Google shares hit $1,000 after strong earnings • Hacker News Board

Re: Google shares hit $1,000 after strong earnings

#101

Post by tehwebguy » Fri, Oct 18, 2013, 5:38 PM UTC

JonSkeptic wrote: post #3

I think this is interesting because it matches my user experience with Google products in a very inverted way. Google search has gotten worse and worse lately, forcing me on to other search engines with worse UIs just so that I can get useful results. Youtube UI gets worse every time they update it. They cancelled the RSS reader. The email UI keeps getting worse and featuring more ads. But the stock value hit $1000.…

Maybe shittier search results cause more clicks on the ads made to look like search results?

Re: Google shares hit $1,000 after strong earnings

#102

Post by moultano » Fri, Oct 18, 2013, 5:39 PM UTC

fear91 wrote: post #2

I guess the June search-algorithm updates really worked. (Kicking out everyone that earns without giving Google it's piece of the pie). Google keeps removing small business websites from its results, forcing them to use Ad-Words. This strategy cannot be sustained unless they want 100% commercial / 100% junk results. I wonder what will they do in the future.

Google does not make ranking changes based on revenue. We don't even collect statistics about that for ranking changes. Worrying about the fate of small sites in Google's rankings is a reasonable concern, and one that we share. But whatever you think we are doing incorrectly in ranking, it has nothing to do with making more money.

Re: Google shares hit $1,000 after strong earnings

#103

Post by ChuckMcM » Fri, Oct 18, 2013, 5:40 PM UTC

Google historically left a lot of money on the table (not using every spot on the page for ads, giving away services with real value, etc.) They decided to stop doing that when they decided they were a 'peer' of Apple's.

The shareholders love it because it means Google will finally be pulling in as much cash as they 'can' vs as much as they needed. Users seem to be somewhat divided on the issue.

Sophisticated users and people who are long time observers (like Danny Sullivan) have noted that Google is squeezing the value proposition at the expense of people who can ill afford it. ('Ranking' on Google is very much a pay to play kind of thing these days with their page layout). As others have mentioned they have gone all in as an exploiter of their demographic data. And "thinking big" as Larry would always exhort people to do, includes thinking about how much money you could get for the sorts of things that only someone who has Google's knowledge of the activity stream can get.

Now historically this has often been associated with fading influence and success (the old 'killing the goose that lays the egg' kind of thing). It will be interesting to see if Google is an example of this or they manage to grow into actually being a peer of Apple.

Re: Google shares hit $1,000 after strong earnings

#104

Post by brymaster » Fri, Oct 18, 2013, 5:40 PM UTC

Theodores wrote: post #18

Advertising sales is a good indicator as to how well the economy is doing - if times are good then people advertise, if everyone is screaming recession then there is not so much money around to advertise. Hence, if Google does well does that mean the economy as a whole is doing well? Is the Google share price a good indicator, perhaps a better indicator than conventional metrics such as employment level or the FTSE?

No, dollars are scarce so there's more competition for those dollars. Advertising has become more relevant but that's not an indicator that "times are good." Tactics are used to get people to spend money they don't have.

Re: Google shares hit $1,000 after strong earnings

#105

Post by AlexMax » Fri, Oct 18, 2013, 5:41 PM UTC

iamhungry wrote: post #89

moultano wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have any example bad queries, I'd love to see them to debug. If you have your search history on, you can find them here: https://history.google.com/history/

If you have any example bad queries Hey Moultano, how come Google's ad clicks increased by 22% this quarter when Adsense was largely flat? Oh, I see. You decided that Google's properties are more "relevant" especially the ads. Nice scam you got going.

That doesn't look like an example bad query to me.

Re: Google shares hit $1,000 after strong earnings

#106

Post by guiomie » Fri, Oct 18, 2013, 5:41 PM UTC

yetanotherphd wrote: post #56

trevmckendrick wrote: post #44

Share price is relatively meaningless. It needs to be paired to total shares outstanding. It's arbitrary by itself because it's a function of shares outstanding and total market value, one of which the company can (relatively easily) control via stock splits.

I don't think stock splits usually result in "X stock price plummets by 50%" headlines.

I don't think this is what he was insinuating either.

Re: Google shares hit $1,000 after strong earnings

#107

Post by alex_doom » Fri, Oct 18, 2013, 5:45 PM UTC

Semaphor wrote: post #82

chill1 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> .. the last thing I still use is the search, which still feels light weight and easy to use. If you haven't, you should really give DuckDuckGo [1] a shot. I used Google's search for the longest time, and finally just forced myself to switch to DDG this summer. It was rough for a while, but either I've gotten used to their search algorithm / results, or the results have gotten better. I hardly ever have to use Googl…

For me DDG is sometimes okay. Most of the time though, I want to be in the bubble google places me in. DDG gives me results for someone searching for X. Google gives me the X I want.

One thing that kills me is how terrible DDG is at parsing an address. If the street is misspelled at all you get nothing but real estate listings but if it's correct it shows a ghetto gif map from MapQuest :(

Re: Google shares hit $1,000 after strong earnings

#108

Post by brymaster » Fri, Oct 18, 2013, 5:49 PM UTC

debt wrote: post #21

It seems Google has entered a stage where the data is starting to really pay off. They seem to be using it not only to help consumers but also tweak their own business decisions. That's some powerful stuff.

No, Google is merely squeezing organic results off their SERPs and replacing them with ads. That's not helping consumers as they prefer organic results. They have to continuously stuff more ads into the model to keep the growth machine running, making tweaks here and there. Google is probably only a few years away from adding "paid inclusion" into the results like Yahoo used to have, where you could literally pay to have your result listed at the top of the page where it wouldn't look like an advertisement.

"Google said that paid-for clicks increased by a quarter during the July-to-September period, from a year earlier, the highest rate of growth in the past year."

How Google is Killing Organic Search

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5971560

Forrester: Consumers Prefer Organic Search, Not Search Ads, For Discovery

http://searchengineland.com/forrester-consumers-prefer-organ...

Re: Google shares hit $1,000 after strong earnings

#109

Post by jlgreco » Fri, Oct 18, 2013, 5:50 PM UTC

lawdawg wrote: post #11

JonSkeptic wrote: post #3

I think this is interesting because it matches my user experience with Google products in a very inverted way. Google search has gotten worse and worse lately, forcing me on to other search engines with worse UIs just so that I can get useful results. Youtube UI gets worse every time they update it. They cancelled the RSS reader. The email UI keeps getting worse and featuring more ads. But the stock value hit $1000.…

This is because Google has started optimizing for the 99% use case, which most HN'ers usually don't fall under. They originally optimized for what most Googlers like (who are generally the 1%) and have since learned that you can't run a business just pleasing the elite and whiny ones.

Just as an example, they have made recent changes Maps that I, presumably somebody in that untargeted 1% demographic can't figure out. I'm not saying I don't like it, I'm saying I can't figure out how to use it. Maybe my inability to make heads of tails out of how to use the new Maps is a product of my technical inclination, maybe they have created something that I am too clever to use, but I don't find that very plausible.

(specific examples: I can no longer find permalinks (let alone goo[dot]gl shortened permalinks... why was that not the default with old Maps?) and I can no longer figure out how to trigger streetview for any random location (I have only figured out that you can get to it if you click on a business first)).

Re: Google shares hit $1,000 after strong earnings

#110

Post by iamhungry » Fri, Oct 18, 2013, 5:54 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #103

Google historically left a lot of money on the table (not using every spot on the page for ads, giving away services with real value, etc.) They decided to stop doing that when they decided they were a 'peer' of Apple's. The shareholders love it because it means Google will finally be pulling in as much cash as they 'can' vs as much as they needed. Users seem to be somewhat divided on the issue. Sophisticated users a…

For those not keeping track, it really started with Larry Page's ascent to the throne. Panda, Penguin and god knows what made it extremely hard for small sites (read non-advertisers) to rank. Google's PR people kept saying this and that but their ad clicks were increasing by 20-30% a quarter. How stupid do they think we are? Ads are much more relevant in most cases (anecdotal but try it) of high value CPC words.

Now for most commercial searches you see dozens of ads and a few organic results, almost always from sites that also advertise on Google (Amazon, eBay, HP, Dell and the likes.) So the credibility of Google search results for those looking carefully is zero. Search is a blackbox and we're suppose t trust them, but if the trust goes, they're toast. Historically it takes a while for the truth to trickle down to the masses, but it does.