Let’s face it. This is largely a first world problem. In a few months we will soon forget that this is a new design and will shriek when someone shows us the old design. I am thinking of all the ink that was used up when iOS7 was launched with flat icons
Every Google result now looks like an ad
811–820 of 1001 posts
Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad
#812Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used to work at Bing. If you really want Bing to improve, the best thing you can do is just use it: clicks on search results, plus backs and dwell times, are vital training data. Ideally you could use Bing as your default engine, then fall back to Google whenever there's a search that doesn't yield good results. If you have the time, you can also use the Feedback link on the bottom-right of the page to report bad s…
>Ideally you could use Bing as your default engine, then fall back to Google whenever there's a search that doesn't yield good results. This is what I do with DDG. Unless I have a pretty specific search, or want Google's really nice live sports scores widgets, DDG is usually pretty good.
DDG doesn't track what you click on, so unfortunately you are not contributing much to improving its and Bing's search quality by using it instead of Bing.
Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad
#813Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think it is. Their hard-earned reputation for canceling services is really hurting them now. They never accounted for the effect of all the users they've been continually pissing off moving up in the ranks in companies and deciding never to use Google services. The leaked communication that suggests that they could actually cancel GCP doomed any chance that that would be a big player next to AWS and Azure.
> I don't think it is. Their hard-earned reputation for canceling services is really hurting them now I've only ever heard people complain about this on here, nowhere else.
They don't typically complain, but when asked, it's common knowledge among all the programmers at work and all the ones I know. Google can't be counted on. Furthermore, it's tech types who make the decision to use GCP or not, not average Joes who use their other services, so you'd want to look more at places like this for the prevailing opinions.
Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad
#814I'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…
> This is part of Google's attempt to de-prioritise the URL. URLs have always been an implementation detail and not a user feature. From the very beginning it was intended that users would follow links, not type in URLs. HTML was built on hiding URLs behind text. Then AOL keywords happened. Then search explosion happened. And short URLs. And QR codes for real-world linking. And bookmarks because yet again typing in U…
Sidenote: your comment gets downvoted,huh. Though I don't agree with you I'm happy to see someone with opposite arguments. Have an upvote as you contributing greatly to this conversation.
Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad
#815Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I were a competitor, and it’s that cheap and effective for Expedia, then I’d never allow Expedia to have that real estate.
It's absolutely extortion, but it's cheaper for Expedia to buy than a competitor due to Google's auction rules. Essentially, the bid to be #1 is discounted by the click-through rate. If 90% of people who search "expedia.com" will click an ad for Expedia, and only 10% of people who search "expedia.com" will click an ad for travelsite.com, travelsite.com has to pay 10x what Expedia does to make up for the lost revenue.
Wait, I'm confused. Are you saying that Expedia pays Google less when people click on the ad vs when they click on something else?
Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad
#816I've been using DDG for a couple of months now (longest streak ever, I usually go back to Google but the !g options helps). Anyway, I don't see what is different and the same from what ads look(ed) like? could I have become so desensitized so quickly? Is it the missing of that green URL? Hmm, didn't even notice although it's there on DDG.
Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad
#817I've been using duckduckgo and bing for a while now. Google is just a fallback.
My biggest beef with DDG is that they do not do worldwide results very well. Their results are overwhelmingly US centric. As an example.... I search on DDG, "buy cricket equipment near me". I am not behind a VPN and whatsmyip correctly identifies my hostname with the correct European country suffix. However, the top results on DDG for this query is "Dick's Sporting Goods". Click on that and I get a nasty "GDPR DSG So…
Startpage shows more relevant local results for me, it's essentially a proxy to Google search. DDG supports redirect to Startpage by using "!s".
Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad
#818Earlier quoted context omitted.
Users used to care about paths and other descriptors. A decade ago, we were fighting for human readable resource locators. However, users have been taught progressively to ignore them as too complex. (Just the same as it happened for any advanced, but user accessible browser controls.) Why is it that 25 years into web usage, any controlled access is deemed too complicated? (Mind that other technologies were already a…
Why is it that 25 years into web usage, any controlled access is deemed too complicated? Two words: corporate greed. It's so much easier to persuade and herd them to where they can be "monetised" when they don't know how things work, nor can't figure out how and where to learn.
Somehow the knowledge industry has turned into dumbing down as a business. There's a TV ad for a smart speaker integrated car, showing a hip, but managerial type man downloading the route to his workplace to his car by a voice command from home and subsequently happily arriving at work. – How do you manage to make a living, if you can't memorize you daily drive from home to work? How is this a product? Has augmentation of human intellect turned into a zero-sum game?
Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad
#819Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let me explain based on my 15 years of adtech experience: HTML is already fast (see HN for an example). HTML is already universal across devices and browsers. HTML is already published and easily cached for billions of pieces of content. AMP is a fork of HTML that only targets mobile browsers specifically linking from Google search results. It's useless on its own, but AMP is required to get higher placement on searc…
This makes sense. With all that and browser fingerprinting and accounts and "other" mechanisms, do they even need cookies anymore?
First party storage won't be affected without some major AI tech in browsers so cookies are still the best deterministic connection, especially since most people are logged into a Google service already (gmail, chrome, android, youtube, etc).
Probabilistic techniques are used for anonymous users or environments like iOS Safari that are very strict.
Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad
#820Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which is complete fucking bullshit. It's driving me mental that when I search for something, Wikipedia usually isn't on the front page. It's almost always the best result for most things, it should be on top.
Shouldn't you then just go to wikipedia and search there ? You know to stop the "F * bullshit" and "save your mental state" ?
Wikipedia's search is totally inferior to google. It requires correct spelling within one or two edit distances and the SERP is far less informative. This is a common enough action that those seconds add up. If ddg wants to be competitive they need to fix this.