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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

#591

Post by JohnFen »

d1zzy wrote: post #535
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…

> and as they can't fix that without losing out on tracking Tracking what users click to as the result of a search is critical feedback information for training your models/algorithms, it's not just about "hey let's see where this user goes to fine tune ad targeting for them". And, AFAIK, every search engine out there does it(?)

Perhaps so, but I still find it highly objectionable.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#592

Post by JohnFen »

crispyporkbites wrote: post #512
Guest0918231 wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand why it's happening and I mentioned it in my comment. However, I just find it incredibly inappropriate that... 1. When I search an exact domain Google will take money from a competitor and show their "advertisement" first. I say that in quotations, because it looks like they're showing a search result, not an advertisement. At this point it feels like companies are paying for their search placement. Pay e…

I aggree with your point #1, if you search for an specific term / domain it should always appear first if there's a direct match. but for #2 there's a pro-competition argument here. If you search for Expedia and all you ever get is Expedia and expedia pages underneath that, in theory that's good. But what if you don't know about other online travel sites? You'll never see them, so it kind of makes sense that you are…

> But what if you don't know about other online travel sites? You'll never see them, so it kind of makes sense that you are shown other sites in there.

I don't think that makes sense. Or, at least, such results should be below all the actually relevant results.

If I'm searching for Expedia, then what I want is results about Expedia. Nothing else. If I want to know about other travel sites, I'd be searching for "travel sites" instead.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#595

Post by JohnFen »

toohotatopic wrote: post #477
333c wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They display both because Google is selling ad space on searches like these, where people search the name of a site. If that site doesn't buy the ad, their competitor will. So sites are being forced to buy ads on their own trademark.

Does this create an opportunity for 'number one' sites to band together and create a competing search engine? Would it be possible to fund a search engine startup by selling shares to all of those sites who now have to pay to stay at the top? In the long run, it should be cheaper to fund a competitor.

I'm helping this effort along -- all of my sites specifically exclude Google's spiders, but allow those of other search engines.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#596

Post by joshuamorton »

dessant wrote: post #589
joshuamorton wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See my statement about secure, cross origin preloads. You're asking a search engine to XSS attack its own users.

I think the correct term I was looking for is prefetching. That's a secure way to tell the browser to start loading search result links in the background.

> That's a secure way to tell the browser to start loading search result links in the background

prefetching isn't private cross origin:

> Along with the referral and URL-following implications already mentioned above, prefetching will generally cause the cookies of the prefetched site to be accessed.[1]

IDK about you, but I'd generally prefer that my cookies and IP not be exposed to all of the links that happen to be in the first page of search results.

[1]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Link_prefe...

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#598

Post by tolstoshev »

amatecha wrote: post #441

I've been wondering what it is about Google Search results recently, in that they seem _substantially worse_ than ever before. I hadn't quite noticed what the difference was, but I was really surprised, remembering how Google Search results used to be the very best. Now I know what the difference is: making normal results look the same as Ad results. "Don't be evil" :)

also the habit of putting "missing: " and showing you stuff that isn't as targeted as what you were actually looking for.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#599

Post by _prototype_ »

riffraff wrote: post #478
_prototype_ wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DDG uses an aggregate of results from various search engines. I really do hope that at some point (if they haven't already) they build out a native search team. I know its hard computer science, but they really need to start rolling their own search engine

DDG has its own crawler and index too, they had it for a long time https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/du...

Interesting, I did not know that. Thanks for the link!

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#600

Post by jonplackett »

I really hate AMP. To the point where I started making an iOS browser that’s sole purpose was to bounce me from AMP links to the original link and delete the history step in between. I wish Apple would offer this in Safari - a simple ‘ignore AMP pages’ check box.

AMP is google worst attempt yet at taking over the web. It’s so user hostile. It breaks lots of sites with its fake scroll and fake back button at the top of google news. I hate it soo bad!

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