Yesterday I tried to google "can the Halifax Wanderers still make the CPL playoffs?"
So obviously what appears right at the top is the AI summary, which told me "they've already secured their #4 position and made the playoffs". I knew this wasn't true, and I guess I could have just scrolled down a bit further and found my answer but now I was curious.
So I said "that's not true, they're still #5, what I want to know is _could they still make the playoffs_"
It says they've got an upcoming game against Ottawa, and if they win their chances are good. That game has already taken place, so I correct it again and finally I get a reasonable answer.
My question is: what's the point of the AI in the search engine if it itself isn't going to use the search engine first before answering? Like, I can't wrap my head around that. The answer is on the same page as its hallucination. It could have done a cursory look around before first hallucinating something completely false, and when corrected the first time giving me outdated information. It's meant to be A SEARCH ENGINE!
Google is no longer a search engine anymore. They don’t care about being one. Why you might ask?
First, a search engine indexes the web and makes it available to users. It’s been ages since Google did any of that. They no longer index sites or take ages to do so. Case in point, our cybersecurity startup (Webvetted.com) was launched in November 2025. Till date, only one page is indexed on the entire website. And I’ve talked to lots of other developers and it’s a common issue.
Secondly, a search engine organizes indexed information and makes it useful for people. Google is a basic LLM nowadays. They figured out that why organize and make the information useful when they could just answer the question with Gemini anyways? So they no longer bother to do the work of a search engine and are now just a lower-ranking open-source Chinese LLM
Actually, the reverse is the case. If the entire internet was filled with only "positive-quality sites", there won't be need for a search engine.
The work of a search engine is to wade through the internet and find the positive-quality sites itself.
You're forgetting the other half of the search engine's job, which is to find sites that match your search. Back when Google first came online, they were head and shoulders above Yahoo!, Altavista, and whatever other search engines existed at the time that I've forgotten. Because their indexing actually did a good job of spotting keywords, and returning relevant results. And this was back when the Internet was filled with positive-quality sites. Many of them were amateurish Geocities pages, but that was head and shoulders above the AI slop that the search engines these days have to somehow detect and filter out.
So even when the Internet used to have a much higher ratio of positive-quality sites, a search engine was still necessary, and so much faster than finding new sites yourself.
I just gave a concrete example but you're asking me to "search". search same Google?
FYI, only indexing a handful of super large news sites does not a search engine make.
Your trust score on ScamAdvisor is 26/100 ("likely unsafe"); <a href="https://www.scam-detector.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.scam-detector.com/ gives you a trust score of 38.6 ("questionable").
I am not implying that your start-up is a scam, nor that Google is acting on these trust scores. What I am pointing out is that to an algorithmic assessment of trustworthiness, your website looks a little sketchy: hardly anyone links to you; your domain is less than a year old; your whois info is anonymized; the text content is LLM-generated[1]; and the specific niche you're in (people finding services) is rife with scams. If I ran my own search engine, I don't think I'd include you.
Your selective bias makes you sound like a Google employee.
You selectively left out examples like Grindsoft that gives the site a 79/100 ranking. or several LinkedIn, X or news sites that link to the site and have covered it positively.
Nevertheless, if Google uses ScamAdvisor to rank new sites (when scamadviser itself says its gives new sites lower rankings due to low age/history), then it might be time to pack the company up.
That scam-detector site gives my personal portfolio website a 15.8/100. It is a basic static site with no scripting, registered for years, uses https, no tracking, no cookies, etc. Literally the most simple, personable, least scam-like website I could create.
For myself at least, a couple times Google has promoted in search results scam sites that front run legitimate sites that sell event tickets. I haven't seen this for a while now but trust in Google as a search engine is gone.
This sounds more like the page appears broken for the google crawler. I set up a new page about two weeks ago, cared about strong static HTML output, structured data and a sitemap and have 200 of 600 pages indexed today. Feels a bit slow to me but it definitely works.
Hugsbox · · focus · HN ↗
So obviously what appears right at the top is the AI summary, which told me "they've already secured their #4 position and made the playoffs". I knew this wasn't true, and I guess I could have just scrolled down a bit further and found my answer but now I was curious.
So I said "that's not true, they're still #5, what I want to know is _could they still make the playoffs_"
It says they've got an upcoming game against Ottawa, and if they win their chances are good. That game has already taken place, so I correct it again and finally I get a reasonable answer.
My question is: what's the point of the AI in the search engine if it itself isn't going to use the search engine first before answering? Like, I can't wrap my head around that. The answer is on the same page as its hallucination. It could have done a cursory look around before first hallucinating something completely false, and when corrected the first time giving me outdated information. It's meant to be A SEARCH ENGINE!
hienyimba · · focus · HN ↗
First, a search engine indexes the web and makes it available to users. It’s been ages since Google did any of that. They no longer index sites or take ages to do so. Case in point, our cybersecurity startup (Webvetted.com) was launched in November 2025. Till date, only one page is indexed on the entire website. And I’ve talked to lots of other developers and it’s a common issue.
Secondly, a search engine organizes indexed information and makes it useful for people. Google is a basic LLM nowadays. They figured out that why organize and make the information useful when they could just answer the question with Gemini anyways? So they no longer bother to do the work of a search engine and are now just a lower-ranking open-source Chinese LLM
ytcommentsectio · · focus · HN ↗
hienyimba · · focus · HN ↗
The work of a search engine is to wade through the internet and find the positive-quality sites itself.
rmunn · · focus · HN ↗
So even when the Internet used to have a much higher ratio of positive-quality sites, a search engine was still necessary, and so much faster than finding new sites yourself.
dieortin · · focus · HN ↗
Search for any recent news and you’ll see this is obviously not the case
hienyimba · · focus · HN ↗
someonebaggy · · focus · HN ↗
atdt · · focus · HN ↗
I am not implying that your start-up is a scam, nor that Google is acting on these trust scores. What I am pointing out is that to an algorithmic assessment of trustworthiness, your website looks a little sketchy: hardly anyone links to you; your domain is less than a year old; your whois info is anonymized; the text content is LLM-generated[1]; and the specific niche you're in (people finding services) is rife with scams. If I ran my own search engine, I don't think I'd include you.
hienyimba · · focus · HN ↗
You selectively left out examples like Grindsoft that gives the site a 79/100 ranking. or several LinkedIn, X or news sites that link to the site and have covered it positively.
Nevertheless, if Google uses ScamAdvisor to rank new sites (when scamadviser itself says its gives new sites lower rankings due to low age/history), then it might be time to pack the company up.
user00005 · · focus · HN ↗
iboisvert · · focus · HN ↗
chris_engel · · focus · HN ↗
vishalanton · · focus · HN ↗