Google Is Bad Search Engine

Question

/websearch/community?hl=en

Suddenly, my Google search results are terrible. Chrome is up to date, what should I do?

5

A few days ago I started noticing that my Google search results are bad. After I search, the first results are tons of ads, way more than I've ever seen before. Also, I suddenly see "news" results that are completely unrelated to my search and they always seem to be the same garbage companies, like Quora and RT.

When I put a + in the search to include a specific word, the results do not include the word.

When I do a very basic generic search, I only get one or two actual results and even those are barely related to the subject. The quality of the results is so bad that they are unusable.

Prior to the last week or so, I was satisfied with Google search results.

Possibly related, in addition to the Android phone I usually use, I recently started using a pre-owned, Windows tablet.

Play store says Chrome does not need to be updated.

Thank you.

Latest Update Latest Updates (0)

Recommended Answer Recommended Answers (5)

Relevant Answer Relevant Answers (0)

Our automated system analyzes the replies to choose the one that's most likely to answer the question.

This question is locked and replying has been disabled.

Discard post? You will lose what you have written so far.

Failed to attach file, click here to try again.

Edit link

Text to display: Link to:

Notifications are currently off and you won't receive updates. To turn them on, go toNotifications preferences on your Profile page.

Discard post?

You will lose what you have written so far.

Personal information found

We found the following personal information in your message:

This information will be visible to anyone who visits or subscribes to notifications for this post. Are you sure you want to continue?

A problem occurred. Please try again.

Create Reply

Edit Reply

This will remove the reply from the Answers section.

Notifications are off

Your notifications are currently off and you won't receive subscription updates. To turn them on, go to Notifications preferences on your Profile page.

Google user

This reply is no longer available.

Badges

Some community members might have badges that indicate their identity or level of participation in a community.

Google Employee — Google product team members and community managers

Community Specialist — Google partners who help ensure the quality of community content

Diamond Product Expert — Community members with product mastery who help other Google users and Product Experts

Platinum Product Expert — Community members with advanced product knowledge who help other Google users and Product Experts

Gold Product Expert — Community members with in-depth product knowledge who help other Google users by answering questions

Silver Product Expert — Community members with intermediate product knowledge who help other Google users by answering questions

Product Expert Alumni — Former Product Experts who are no longer members of the program

Community content may not be verified or up-to-date.

/websearch/threads

//accounts.google.com/ServiceLogin

You'll receive email notifications for new posts at

Unable to delete question.

Unable to update vote.

Unable to update subscription.

You have been unsubscribed

Deleted

Unable to delete reply.

Removed from Answers

Removed from Updates

Marked as Recommended Answer

Marked as Update

Removed recommendation

Undo

Unable to update reply.

Unable to update vote.

Thank you. Your response was recorded.

Unable to undo vote.

Thank you. This reply will now display in the answers section.

Link copied

Locked

Unlocked

Unable to lock

Unable to unlock

Pinned

Unpinned

Unable to pin

Unable to unpin

Marked

Unmarked

Unable to mark

Reported as off topic

Known Issue

Fixed

Marked Fixed

Unmarked Fixed

Unable to mark fixed

Unable to unmark fixed

/profile/0

score 56 · Accepted Answer

Wow I am so grateful for this post. That was exactly the problem

Incase you couldnt find the problem yourself, dear comment reader, heres some more help.

Look for an extension that is allowed to *"read and change site data"*

For me, some vpn extension, that I had no problem with in the past.

And after checking, as suspected, it got an update on the 11th of may, and around that time I've been having problems.

After searching for "New York" I got no city tab on the side, no pictures on the bottom and no wikipedia site as first entry.

instead the search results were all ads. Shoe ad/bookshop ad/t*rivago.com/b*ookin.com/t*icketnew.com/a*mazon.com/ - and THEN the Wikipeia site entry. (Stars for incase they flag comments with those companies names in them)

Anyway I hope this helps, certanly helped me, THANKS SO MUCH!!!

score 51 · Accepted Answer

i have the same problem, first it shows the right things then one second later it changes to some fashion sites. [UPDATE: I FIXED IT, so i deleted some chrome extensions and apparently the "Dark mode for YouTube" was causing the problem for me.]

Original Poster

marked this as an answer

Recommended based on info available

Our automated system analyzes replies to choose the one that's most likely to answer the question. If it seems to be helpful, we may eventually mark it as a Recommended Answer.

51

score 21 · Accepted Answer

omg i had the same problem, but the extention was also the problem with me. Restored chrome the first time and my searches were OK, but when i realised my adblocker and other extentions were not active, i activated them all and the problem began again. So happy i read this post

Original Poster

marked this as an answer

Recommended based on info available

Our automated system analyzes replies to choose the one that's most likely to answer the question. If it seems to be helpful, we may eventually mark it as a Recommended Answer.

21

score 8 · Accepted Answer

Same thing happened for me starting this week, and not on my work laptop running Internet Explorer. When searching for simple questions like "What is the temperature for Singapore?", it will show me the temperature, but display terrible search results a moment later. I have tried disabling all my extensions 1 by 1, and found the culprit to be AdBlock extension. Try disabling it (Chrome > Extensions) and see if it works.

Original Poster

marked this as an answer

Recommended based on info available

Our automated system analyzes replies to choose the one that's most likely to answer the question. If it seems to be helpful, we may eventually mark it as a Recommended Answer.

8

score -3 · Accepted Answer

Please note: This reply addresses a very specific situation — it's not intended to answer all users who've posted in this thread. It may or may not be applicable in your case. This information may help you, as it has helped others. If, however, the information doesn't seem relevant to you, please just ignore it — no further comment is needed.

Specific scenario: If you're using a desktop/laptop device, you may have noticed a

sudden

change in the quality of Google Search results — you're now seeing a lot of ads at the top of the results page, and the results themselves don't seem particularly relevant. You may also notice that when you search, a "normal" results page appears for a split second, then refreshes to show the ads and irrelevant results. The page may not show any of the usual information boxes/panels that you would expect to see on a normal search results page.

This behaviour (replacement of legimate results with bogus results) is typical of a browser hijacker, which takes control of the Google Search results page and injects spurious content.

Several users who've posted in this thread confirm that this is not only a possible explanation, but has actually happened to them. See the other Recommended Answers for details. Thank you to those users who've taken the trouble to report their own experience with this issue!

See also these other recent threads for a similar, confirmed issue:

If this sounds like what you're experiencing, your computer has probably been compromised by some sort of adware/malware. It may be as simple as an unwanted browser extension, or more serious. Take a look at your browser extensions and installed programs for anything suspicious.

For Google Chrome browser, just resetting Chrome may fix the problem.

Please refer to this post for more information:

If the issue persists, try scanning your computer for malware.

You may need to use more than one anti-malware product to detect all malware. Here are some of the more popular/effective products: