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Every Google result now looks like an ad

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Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#501

Post by CapsAdmin »

Something that's kind of related is that I feel I'm finding more and more duplicate websites and straight up malicious websites on google. They are often repeated across many domains and I usually see them on more literal search results (like searching with quotes).

By malicious I mean websites that destroy the back history, create alerts, flash the favicon, etc. By duplicate websites I mean websites that take content from something like stack overflow and puts it on a website with ads.

For example here's how I found it as I was writing this:

I wrote "stack trace" in search to get some auto complete results for something to test.

I see "stack trace #0 main thrown in" as one of the suggestions and search for that with quotes.

I get 2 results, one website that looks legit, and one website that's malicious website, something that redirects me to a website that looks like facebook telling me I won something. It also destroys my back history.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#503

Post by lazypenguin »

beefield wrote: post #299
lykr0n wrote: post #3

I wish there was a way to directly help Bing/DuckDuckGo/Yandex improve their search results. I've tried both, and it's just not the same. Google I can bang in cryptic queries like > centos 7 tuned no daemon and get the 3rd link about how to run tuned in a no daemon mode. Bing/DuckDuckGo have the article at around 7th or 8th place, but prefaced by a lot of "while technically not wrong, not what I'm looking for" links.…

> I wish there was a way to directly help Bing/DuckDuckGo/Yandex improve their search results. I am amazed that no search engine gives me easy way to blacklist domains from my results. That would make the usefulness of any of them to increase by orders of magnitude. (and if they are careful, they might be even able to use the blacklisted data to adjust their general results , not only my personal results as well) And…

I would pay a subscription fee to my search engine to implement this feature. Currently use duckduckgo with a add-on to filter blacklisted sites but would love for this to be integrated.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#504

Post by zone411 »

froindt wrote: post #110
basch wrote: post #11

The FTC has spoke on this before. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/blogs/business-blog/2013/06/... I believe nearly all the search engines are still guilty of this one. I also think firms should be able to buy "blank space." For example facebook or amazon could pay NOT to have an ad above their result. Maybe they already do, I dont see an ad when I search facebook, however I do see an ad for amazon above the top amazo…

>I also think firms should be able to buy "blank space." For example facebook or amazon could pay NOT to have an ad above their result. Maybe they already do, I dont see an ad when I search facebook, however I do see an ad for amazon above the top amazon result. Backblaze had a competitor who bought ads for the search term "backblaze". The CEO successfully contacted the competitor CEO and they agreed they'd be in a p…

If the competitor was smaller with more money to spend or let's say had higher margins, it was stupid of them to agree to this type of (possible?) collusion.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#505

Post by dougb5 »

cameldrv wrote: post #408
dougb5 wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The post was written to criticize "paid placement" search engines like Goto.com/Overture (see https://www.searchenginewatch.com/2002/03/04/how-overture-go... for details). I believe Google has put ads above search results for as long as AdWords has existed (since 2000).

No, at the very beginning, Google only had the ads in little yellow boxes over to the right. They were very distinct. Then they started putting ads above the search results, but they still had a yellow background. Then they got rid of the background, but the results were still fairly visually distinct from the ads, and there would only be one or two ads above the search results. Now they just put this tiny little box…

Top ads in fact came first, in 2000, and were there through the launch of AdWords. History: https://searchengineland.com/google-adwords-turns-15-a-look-...

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#506

Post by komali2 »

IvyMike wrote: post #382

Others have mentioned that this is almost certainly the result of a long course of A/B testing. The problem with this kind of aggressive A/B testing is that it's a game of "how far can we push the user?" So instead of having enthusiastic fans, they have people who begrudgingly use them. Sure, Google picks up an extra nickel here or there, and I'm sure some PMs got a raise. But I don't know any strong Google boosters…

Haha, I remember when they announced chrome like 15 years ago, hyper excited 13 year old me literally emailed ceo@google.com with how excited I was. I uninstalled Firefox and installed chrome.

And now I exclusively use Firefox again.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#507

Post by vmurthy »

If you must use Google, I suggest you use a couple of settings in uBlock/Adblock as detailed in this 4 day old Lifehacker article [1]

From the article,

- To remove the favicon: google.com##.xA33Gc

- To remove the URL: google.com##.iUh30.bc.rpCHfe

- To remove the arrow next to the URL: google.com###am-b0 and google.com##.GHDvEf.ab_button

- To remove everything: google.com##.TbwUpd and google.com###am-b0 and google.com##.GHDvEf.ab_button

[1] https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2020/01/how-to-fix-googles-ugl...

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#509

Post by naravara »

cytzol wrote: post #26

I've been in this A/B test for a couple of months now, so I've had time to adjust, and I still hate it. I've just become so used to seeing the complete URL in green. The complete URL! If you hover over the results, you'll see that they like to take bits like numeric components or the query string out. This is part of Google's attempt to de-prioritise the URL. Their destructive AMP service confusingly shows you Google…

>Thanks for ruining the Web, Google.

When does the mass-migration to DuckDuckGo go mainstream?

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#510

Post by wolco »

cytzol wrote: post #26

I've been in this A/B test for a couple of months now, so I've had time to adjust, and I still hate it. I've just become so used to seeing the complete URL in green. The complete URL! If you hover over the results, you'll see that they like to take bits like numeric components or the query string out. This is part of Google's attempt to de-prioritise the URL. Their destructive AMP service confusingly shows you Google…

They could fix this for publishers who point a subdomain that way. Or url rewrite the address to the publishers.
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