Live data from Hacker News

Every Google result now looks like an ad

twitter.com

901–910 of 1001 posts

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#901
post #781

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't owe anyone anything. It trades this unbiased accuracy for eyeballs on its advertising, the same advertising that many folks in this comment section are condemning. Without the advertising, Google doesn't owe anyone anything. It's not a charity.

Its a sad world you live in where businesses don't owe you to behave ethically. You'll probably figure out at some point that they do, and that this whole law thing is a proxy for ethics we put in place so that we can punish people that don't. Until then, live in your world.

I live in the same world you do, minus that smug sense of entitlement to products and services others provide.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#902
post #839

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or add "w" keyword for https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=%s&go=... bookmark on Android Firefox and then search with "w searchstring" from its address bar. It's silly that it's necessary to create separate bookmark for this, though. Native search engines, surprisingly, don't support keywords there.

Why silly? It is in fact a bookmark - just a parametrized one. :)

They do have native search engines with neat option to add them from a site's search field. Why not add keywords too as they did on desktop.

I feel silly adding bookmarks for the things I already have in search engine list.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#903

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google decides the layout. You can have the 'strongest SEO' in the world and Google still decide if they put 1 ad or 9 in front of the result. Strength of SEO is irrelevant to the ads. The only thing Google hate is when sites manipulate themself to rank higher and offer a worse user experience.

Strength of SEO is irrelevant to the ads. It wouldn't be very surprising if Google varies the number of ads in a search results page based on the search term. For sites that have strong SEO for all of their key search terms that would be indistinguishable from Google placing more ads in pages where that site ranks highly.

My understanding it is very linked to 1) Profitability. Search terms around things like lawyers and credit cards. You'll almost always see 4 ads. 2) Genuine relevance. Google know for certain searches your not likely looking to buy something and to keep credibility don't show ads.

Occasionally you can find pockets of less competitive search's that 1) allow ads 2) relate to your product via the algorithm even if they don't to a human brain 3) Align to your desired audience and these can give great return.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#904
post #822

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless I misunderstood, that is something you disable in each (google)app that has that "feature". In Gmail for instance: settings: General settings: Open links in gmail. Turn on for "faster" browsing. Default is on. Tip: Use firefox focus instead as the default browser to open all links. If the link warrants further look copy the url to your main browser. The above has nothing to do with amp. But to not detract, amp…

> Unless I misunderstood, that is something you disable in each (google)app that has that "feature". > In Gmail for instance: settings: General settings: > Open links in gmail. Turn on for "faster" browsing. I changed this setting, but now I clicked a link in gmail and indeed it opens via Firefox, but it still gets redirected through a google-URL before getting to the real page. I want to disable that behaviour most…

Then use a generic email client instead of Gmail mobile app or web email interface.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#906

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crazy. User agent strings are such a broken concept where every browser pretends to be another. How anyone is still attempting to use them to do anything useful is beyond me. If you a building a webapp, use feature detection not user agent strings.

UA is advertisement (heh) of features. Why shouldn’t you use what the browser tells you?

Think about the mapping between features and UA strings. Over time features are added or removed. So those mappings grow stale.

Check out feature detection vs browser detection, it explains some of the challenges to relying on user agent strings.

I think the rule is: detect features, don't rely on unreliable proxies for features.

https://mobile.htmlgoodies.com/html5/client/browser-and-feat...

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#907
post #878

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They intentionally show a broken UI if your user agent is Vivaldi. [1] In my opinion this is really concerning. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkayN3xiRDc

Crazy. User agent strings are such a broken concept where every browser pretends to be another. How anyone is still attempting to use them to do anything useful is beyond me. If you a building a webapp, use feature detection not user agent strings.

User agents ARE feature detection, but for the server.

Now I tend to agree with the general advice that anywhere you can use JS based feature detection, you should prefer that.

But hell, there are times js based feature detection REALLY doesn't cut it.

For example, here's the Chromium team recommending UA based feature detection for handling the SameSite kerfuffle: https://www.chromium.org/updates/same-site/incompatible-clie...

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#908
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is DDG has the exact pattern you are all whining about: the organic results have icons and the ad says "Ad" instead.

>you are all whining about: the organic results have icons and the ad says "Ad" instead. You're being condescending but appear to have missed the point. The "Ad" text in Google's results is in the exact same position and is effectively the same pixel dimensions as the favicon. It's cleverly designed and placed to resemble a favicon, to give the over-all layout more uniformity between ads and organic results. As a use…

Well.. the DuckDuckGo and Google implementations are a little different but on both sites the ads are designed to blend into the organic results. If we weren't talking about the icon we could talk about the background colour, font, text colour, layout, URL in green etc. I don't begrudge DuckDuckGo, they have a very large competitor on their hands and wish them a lot of luck.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#909
post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, for the sake of argument, let's accept your worldview where good and evil are subjective and therefore irrelevant. The only thing left then is, what do we want? It becomes a question of what do I want, and who can I view as allies in achieving my goals. I want a search tool that serves my needs, not the needs of advertisers. I want privacy and I don't want distractions. So Google is not on my side, they are my…

> Okay, for the sake of argument, let's accept your worldview where good and evil are subjective and therefore irrelevant. How did you make that giant leap? Subjective doesn’t mean irrelevant, it means everyone has their own opinion on it which makes it quite relevant. Your tangent was difficult to follow on the sole basis that Google is no different than any other entity. The US government is evil because we don’t s…

> How did you make that giant leap? Subjective doesn’t mean irrelevant, it means everyone has their own opinion on it which makes it quite relevant.

Relevant to what? If objective and subjective ideas are both relevant, why even bother pointing out that it's subjective?

Subjective ideas aren't admissable as evidence in most debates. Whether or not you intended it, when people go through the effort to say an idea is subjective, it's usually because they're trying to cut down the validity of that idea. So if that wasn't your intent, maybe you should have been more clear.

> Your tangent was difficult to follow on the sole basis that Google is no different than any other entity. The US government is evil because we don’t share the same goals. Vegans are evil because we don’t share the same goals. Football players are evil because we don’t share the same goals. I can go on but you should get the picture by now.

No, actually I don't get the picture. Yes, anyone can label anyone evil.

> At the end of the day, you should understand that businesses exist solely to make money. If they didn’t make money, they wouldn’t have investors. Without investors, most businesses would not exist. Without those businesses, we would be objectively worse off.

Actually, that's not objective, that's subjective. I don't agree that the world is better by having a huge amount of private data centralized under Google's control.

(Incidentally, see how saying that's subjective sounds a whole lot like saying it's irrelevant?)

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#910
post #799

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> it's tech types who make the decision to use GCP or not

Perhaps at startups. At big companies, the call is made by directors and VPs that are well fined by sales people - and that's where the real money is.

Post reply on HN