Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How we fought bad ads in 2015

googleblog.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 136 posts

Re: How we fought bad ads in 2015

#111

Post by nl »

eevilspock wrote: post #41
Paul_S wrote: post #14

How I fought bad ads in 2016 (in order of impact on usability/performance): http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/ (transparent and no overhead, works on Android too!) https://www.eff.org/privacybadger https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock (a handful of websites will detect it - you can then switch to visual blocking for that domain to get around it, for FF: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/ublock-origin... ) ht…

Agreed, all ads are bad. And let's call the advertising business model what it is: a get rich quick scheme. Undercut the straight up competitors that charge for their product by fooling consumers into thinking you're offering what the other guy is offering, but for free. Come on, who could turn down that? Or make something "valuable" that no one is willing to pay for (WTF?), so again make it appear free. Only the tru…

I suspect you are being downvoted because you are wrong ("all ads are bad" is a pretty extreme position. There are numerous examples I can think of where they are pretty useful. For example I'm interested if a band I'm listening to is coming to town, etc etc..)

Additionally your points are badly argued. I can't follow your argument that advertising is a get rich scheme at all. You seem to be arguing that advertising makes people offer dodgy business models, but the two don't seem to relate at all. For example one area where buyer hostile business models is very common is in enterprise software, and those sales rely very little on advertising and instead on relationships.

In summary, your complaints about being downvoted seem unjustified.

Re: How we fought bad ads in 2015

#112

Post by chipperyman573 »

kolbe wrote: post #87
gbasic wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think are additional things that Google could do? I can imagine how hard this is to police. For example: - Let people mark different links as spam - Hire a larger team to police this

One thing that I can't prove, but is likely true, is that .gov links are highly undervalued by google rankings. There are many many cases where a government web site provides the most obvious best result, but the fact that they don't do SEO or pay google forces the result too far down the page.

Their websites are also pretty... awful.

I usually find much more valuable information on non .gov sites just because it's not hidden fifty links deep. The only valid reason (imo) to go to a .gov site is to e-file (or whatever they're calling it) something.

Re: How we fought bad ads in 2015

#113

Post by CaptSpify »

mahranch wrote: post #80
CaptSpify wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is though: What can they reply with? "Do you feel you deserve the content for free?" is the only argument I ever hear, and that is so old and tired, it's not funny. I'd be interested in hearing/discussing a solid pro-ad argument, but I've yet to find one.

> a solid pro-ad argument, but I've yet to find one. That's because there is no argument to be had. Ads subsidize the vast majority of content on the internet, full stop. Just as they did TV stations before cable. That content wasn't free, those ad companies paid for their ad spots, which paid for those television shows. The same is true for the internet, without ads, the internet would look very, very different. Wit…

"...essentially all of the ad supported sites I visit are diversions" - https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/web/AdSupportedWebD...

> ads subsidize the vast majority of content on the internet, full stop

And most of that content is bullshit. I wouldn't miss most of the ad-based sites. Most of the "innovation" is bullshit. I disagree that we'd go back to the mid-90's setup, but I'd even prefer that to what it is today.

The internet did just fine before ads, and it'd do just fine if they disappeared. I stand by my statement of there being no solid pro-ad argument.

Re: How we fought bad ads in 2015

#114

Post by nl »

anon1385 wrote: post #26

>Unwanted software I just visited the download.com page for Chrome and it has two ads served by Google. Both ads contain fake download buttons: http://i.imgur.com/eAATuwb.png Google ads are dangerous.

Theses aren't Google Ads.

It's interesting that you thought they are. What made you think that?

Re: How we fought bad ads in 2015

#115

Post by AJ007 »

gbasic wrote: post #23
AJ007 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a different standpoint: - How much money does Google make from 'bad' ads? (Or how much does Alibaba make from 'counterfeit' product ads? Or Amazon, etc.) - How many false positives will 'good' actors tolerate before they substantially reduce their spending on your platform? - How many resources do you put on the problem while making sure you continue to earn a large % of revenue from the 'bad' actors while minim…

One point I make is that even if Google makes significant money from bad ads, they still may be incentivized to ensure the experience is not substantially diminished (i.e., there's value to their reputation)

That would fall under the third point. However, they have some big advantages that other companies do not get. For example, if you buy a bad iPhone once, that is really bad for Apple.

Google as a search engine falls under a strange category. On one hand, users put more trust in what they see on Google, making the ad inventory more valuable. On the other hand, if something bad happens they understand it isn't from Google -- something which may not be as clear cut as say, purchasing a defective product off Amazon from a third party seller. (Then there is the revenue that comes for display ads, syndicated search feeds, things that 99% of users had no idea it was Google gaining much of the monetary benefit in the first place.)

On top of all of this a large portion of users who do click on ads on Google have no idea they even clicked an ad in the first place.

Re: How we fought bad ads in 2015

#116

Post by CaptSpify »

zanny wrote: post #58
CaptSpify wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is though: What can they reply with? "Do you feel you deserve the content for free?" is the only argument I ever hear, and that is so old and tired, it's not funny. I'd be interested in hearing/discussing a solid pro-ad argument, but I've yet to find one.

Here is one - the alternative to ads everyone proposes is people pay for their content directly. Except there are catastrophic barriers to entry for such a business model: * You need to bind real world money to online browsing, somehow. This means you need some kind of blunt "want to see the content? Pay X money, here are paypal and CC info links". * People who do not have access to these tools - there is still a siz…

> Here is one - the alternative to ads everyone proposes is people pay for their content directly. Except there are catastrophic barriers to entry for such a business model

Not really. Sure, that's an alternate that people propose, but not one I think will ever take off. And honestly, I don't care. I think the "funded" web has a lot of potential, but it has just ended up squandered.

> ...but that model doesn't align with western shareholder-value driven markets at all.

So? I don't really care about that market. For a long time people made software without being paid. I write free (as in beer and speech) software in my spare time. It's cheaper than ever to run your own server. I don't view the "western shareholder-value" market as valuable to the internet as your making it out to be.

Re: How we fought bad ads in 2015

#117

Post by Houshalter »

Not surprised one bit to see most the hacker news comments are negative. But this is seriously impressive. They doing an impressive job to filter hundreds of millions of ads. And they are also taking a stand against stuff that isn't even illegal. Blocking BS alternative medicines, and supplements, for instance. I'm upset when I see ads for "airborne" on TV or in magazines.

Re: How we fought bad ads in 2015

#118

Post by kolbe »

chipperyman573 wrote: post #112
kolbe wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that I can't prove, but is likely true, is that .gov links are highly undervalued by google rankings. There are many many cases where a government web site provides the most obvious best result, but the fact that they don't do SEO or pay google forces the result too far down the page.

Their websites are also pretty... awful. I usually find much more valuable information on non .gov sites just because it's not hidden fifty links deep. The only valid reason (imo) to go to a .gov site is to e-file (or whatever they're calling it) something.

I completely disagree. The site design is usually web 1.0 cringeworthy, but the content is trustworthy, accurate and truly free.

Re: How we fought bad ads in 2015

#119

Post by Houshalter »

nl wrote: post #114
anon1385 wrote: post #26

>Unwanted software I just visited the download.com page for Chrome and it has two ads served by Google. Both ads contain fake download buttons: http://i.imgur.com/eAATuwb.png Google ads are dangerous.

Theses aren't Google Ads. It's interesting that you thought they are. What made you think that?

Google's buttons are in the top right of the ads. Clicking on them will send you to a Google page about their ad program.

Re: How we fought bad ads in 2015

#120

Post by csn »

What is up with the popup ads, by the way? I've been seeing them a lot lately when I enable JS, even on my bank's site. They were, in the past, tried with failure and all major browsers got a built-in blocker.
Post reply on HN