I know Google is unpopular here, but the new design doesn't really change ad visibility. Just compare the designs side-by-side [1]. If anything, the new design emphasizes colorful organic favicons.
Every Google result now looks like an ad
651–660 of 1001 posts
Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad
#652Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess sites with real, useful content (e.g. Wikipedia) don't need strong SEO since they have a ton of back-links from other sites that validate their high ranking, so "strong SEO" is really about making a less useful site look more useful, which makes sense for them to hate. SEO really translates to "How to fool Google into boosting your ranking artifically".
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.
Wikipedia seeming to lose relevance is like my old high school teachers finally getting their way over a decade later...
Do you find their search tool more effective than appending "wikipedia" to your Google search?
Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad
#653My assumption here is that this decision is one where someone had an A/B test that showed people are more likely to click on an ad when the content is structured the way it’s shown. Which comes at the cost of a good user experience, where the feature PM didn’t truly ask: “does this deliver any value to the people using the search?” Always trying to remember the wonderful excerpt[0] from Ken Kocienda’s “Creative Selec…
A consequence of having a monopoly is not needing to deliver as much value. I see comments advocating using a different search engine, but the small number of users that move do a different search engine because of this won't offset the increase in revenue Google will see. They pay Apple and Mozilla a substantial amount of money to be the default search engine and most users won't bother to change it.
If they get bad enough, people will make the effort to change the default search engine. Seems Google has been trying to do this slowly (aka boiling a frog), but similarly to a market bubble, at some point it'll pop and they'll take exponential losses to their market share.
Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad
#654Earlier 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.
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…
Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad
#655Earlier quoted context omitted.
To play devil's advocate, these kind of brand ads are usually very cheap and frequently generate some incrementality - you're basically paying to have your links take over a larger part of page 1. Even if competitors weren't going to advertise, it might be worth it.
I pay five figures a month for my "$domain" ad. It's not cheap by any means, but we're forced to buy, otherwise our competitors steal our traffic.
Similarly with GTLDs. Many companies have to register their own .sucks so someone else doesn't stand a website up there. What a pointless waste of money.
Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad
#656Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Thanks for ruining the Web, Google. I posted the solution below, which I found a few days ago. The script will work with greasemonkey and tampermonkey, it will provide you with results similar to the ones before the change. If you also use uMatrix, there will be no ads. https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/395257-better-google
> "the solution" That's a solution, but not a particularly great one since it requires too much from the user to see mass adoption.
That still requires somewhat less from the user than my solution: a filtering proxy. On the other hand, the latter enables a far more customised browsing experience and one that isn't restricted to a single browser on a single computer.
...which brings me to another great point this illustrates: if you want to customise your experience, if you want to be able to control how you see the Web, then you need to make an effort, and the amount you exert is essentially proportional to how much you can change.
Yet the majority of users have shown that they are willing to take whatever Google throws at them with little opposition. I find that a little sad and ironic in this era of "everyone can code" propaganda (I've seen even Google advertises something like that on its homepage); or perhaps the latter is just an attempt to increase the population of intelligent yet docile and obedient corporate drones... I know developers --- web developers --- who really hated the changes yet made no effort to fix it themselves, despite almost certainly having the skills to.
Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad
#657I'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…
> I still hate it
I left a strongly worded feedback on their form
Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad
#658Would like to hear anybody from Google (anyone?) try to defend this as "not being evil".
For a long time I have dismissed the perrenial chant that starts every time Google does something someone doesn't like that they're now "evil".
But this really seems to be 100% pure user hostile and directly in conflict with Google's mission to "organise the world's information".
Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad
#659I'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…
> I still hate it I left a strongly worded feedback on their form
Just wait until their feedback forms get ads.
Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad
#660They really couldn’t care less about their reputation could they?