AI ranking systems are sidelining smaller, human-curated sites in favor of low-effort affiliate spam and big-brand content. Others counter that relying on third‑party platforms (like Substack) and heavy tracking undermines claims to an “indie web,” and suggest that real change will require both individual migration to better tools and, potentially, regulatory or structural reforms.

Perceived Decline in Google Search Quality

  • Many commenters say Google results are significantly worse than ~8–10 years ago: more SEO sludge, affiliate spam, ads “above the fold,” and irrelevant “AI/semantic” guesses even for exact-phrase queries.
  • Examples cited: incorrect fact answers, generic product-recommendation pages, and spammy affiliate lists ranking over more substantive content.
  • A minority report Google still works fine for them, especially for basic facts and media lookups.

Alternatives and User Migration

  • Strong enthusiasm for Kagi; several say they rarely or never “!g” back to Google after switching. DuckDuckGo and Brave Search get mixed reviews; some find them improved, others still fall back to Google.
  • Perplexity is praised for deep technical queries and “dialogue-style” refinement, with caveats about hallucinations.
  • Niche “indie web”–oriented engines (Marginalia, Wiby, Exa) are recommended for discovering small sites, but seen as specialized or limited.
  • Some argue “just stop using Google,” others call this a “load‑bearing just” that ignores how hard it is to move the general public.

Impact on Indie / Small Sites and SEO

  • Many small-site operators report severe traffic drops tied to recent Google updates; others say their indie sites are stable or growing.
  • There is debate whether Google is unfairly demoting “good” indie sites or reasonably down-ranking affiliate-heavy pages that resemble spam.
  • Some argue that optimizing for Google has always been fragile; building for humans and diversifying traffic sources is safer.

Debate Over What Counts as “Indie Web”

  • Tension over using platforms like Substack or analytics/ad networks while claiming “indie” status.
  • One side: “Indie” means self-hosted, owned infrastructure, minimal tracking.
  • Other side: “Indie” is about individual creators and small teams, regardless of tools, monetization, or CDNs.

Economic Incentives, Enshittification, and Regulation

  • Many tie Google’s behavior to ad-driven incentives, “late-stage capitalism,” and “enshittification”: prioritizing revenue and big brands (e.g., large media, big retailers) over user value.
  • Some call for antitrust action or “search neutrality” laws; others doubt regulation will meaningfully change incentives.

Proposed Responses and Limits

  • Suggested responses: switch search engines, pay for non-ad search, block trackers/ads, build and use small-web search engines.
  • Skeptics note network effects, habits, and monopoly power make broad change difficult; individual defection helps personally but may not fix the ecosystem.