Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google backtracks on search results design

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 356 posts

Re: Google backtracks on search results design

#231

Post by lioeters »

allovernow wrote: post #146
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.

It is in a hacker's nature to assume the worst, and often rightly so. Many of kind of people that come to HN have personally worked on various forms of gamification and rule bending. It's as natural to SV culture as water to fish - indeed some of the biggest companies wouldn't be around without skirting rules and arguably morals. The stench of MBAs and quarterly profit optimizing execs is all over the valley. And the…

> The stench of MBAs and quarterly profit optimizing execs is all over the valley.

A good explanation for the increasingly normalized dark patterns ruining user experience on the web.

"Conspiratorial"? You bet. Have we not seen huge (and small) companies committed to screwing the public in as many ways as they can? It's not by accident, there's a widespread, condescending disrepect of users and just plain old conspiratorial maliciousness, intent on manipulating users and squeezing more profit.

Google's search results design (backtracked for now) is a clear symptom.

Re: Google backtracks on search results design

#232

Post by fulldecent2 »

anonytrary wrote: post #137
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...

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…

You think that's bad, see AMP

Re: Google backtracks on search results design

#233

Post by netcan »

The perspective of this article feel naive for 2020. "You can't put out forest fires by pissing, but if we all piss together... uhm maybe... no wait"

Here's what I mean:

withering criticism from politicians, consumers and the press over the way in which search results displays were made to look like... .. It’s also a pretty evil by a company whose mantra was “Don’t be evil.” ..paid advertisements are ever more indistinguishable

This is like addressing the plastic straw problem on Shell oil rigs. Google and Facebook are both (among other things) more influential over media than Murdoch and the next five runners-up combined. Traditional media obviously also violate their own "journalistic ethics" for money reasons, but at least there is such a code. They teach college courses on it.

Google & FB have more influence on things like elections, war/peace & culture, but they don't even have an ethic to violate. Zuch won't even admit that Facebook is a political media outlet, despite being the most significant one to have ever existed.

Withering criticism of font choices is so 2007. "Vehement demands for antitrust action" is what we're about in the 1920s.

Re: Google backtracks on search results design

#235

Post by vic-traill »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #199
vic-traill wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I missed the edit window.

I do appreciate the heads up, thanks.

Re: Google backtracks on search results design

#236

Post by tristador »

xiphias2 wrote: post #194
SquareWheel wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So my bid just drives up the prices advertisers need to bid to show me ads? Sounds like a win for a company that sells ads.

Asking for your "long term value" is interesting, although for users who run ad blockers and therefore never click an ad, isn't their value super low anyway? Imagine Google asking for $50/yr to not show ads, installing an ad blocker, then a year later seeing Google ask $5/yr as your value plummets.

Re: Google backtracks on search results design

#237

Post by zaroth »

spiderfarmer wrote: post #152
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…

As an Adsense publisher, I noticed they enabled ‘Auto ads’ on every website, automatically. What this does is it plasters 15 ads in a long web page, it adds interstitials to mobile page and it just fucking ruins your websites UX. It’s enabled on millions of websites now. It’s like Google is desperate to make more money. I can disable it, for now. I won’t be surprised if at some point in the future, they make it the s…

Those interstitials are horrific. And they are on so many sites now.

Google deserves as much condemnation for introducing those as it does for the recent redesign.

I think most people don’t realize it’s Google’s fault and blame the sites.

Thank you the comment. It explains so much of how the Internet has gotten markedly worse in the last couple months.

These “auto” AdWords are totally overwhelming and awful.

Re: Google backtracks on search results design

#238

Post by BurningFrog »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #218
spiderfarmer wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an Adsense publisher, I noticed they enabled ‘Auto ads’ on every website, automatically. What this does is it plasters 15 ads in a long web page, it adds interstitials to mobile page and it just fucking ruins your websites UX. It’s enabled on millions of websites now. It’s like Google is desperate to make more money. I can disable it, for now. I won’t be surprised if at some point in the future, they make it the s…

“It’s like Google is desperate to make more money.” It’s getting exponentially harder to achieve their expected growth rates. They haven’t managed to find another significant revenue source beside ads so they have to squeeze everything out of that. Kind of sad that all the super smart people there still haven’t come up with any product they can sell with enough revenue besides ads.

Google search+ads are a once in a generation in the world phenomenon.

It's not at all strange they can't just pop out a few more of those.

Re: Google backtracks on search results design

#239

Post by judge2020 »

leereeves wrote: post #191
labawi wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 a…

Letting Google crawl your page and not telling it to stop via robots.txt is implied consent, and a german court case confirmed this[0].

0: https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/german-federal-court-rules...

Re: Google backtracks on search results design

#240

Post by AJ007 »

gundmc wrote: post #139
californical wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The change was a welcome QoL improvement in my opinion. Typing a new address or copying the URL of the page I'm on covers ~95% of the use cases where I'm accessing the address bar on mobile and the change significantly reduces friction for both. It's exhausting to see every minute move Google/Amazon makes filtered through the HN cynicism lens. Edit: Talking specifically about the chrome on Android omnibar change. The…

Google has explicitly said they want to get rid of URLs.

Here is a story from April 2019: https://www.wired.com/story/google-wants-to-kill-the-url/

Post reply on HN