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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

#621

Post by xp84 »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #520
rijoja wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they really? Wouldn't a "strong SEO" site be ideal for their spiders?

If you have good SEO and drift to the top of queries that actually are relevant for your site then you don't need to buy as many Google ads.

The way Google defends its income stream against that is simple: They allow your competitors to buy ads on your own names and trademarks, then you're forced to do so as well because otherwise your organic link is below the ads. It used to be that it mattered since only dumb users would click the ads. But now that they're unshaded and look 99% identical, only super nerds bypass ads. Meaning your #1 organic result is basically only good for bragging rights and nothing more if there's anyone willing to pay even a small amount to jump up above you.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#622

Post by tomaszs »

Retric wrote: post #570
naravara wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Thanks for ruining the Web, Google. When does the mass-migration to DuckDuckGo go mainstream?

Might be now? I just swapped my default search to DuckDuckGo. I have been having several issues with google search recently, this just seems like a good time to make the jump.

I switched yesterday. I love it does not try to guess what i search for

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#623

Post by fjabre »

Even worse type in "What to watch" and now Google pushes its own app on you and pushes down legitimate web results for this search in favor of their web app solution for this search.

As an independent app dev I find this unconscionable.

I expect to be fed web results that are not tainted by Google's own offerings especially not in the form of an web app that pushes other independent results halfway down the page.

It's actions like this that make it clear Google is a threat to the web at large and this threat needs to be neutralized or we will all pay down the line.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#624

Post by welder »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #590
pyrale wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, Wikipedia has been relegated lower and lower in search results. So much so that I now specifically use their search tool rather than go through google just in case some interesting thing pops up.

Having to search for “xxxxxxx wiki” more and more now. No I don’t want Healthline and Medicinenet links above the Wikipedia entry, thank you Google. I wish by each search result there was a button that said “banish this domain to oblivion, I never want to see it again.” You could improve search really fast that way if you still cared about things like that.

Yes, a ban button has been on my search wish list since Google existed!

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#627

Post by winrid »

pushcx wrote: post #29

https://www.google.com/about/honestresults/ It's a little confusing to read now, so for context: at the time Google published this, it only put ads in the sidebar to the right of search results. This post was written to criticize the practice of putting ads atop search results, which competitors sometimes formatted almost indistinguishably from organic search results.

You can tell that's old because it's only ~200kb...

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#628

Post by SlowRobotAhead »

josteink wrote: post #310
manmal wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can always prepend „!g“ before your query in DDG to fall back to Google.

No need to prepend. You can bang it at the end and retry your search if it doesn’t work with DDG.

Yea, but in my scenario I’m driving and need the right result right now. I’m not in any sense pro-google, so it pains me they are still the best at this.

I can’t append or prepend, I had time for one search and need a result now before I miss a turn.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#629

Post by bashinator »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #396
gpvos wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, as a user, I care about not announcing loudly to Google every single step I take on the web.

Then why are you searching on Google? That's where you would see an AMP page served from a Google AMP cache. If you searched on Bing, you would get AMP pages served from a Bing AMP cache instead.

In the past year, I've seen amp pages increasingly often linked from all sorts of places (reddit, FB, here, etc) besides Google's search results.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#630

Post by empath75 »

paganel wrote: post #560
ChuckMcM wrote: post #453

Very much a way to mitigate the FTC's requirements on making advertising more distinct than organic results. It is an unpopular opinion but I believe Google is dying. They have been for a long time. The cancer is that nothing other than search ads generates the revenue and margins they need and the margins on search ads are now down 90% from where they were in 2010. Personally I'm long on Microsoft/Bing as a candidat…

To be honest I’m not sure what everyone else is searching for on Google the search engine anymore. I personally use it as a Wikipedia search engine in 90% of the cases while 9% is for stackoverflow queries, other than that I get all the info I’m interested in from dedicated FB groups and different sub-reddits. And I’m also a 40-year old guy, from what I can see at people younger than me they spend almost all their we…

Makes me wonder how much Wikipedia would be worth as a privately held company.
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