Google Search has been around for more than two decades. No wonder, Google is doing its bit to improve users’ search experience by making some important changes. But, it seems the company’s effort is going in vain. Google Search, which used to be the go-to place for searching for information over the years, is apparently losing its charm and becoming less useful, according to a survey.
Google Search is becoming less useful and lacks quality information
Recently, The Verge partnered with Two Cents Insights and Vox Media’s Insights and Research team to survey more than 2000 adults from the United States. Well, the findings of the survey are quite interesting. Nearly 66% of the surveyed people said that the quality of information they get from Google Search is declining.
That’s not all, nearly 42% of the surveyed people feel that Google and search engines are becoming less useful. It is also becoming very difficult to find reliable sources of information. This hints that people are becoming increasingly wary of platforms and where they get their information.
Online communities are apparently becoming a popular choice among users. Nearly 55% of the surveyed people said to be getting information from communities instead of less useful search engines like Google. What’s interesting is that 52% of those surveyed said that they look up information using chatbots or TikTok.
The survey report also sheds some light on the use of AI for research purposes. It was reported that 53% of millennials and 61% of Gen Z said they use the available AI tools rather than Google Search for searching a specific topic.
Findings about shopping results and challenges in EU
It seems Google’s sponsored and promoted shopping results are annoying a large chunk of users. Notably, 76% of the surveyed people said that seeing more than a quarter of Google Search shopping results as “sponsored and promoted” makes such results less useful. Interestingly, only 14% of those surveyed found these Google Search results to be “very helpful.”
The survey concludes that “Legacy technology (e.g., Google) and social platforms are rapidly losing ground as trust and authenticity fade.” Google has long been in the firing line of the EU antitrust regulators for its Search business. More recently, the company is facing new antitrust charges in the EU over search bias.
