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The Web Began Dying in 2014 (2017)

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Re: The Web Began Dying in 2014 (2017)

#101

Post by d33 »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #73
mojuba wrote: post #33

In addition, what's changed between 2017 and now is that back then Google was still admired by the tech people. "Google is evil" sounded ridiculous only a few years ago. I've been ridiculed by my colleagues and fellow engineers every time I said it. But I think it began to change with the introduction of AMP, a growing list of products discontinued for no apparent reason, failures of some of the new products often pr…

I'm refusing to implement Google Analytics on my startup's product. Because it's slow, but mainly because I don't trust Google enough to let them put whatever code they like on my page. I'm running into serious flak from the marketing team because they don't know how to use any other tool. GA is the industry standard, apparently, and every site uses it, etc etc. They're even hinting that not using it could affect our…

Surprised nobody mentioned Matomo Analytics yet:

https://matomo.org/

It's FLOSS, comes both self-hosted and as a paid service and it's pretty good. Perhaps good enough for your use case?

Re: The Web Began Dying in 2014 (2017)

#102

Post by peteradio »

ropiwqefjnpoa wrote: post #3

FTA: "GOOG and FB ceased competing directly, focusing on what they do best instead." “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices” - Adam Smith Some things never change.

Sometimes I wonder how you balance that Adam Smith quote with "Tragedy of the commons".

Re: The Web Began Dying in 2014 (2017)

#103

Post by OnlineHeaven »

faeyanpiraat wrote: post #79
marcus_holmes wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm refusing to implement Google Analytics on my startup's product. Because it's slow, but mainly because I don't trust Google enough to let them put whatever code they like on my page. I'm running into serious flak from the marketing team because they don't know how to use any other tool. GA is the industry standard, apparently, and every site uses it, etc etc. They're even hinting that not using it could affect our…

Oblivious marketing ppl bullying tech guys into doing stupid things. Such a classic. Unfortunately I have a hunch aswell that not adding GA does indeed negatively affects SEO. How would it be possible to prove/disprove this?

Adding Google Analytics is probably good for escaping the "Google Sandbox." There's clearly some sort of review process (algorithm or manual review) before a website starts ranking well in the Google SERPs.

Re: The Web Began Dying in 2014 (2017)

#104

Post by Spooky23 »

irrational wrote: post #84
Ygg2 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like your parallel between Microsoft and Google. To me, it also implies Google probably won't ever lose the search crown directly, the same way Microsoft never lost it's OS crown, to Linux or MacOS. However, Windows is dwarfed by the Android install base.

How is Windows OS these days? I haven't used it since the early 2000s. I think the last version I used was... XP? Everyone at my work uses a MacBook. Some of my children are in their early 20s now and have never used Windows. It has always been OSX/MacOS, iOS, Ubuntu, Android, or ChromeOS. I don't know if my kids are typical or not but if many of the rising generation don't grow up using Windows, will they want to us…

If they work in any large company in most industries, then yes, they will use Windows.

At scale, Apple is too mercurial to be a sole source supplier. Chrome is interesting, but there isn’t a ton of adoption outside of schools.

Re: The Web Began Dying in 2014 (2017)

#105

Post by riffraff »

mojuba wrote: post #76
riffraff wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Google making more and more money from non-search products? e.g. Google cloud products, YouTube. It seems they are trying to differentiate, see also Google+, stadia etc, just not being very successful.

Doesn't seem to be the case [1] The article that comments on this chart says other sources (non-ad ones) look promising but it more sounds like a speculation because I don't see real signs of that. [1] https://www.theatlas.com/charts/n8ea9MPE0

why not? it's about ~9B in 2016, ~11 in 2017, ~19B in 2018 and ~10B in the first six months of 2019, with the last quarter being the largest in the past.

Sure, it's less than the ad business but it's doubled in 3 years, surely that's a healthy rate of growth?

Re: The Web Began Dying in 2014 (2017)

#106

Post by andrepd »

mojuba wrote: post #33

In addition, what's changed between 2017 and now is that back then Google was still admired by the tech people. "Google is evil" sounded ridiculous only a few years ago. I've been ridiculed by my colleagues and fellow engineers every time I said it. But I think it began to change with the introduction of AMP, a growing list of products discontinued for no apparent reason, failures of some of the new products often pr…

"Google is evil" has been a given for close to a decade now, and certainly since Snowden.

Re: The Web Began Dying in 2014 (2017)

#107

Post by mojuba »

mmahemoff wrote: post #86
mojuba wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Experiment with your own web sites? Create two of them with and without GA, possibly with different content because Google seems to be able to detect duplication, then try to promote both (this is the difficult part of course) and compare.

It's hard to do any kind of objective comparison like this when it comes to SEO. It takes months to see any effect and even then you will have to speculate. You could try to remove GA from half the pages on an existing site one day and see if those subsequently drop more, if you have enough pages to experiment with.

There is some evidence that older pages (>10 years old) drop out if they don't use any of Google's plugins. I think it was Tim Bray who was one of the first who noticed [1]

I also found another case of a lot of un-googleable reddit pages from only 5 years ago. They just don't exist on Google anymore even though they are linked from e.g. peoples profiles who commented there. Someone decided that Reddit is not important, or maybe there's some broader exclusion criteria in place.

[1] https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2018/01/15/Google-is...

Re: The Web Began Dying in 2014 (2017)

#108

Post by hombre_fatal »

irrational wrote: post #84
Ygg2 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like your parallel between Microsoft and Google. To me, it also implies Google probably won't ever lose the search crown directly, the same way Microsoft never lost it's OS crown, to Linux or MacOS. However, Windows is dwarfed by the Android install base.

How is Windows OS these days? I haven't used it since the early 2000s. I think the last version I used was... XP? Everyone at my work uses a MacBook. Some of my children are in their early 20s now and have never used Windows. It has always been OSX/MacOS, iOS, Ubuntu, Android, or ChromeOS. I don't know if my kids are typical or not but if many of the rising generation don't grow up using Windows, will they want to us…

Windows still owns gaming which is going to keep it relevant to the youth despite anything it does poorly for some time to come.

Just look how many front-page carousel blockbusters on Steam still only support Windows.

I game on macOS and things are slowly getting better, but macOS is still mostly relegated to Aspyr ports. I'd be reluctant to claim that Windows is dying to youngsters until the state of gaming radically changes.

https://store.steampowered.com/

Re: The Web Began Dying in 2014 (2017)

#109

Post by loraa »

Interestingly enough, we had a good reason to label MS as evil. I have spoken to enough millennials I the field that still feel this, but stumble to answer, and then usually say something witty about why they use Apple products.

Is Google evil to us older folks that were here before google and saw it evolve to what it is now, or is it just evil to the younger folk looking for a scapegoat for this generation?

I think Microsoft is a much better company now, and as much as I try not to use Google or give them my data, this seems to be the evolution of tech companies. Weepy SJWs now believe tech companies should not do things like make money. In order to always make shareholders happy you have to increase profits every quarter, and to do that you need to keep growing and of course to keep growing it's always wise to diversify.

People should probably realize politicians are evil, because no one is going to say no to a company like Google dumping money into the economy.

Re: The Web Began Dying in 2014 (2017)

#110

Post by stilisstuk »

d33 wrote: post #101
marcus_holmes wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm refusing to implement Google Analytics on my startup's product. Because it's slow, but mainly because I don't trust Google enough to let them put whatever code they like on my page. I'm running into serious flak from the marketing team because they don't know how to use any other tool. GA is the industry standard, apparently, and every site uses it, etc etc. They're even hinting that not using it could affect our…

Surprised nobody mentioned Matomo Analytics yet: https://matomo.org/ It's FLOSS, comes both self-hosted and as a paid service and it's pretty good. Perhaps good enough for your use case?

Many government sites uses matomo in Denmark. It's good.
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