Google search is collapsing. Between 2021 and 2025, websites experienced traffic losses exceeding 60% from organic search, with quality content creators punished while AI-generated spam flourished. Confirmed algorithm updates decreased from 10 annually in 2021-2022 to just 4 in 2025, yet volatility reached record-breaking levels.
Google search 'collapsing' . When do we hit the point it is no longer fit for purpose?
there has been no serious attempt by digital media developers to engage in a constructive public dialogue with historians of information and leading librarians. There is, perhaps, a reason for this. As Geoffrey Nunberg starkly revealed in 2009 in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Google cannot celebrate the history of indexing and cataloguing because it would draw attention to its matrix of errors. As of yet, Google Books does not work as an accurate system of cataloguing and searching for books. Nunberg showed that the seemingly clunky nineteenth-century Library of Congress Classification system is still more accurate.
A point worth repeating. I think there is a strong parallel here with algogens. The way 'progress' in released models is celebrated by e.g. Donald Clark. It beats a PhD exam, it does CT etc. What does comparison with their deep roots yield though? Keep history short so you may be the biggest giant of all time.
Even the idea of a ‘Google search’ was unimaginable ten years ago.
... and this article is from 2009!!! So, a Google search was unimaginable 20 years ago.