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Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

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Re: Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

#121

Post by spiderfarmer »

cyrusshepard wrote: post #3

This is a good response and I appreciate Malte's effort to engage publishers, but it doesn't calm my nerves about the biggest publisher complaint about AMP: Google owns the chrome (top navigation) on all AMP pages. This makes it easy to navigate back to Google (why would you ever want to leave?) and other publishers in the AMP ecosystem, but much harder to navigate to the publisher that created the page in the first…

Google owns all the Chrome on Image Search too. And that didn't stop them from hotlinking to the images on your server. There's no way Google is backtracking on this because of the content owner's concerns.

Maybe they'll make an exception for Germany and France, where the old image search is still live.

Re: Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

#122

Post by EugeneOZ »

Doesn't convince me. Top bar is the biggest problem and they are "working on it"™ (we all know what does it mean) and "it will be landed in Chrome soon", when Chrome is not only browser in the world of mobile devices. Also from this response I see they want to make Chrome the new IE (if problem is solved in Chrome - it's solved), and it's frustrating.

Re: Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

#123

Post by cbraz »

majewsky wrote: post #118
Jaruzel wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most (if not all) default browsers on mobile, auto scroll/hide the navigation bar off the display after a few seconds. For most non-techie users this means it's 'gone'. Ergo, they have no back button anymore. I've watched many people just open/shut/open/shut their mobile browser just to get back to previous pages - in many cases even re-searching the same query over and over again. This is modus operandi for many use…

But this is just an iOS thing, right? Android has either a hardware back button, or a software back button that's always shown (except for fullscreen apps, such as Youtube and games).

Software buttons hide when using full screen apps and can be made visible again by a swipe from the bottom.

Re: Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

#124

Post by the_duke »

lucaspiller wrote: post #113
rakoo wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know the cool thing about this integration ? Any part can be replaced. Some instantly, some take more time because they involve physical stuff. People use the Google integration because it's there by default, not because they are locked-in.

At the moment yes you are right, but if we want it to stay that way we need to do something about it now. I agree that people mainly use Google because it's the default, but if we aren't careful there won't be an alternative left that can stand up against them. The only hope we'll have then is that Facebook, Apple, Amazon or Microsoft decide to tackle Google head on, but in most cases where that has happened in the p…

With search, we already approaching that point.

No other search engine comes close to the quality of Google, at least for certain topics.

Outside of Russia, China, Japan and some other countries Google is the dominant search with a big lead.

And that is troubling indeed! Competition is good. And necessary for a healthy market.

It also means that Google has a huge amount of control over what information can be discovered.

What if MS decides Bing isn't worth their while anymore in 5 years? Yahoo will have dwindled away by then, leaving only Google. In Europe, Google has +90% everywhere (except Russia).

Re: Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

#125

Post by EugeneOZ »

epmatsw wrote: post #23
gleb wrote: post #9

As a user I've learned to avoid AMP pages because the UX is horrible: * back button is broken 1/2 the time * the bar wastes 1/3 of my screen * I can no longer see what site I am on in the url * it's hard to navigate to the / of the site * I can't forward the link * being on a good network in US it solves no problem that I have What I'd really like to see is a way to opt-out of seeing AMP'ed pages in my search results…

Interesting. As a user, I've learned to only click on AMP results. They load quickly and reliably (no blank white site) even on LTE, and they never have intrusive adds. If they added an option for "only show me AMP unless I click a button to ask for the other junk", I would opt in day 1.

Only content owner should decide what ad will be shown. Offending this rule means breaking deals with advertisers, it's reputation losses.

Re: Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

#126

Post by jdironman »

pyrale wrote: post #120
rakoo wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know the cool thing about this integration ? Any part can be replaced. Some instantly, some take more time because they involve physical stuff. People use the Google integration because it's there by default, not because they are locked-in.

> You know the cool thing about this integration ? Any part can be replaced. How do you replace search ? How do you get competitive against mail, youtube without the amount of data google uses to sell ad on them ?

All I hear is a challenge. I'm not a big data engineer, but I would be interested in seeing others take it as a challenge to develop a unique, effective, and open platform that rivals the Google monopoly.

Re: Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

#127

Post by spiderfarmer »

gcb0 wrote: post #110
visarga wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is just sending a different type of traffic: "one page traffic", but let's not forget that it is Google that is sending the traffic to AMP pages in the first place, there should be no entitlement on the part of webmasters.

I'm only half sure you're trolling so I will point out for others that lost what I hope was your irony and not naivete: Google only exist because content creators allow their bots to index and display part of the often copyrighted content for Google's own monetary gain, so Google should feel no entitlement on owning anything on the Internet.

They don't feel entitled, they just don't care. Just like they don't care with all illegal content on Youtube. They didn't care when they started hotlinking images in Image Search.

Just like Facebook doesn't care about ripped video's on their platform. They know that publishers won't bite the hand that feeds them. They know that they can use their power as the defacto gateway to the internet as there is no competition and noone powerful enough to stand up to landgrabs like this.

Maybe it's even worse. They don't stop and think about the power and influence they have, because over the years it has become entirely natural to them to just take whatever they want, repackage it and call it their own.

Re: Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

#128

Post by AndrewDucker »

nv-vn wrote: post #106

Am I the only one here who has never seen an AMP site in the wild? Seems people in the comments are super familiar with the service.

I think they only appear if you're using Google Search from Mobile.

Re: Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

#129

Post by aembleton »

g00gler wrote: post #116
inimino wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you aren't comfortable with it, just don't use it, right? I'm probably missing something, but I don't understand how something can be such a hard pill to swallow when it is opt-in.

Is there an option to avoid it from an end user's perspective? It's made google news so frustrating for me, it will go back a page in history or slide to the next story for no reason whatsoever. I have a Nexus 6P, use Chrome so there's no reason for it to act like that other than just being shitty. I kinda just stopped reading Google news rather than try to fix it (:

You could try using the Firefox browser. I haven't seen any AMP pages since I moved to it.

Re: Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

#130

Post by shostack »

criddell wrote: post #17
dingo_bat wrote: post #2

So basically this guy says all of the issues are by design and you can choose not to use amp if you don't like all of it. Google isn't going to penalize non amp pages in search ranking. They are just going to not show your page in the carousel. I think it's a pretty fair position to take. If you don't like amp don't use it. We'll see if amp catches on over a period of time.

Amp isn't ideal, but neither is Instant Articles on Facebook. I'm hoping that Amp is really just Google training publishers how to make web pages that aren't terrible for users.

And then you have companies like Buzzfeed that have said "Ok, the deal has changed. We're ok with the new terms." and go hog wild changing their business model to adapt to the new reality.

It is truly fascinating to watch.

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