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Google backtracks on search results design

techcrunch.com

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Re: Google backtracks on search results design

#191

Post by leereeves »

labawi wrote: post #166
anonytrary wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember that, and I am a still a tiny bit salty about how it impacted me as a user. Ever since, it has been so unnecessarily tedious get the raw image link from Google. Half the time, I end up with a data url, sometimes I get taken to the backing website, who usually don't know anything about accessibility, sometimes I get the image. It's all just so much worse now. That said, it is absolutely theft for Google to…

> That said, it is absolutely theft for Google to source data from your site, then use that to add value to their site, without giving you any click-through traffic. Would you be OK, if Google didn't show images from your site on their site? If so, I believe a simple robots.txt statement should be sufficient. > This would mean that you would get paid to have good SEO, or to be a central hub. The websites that compris…

> Would you be OK, if Google didn't show images from your site on their site? If so, I believe a simple robots.txt statement should be sufficient.

Giving people a way to opt out doesn't absolve Google. They need to get permission to use the property of others, not default to using it unless told not to.

They're acting as if everything that isn't locked up, and doesn't have a note on it saying otherwise, is free for anyone to borrow.

> I don't really get the logic by which someone letting people find you, should pay for that privilege.

Google can let people find sites without copying the content of those sites.

In fact, when Google copies your content, people are less likely to go to your site, the very opposite of "letting people find you".

Re: Google backtracks on search results design

#192

Post by empath75 »

product50 wrote: post #117
Animats wrote: post #100

This may be a major event in Google's history - the point where they overdid ads and started to be perceived as a inferior service. This is sometimes called "pulling a Myspace". Myspace was once the top social network. They looked unchallengeable. Then they got greedy. Myspace kept upping their ad content until usage dropped. Instead of backing off the ads, they upped the ad content even more to maintain revenue. Usa…

Nothing like this is going to happen. Google Search is leaps and bounds ahead beyond anything else. And Google Assistant on top of this makes it even more effective. This was a mistake by Google and they heard the feedback and corrected it. MySpace analogy doesn't make sense since there is no Facebook, which was a competent social network, here. Search is a massive investment and you don't just have random companies…

> Google Search is leaps and bounds ahead beyond anything else

I don’t really think so, not any more.

Re: Google backtracks on search results design

#193

Post by PixyMisa »

seanwilson wrote: post #150

Duckduckgo shows favicons in search results as well but nobody complains about it. People should be focusing on how to make Google ads stand out more and not the use of favicons.

Check the settings panel. You can configure everything, including the favicons.

Re: Google backtracks on search results design

#194

Post by xiphias2 »

SquareWheel wrote: post #186
xiphias2 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in Youtube I can (and do) pay to make ads go away, which I'm happy to do, as I get a great service in return. I just wish that I could do the same for Google search.

I'd bet that Contributor will work there. https://contributor.google.com

I view Google Contributor as a bad product offering, as it doesn't give me any guarantee.

Matt Cutts wrote that it works like if I would be bidding with an empty ad, but Google ad system works by CPC, so actually the product should be free in theory :)

Google exactly knows my long term value, so it could ask for that amount of money. Also it's for AdSense / DoubleClick, not for Google.com, where ads matter the most.

Re: Google backtracks on search results design

#196

Post by throwaway3699 »

californical wrote: post #134
gundmc wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN has gone off the deep end in reading conspiratorial motivations behind every UI change and tweak.

I don't think it's a conspiracy -- If you can't go to expedia.com as easily as you can Google search Expedia, you'll probably do the later. And if you Google search Expedia, the first result is usually an ad for Expedia. Now Google makes money on you in a way they hadn't before. The more people expect Google to deal with all of the silly "web domain stuff" for them, the more money Google makes. It's all about the inc…

Google encourages all engineers to write an ethics section in their design docs, but like all design docs things tend to be optional.

Source: Google employee.

Re: Google backtracks on search results design

#197

Post by papito »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #141
anonytrary wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't notice that. I never used exact dimension searches because more often than not, they eliminate all of the interesting results which I would have been able to crop/resize to my desired dimensions manually. It's better to have some results you can transform than to have no results.

They also had very useful "larger than 4MP", "larger than 8MP", ... options. It was easy to find very high resolution images.

Man, the old Internet was great, wasn't it.... Now we get no proper advanced image search, and a bunch of paid Russian trolls. Good trade.

Re: Google backtracks on search results design

#198

Post by herf »

capableweb wrote: post #135
harshitaneja wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google was sued by Getty and had to make the change. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/02/internet-rages-after...

The only thing they would have to change to make Getty happy is that when you click on the image, it takes you to the place where the image was used, instead of the direct url of the image. All the rest of the design choices was Google's, and we rightly blame them for purposefully degrading the experience of using Google Image search.

And, if only it didn't make a new tab every time.

Re: Google backtracks on search results design

#199

Post by wizzwizz4 »

vic-traill wrote: post #160
drno123 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree about search result quality. I switched to DDG over a year ago and only need to use !g bangs when I search either for some specific local stuff or when I search for news that have happened in the last day or two. Actually, in some cases DDG gives more relevant search results than Google, especially for programming stuff.

I concur. I only occasionally use !g w/ DDG now, whereas two years ago it was more frequent (although I can't quantify). I stuck w/ it as I wanted some distance between myself and Google. Whether I've achieved any distance is an open question and I suspect that it is less than it feels like when I use DDG. The results are comparable in my current experience. Compage searches for 'bluetooth speakers' on Google [0] and…

I really recommend editing out most of that URL, or at least shoving something an escape in there to stop it being clickable.

Re: Google backtracks on search results design

#200

Post by BLanen »

Only slight related:

Google's last big search update has been a complete disaster for me. Very naive and arrogant assumptions of the semantics of my search. I can't search anything more than a few words strung together. If you try to search a sentence that you don't precisely know (like a couple words are different) then you're shit out of luck now even though it used to work great.

Google is literally becoming worse at search.

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