54 votes

You can tell how bad Google Searches are now when you try to search for "Baldur's Gate 3 Wiki" and it pushes you a single outdated wiki and a bunch of posts telling you to use bg3.wiki

19 comments

  1. [11]
    Delta0
    (edited )
    Link
    bg3.wiki is the 17th option Meanwhile: duckduckgo

    bg3.wiki is the 17th option

    Meanwhile: duckduckgo

    25 votes
    1. [4]
      crowsby
      Link Parent
      And for comparison's sake, here's Kagi.

      And for comparison's sake, here's Kagi.

      14 votes
      1. [3]
        Comment deleted by author
        Link Parent
        1. [2]
          JawnZ
          Link Parent
          Do you have to do it a certain way? I had assumed copying and pasting a URL would require them to login

          Do you have to do it a certain way? I had assumed copying and pasting a URL would require them to login

          3 votes
          1. jackson
            Link Parent
            Under the “filter” menu on mobile (directly below the Kagi logo, to the left of “Web” and your Lenses) there is a “Share this search” option that adds the unlock token to the URL so everyone can...

            Under the “filter” menu on mobile (directly below the Kagi logo, to the left of “Web” and your Lenses) there is a “Share this search” option that adds the unlock token to the URL so everyone can see the search.

            9 votes
      2. drannex
        (edited )
        Link Parent
        Now that's interesting, my results are different than yours with the fextra wiki first, and the bg3.wiki as second. Edit: and the fourth result is the imgur link posted by OP, which at this time...

        Now that's interesting, my results are different than yours with the fextra wiki first, and the bg3.wiki as second.

        Edit: and the fourth result is the imgur link posted by OP, which at this time only has 52 views.

        Screenshot

        4 votes
    2. Minty
      Link Parent
      I never thought I'd live to see Bing surpass Google.

      I never thought I'd live to see Bing surpass Google.

      6 votes
    3. [3]
      Pavouk106
      Link Parent
      I use DDG for like two years now and I'm oleased with the experience. Although, it must be said, sometimes DDG doesn't "find" the page that really exists and is actually the thing I was looking...

      I use DDG for like two years now and I'm oleased with the experience. Although, it must be said, sometimes DDG doesn't "find" the page that really exists and is actually the thing I was looking for. The same criteria pops it up in Google in the first places. Still, DDG is my go to search engine.

      I'm actually writing this from DDG browser on Android. The browser is oretty hardcore! Doesn't have history, forgets previous pages if you close it (no "bac button" function upon closing and reopening), it gets rid of many ads on its own, stops many tracking things etc. It can be quite tedious to use if you are used to some creature comforts of other standard browsers, but at the same time it kinda feels more secure and user (privacy) oriented.

      5 votes
      1. [2]
        Comment deleted by author
        Link Parent
        1. Pavouk106
          Link Parent
          I use Firefox on desktop too. When I wassetting.up.my Android phone, I got ask what I wanted and thinkingnit is asking for seqrch engine, I picked DDG. What a surprise when I learned that it...

          I use Firefox on desktop too. When I wassetting.up.my Android phone, I got ask what I wanted and thinkingnit is asking for seqrch engine, I picked DDG. What a surprise when I learned that it wasn't asking just for search engine but browser too. I tried it, I accepted the lack of some creature comforts, I'm generally satisfied with it.

      2. lackofaname
        Link Parent
        My only real gripe with DDG search is that it doesn't consider the minus sign boolean to omit terms. I have a need to search a lot for technical terms, which means I sometimes need to filter out...

        My only real gripe with DDG search is that it doesn't consider the minus sign boolean to omit terms. I have a need to search a lot for technical terms, which means I sometimes need to filter out lay-uses. If it were able to handle that, I'd have likely switched over 100% ages ago.

        Still, not like google is massively better at that these days.

        4 votes
    4. [2]
      Grumble4681
      Link Parent
      The duckduckgo link seems to be broken.

      The duckduckgo link seems to be broken.

      1 vote
  2. [3]
    wyz
    Link
    You really prefer to use bg3.wiki? I don't like it at all. I don't find it useful. Fextralife is far superior aside from the fact that he's too busy playing the game to update many of the entries....

    You really prefer to use bg3.wiki? I don't like it at all. I don't find it useful. Fextralife is far superior aside from the fact that he's too busy playing the game to update many of the entries. The comments section on Fextralife is extremely useful.

    bg3.wiki for the most part provides all exactly the same info that the game itself provides to you. I don't need a website to tell me all the stuff that is already right in front of me in the game. If I'm looking up an item, I want to know where the item is dropped or what to do with it what it interacts with or what else I can do with it. Which is why the comments section or just the entry page of Fextralife is for. Almost any game that has a Fextralife wiki is the far, far superior version of any other wiki out there.

    10 votes
    1. Delta0
      Link Parent
      They are two great options. But I personally prefer bg3.wiki. But my point with this post was that there was plenty of posts from all these other search results (reddit, official forums, youtube...

      They are two great options. But I personally prefer bg3.wiki. But my point with this post was that there was plenty of posts from all these other search results (reddit, official forums, youtube videos) that were suggesting bg3.wiki

      The real answer should be to show both results at the top

      7 votes
    2. JawnZ
      Link Parent
      I believe OP is saying theu DON'T think thah wiki is a good option, but it's what Google is pushing

      I believe OP is saying theu DON'T think thah wiki is a good option, but it's what Google is pushing

      1 vote
  3. CannibalisticApple
    Link
    I don't play Baldur's Gate, but I've seen plenty of griping about this specific issue on reddit because I like to search for updates. That's how I found this post about bots downvoting any...

    I don't play Baldur's Gate, but I've seen plenty of griping about this specific issue on reddit because I like to search for updates. That's how I found this post about bots downvoting any comments linking the community wiki. Fextralife reached out to claim they had no role in it, but whether that's true or not, it still suggests there's more at play than just Google's ever-falling quality.

    Still, seeing it in 17th place, with a majority of the results above it being posts linking and recommending it, is pretty frustrating. Some of it might be due to the fact that the wiki isn't commercialized, which just makes Google's everything even worse. There are forums above it, I genuinely can't remember the last time I saw an internet forum on the first page of Google search wasn't for some super niche topic.

    7 votes
  4. Occam_vs_Murphy
    Link
    If it makes you feel any better, I can speak anecdotally at least and let you know then they're aware that SEO is always an ongoing fight. Very recently I was part of a project where we had to go...

    If it makes you feel any better, I can speak anecdotally at least and let you know then they're aware that SEO is always an ongoing fight. Very recently I was part of a project where we had to go through hundreds of Google search results, consider 2 instances side-by-side, and select which one would better and which specific parts of each result were positive and negative.
    With AIs becoming more robust, and who knows how many studies like the one above being run, I have no doubt that we'll see improvements in search results across all platforms sooner rather than later.

    6 votes
  5. [4]
    Comment deleted by author
    Link
    1. [3]
      PelagiusSeptim
      Link Parent
      You misunderstand, they are talking about the fextralife wiki showing up instead of the better bg3 wiki, not looking for wikipedia.

      You misunderstand, they are talking about the fextralife wiki showing up instead of the better bg3 wiki, not looking for wikipedia.

      8 votes
      1. [3]
        Comment deleted by author
        Link Parent
        1. CannibalisticApple
          Link Parent
          I think I have to disagree on this one. I just entered "Baldur's Gate 3 wiki" on Google. This time, it's the fourteenth item on the list. In order, these are the twelve results between the...

          I think I have to disagree on this one. I just entered "Baldur's Gate 3 wiki" on Google. This time, it's the fourteenth item on the list. In order, these are the twelve results between the Fextralife wiki at the top and the community wiki:

          • A reddit post linking the wiki
          • The Wikipedia page for Baldur's Gate (fair)
          • A forum post about the wiki (apparently the forum for the developer's site)
          • The Twitter for the BG3 wiki
          • The Fandom wiki (for reference, Fandom was originally named Wikia before rebranding in ~2016-2018, so a large number of pre-existing wikis are now linked as "site.fandom.com" instead of "site.wikia.com")
          • The IGN guide, which calls itself a wiki in the text
          • A Polygon article about the wiki
          • A Steam posts about the wiki
          • A second Steam post about the wiki
          • A YouTube video about the wiki
          • The PC Gaming Wiki page on Baldur's Gate 3
          • Another forum post linking to the wiki (apparently the developers of previous Baldur's Gate games?)

          And then the wiki itself.

          Of those results, 8/12 are about the wiki. I don't claim to be an expert on how search engines run, but I feel like there's an issue when the majority of results are about a single link which is buried towards the bottom of the page.

          11 votes
        2. Grumble4681
          Link Parent
          I think what the OP posted is indication enough that it should be plenty reasonable to expect them to know, and that if their numbers don't reflect it, then how they're figuring numbers is bad....

          I think what the OP posted is indication enough that it should be plenty reasonable to expect them to know, and that if their numbers don't reflect it, then how they're figuring numbers is bad. The reddit posts indicating that many people perceive there to be a better wiki, it's not like all of those just happened minutes before OP searched. DuckDuckGo getting the wiki at the top, how is it that you can't expect Google to know what people are looking for, but DuckDuckGo can? Another person posted the Kagi results and apparently it also did better than Google.

          As some comments here might have indicated there could be disputes about which wiki is better, that there's even a moderate contest over it should mean that at the very least, Google isn't ranking one of the wikis so far down that you don't even see it without scrolling to the bottom or going to the next page.

          This isn't the only one either. Google did this with the Path of Exile wiki, and it seems like they improved things as I did a few searches before commenting here, but it was many months (possibly more than a year) at least that I'm aware of where the outdated fandom wiki was constantly pushed to the top and the updated community wiki was nowhere to be found. Numerous people in the community were falling for it, googling something about the game, ending up on the fandom wiki, assuming the information was accurate, playing the game and finding out the information wasn't accurate, probably posting on reddit or in some chats or anywhere else asking wtf and finding out there's an actual updated wiki that Google seemingly doesn't care about.

          2 votes