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Google shares hit $1,000 after strong earnings

bbc.co.uk

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

#191

Post by uniclaude »

rprospero wrote: post #175
ChuckMcM wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Danny Sullivan over at Searchengineland has done a better job of chronicling the changes but to give you a flavor, the size of the ad space before the first organic has grown tremendously, the injection of Google properties (G+, Youtube, etc) has further pushed on search results. When a buying intent is detected the 'shopping' bar activates which only shows shopping results from people who advertise on Google…

I performed your experiment and it didn't seem to match your conclusions. My search was: jwt web toolkit The search page itself had no Google ads on it. The top link was the homepage for the toolkit project. There were no ad links on the page. The second and third links were for wikipedia, which contained no Google ads. The fourth link did have Google ads on it. The fifth and sixth lengths did not. The seventh link d…

You really took an extreme here. Those queries are so far from the mainstream that the fact that you don't see ads for those keywords doesn't invalidate your parent. Think outside of those niche queries to realize what a more traditional user sees.

A query like "LA Car Rental" will give you an idea of what the parent post describes.

If you want to stick closer to the tech niche, try "build iphone app". Even the query "java profiler" gets me four ads on the page.

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

#192

Post by Hermel »

fersho311 wrote: post #147

Fun fact: If you had bought a call yesterday for $300, it would now be worth $3100. 1000% return on investment. Yesterday I bought a chipotle call (because of earnings release) for $600 and now its worth $3600 Now that the political budget debate is over, I think we will see a spectacularly volatile movement upwards and strong earnings will push stocks to absurd prices way over any reason. The best thing to do is to…

Google has a tradition of jumping up to 10% in either direction after quarterly releases. It might be worthwhile to buy both, put and call options before a release and then profit from the one that goes into the money.

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

#193

Post by dekhn »

grey-area wrote: post #190
azakai wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On my 26" display I have almost never seen ads taking up all the space It depends what you search for. If you search for something Google can monetize, like this search for sofas http://i.imgur.com/KAZ6zuq.jpg then little room is left for "normal" results. But if you search for something non-monetizable, of course less ads will show up.

Is there just one normal result there on that entire screen? Ouch.

How many people typing [ sofa ] want generic information about sofas, compared to people buying sofas. The keyword drips ads.

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

#194

Post by plywoodtrees »

azakai wrote: post #186
sytelus wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On my 26" display I have almost never seen ads taking up all the space. In fact most of the time, there is one or two ads at the top and rest 80% of the space if organic search results. People cherry pick examples to show how bad ads are but in general it's not true. So, no, ranking is still critical, well and alive with good algorithms. Current revenue increase is because of YouTube's contribution that's finally hap…

> On my 26" display I have almost never seen ads taking up all the space It depends what you search for. If you search for something Google can monetize, like this search for sofas http://i.imgur.com/KAZ6zuq.jpg then little room is left for "normal" results. But if you search for something non-monetizable, of course less ads will show up.

The organic results are a list of sofa vendors, each with pretty boring text descriptions like "we offer great sofas at great prices and with up to 4 years interest free credit available, there has never been a better time to buy! ‎Fabric Sofas - ‎Famous Brands - ‎Leather Sofas - ‎Carpets". Similarly on Bing and DDG. There is not much to choose between them.

A page full of blah blah sofas is not very helpful if I'm looking to buy a sofa.

To me it seems actually more useful (and attractive) to show photos, prices and filters in the "Shopping" results seem actually much more attractive and useful, or a map, or some kind of ratings.

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

#195

Post by cynwoody »

azakai wrote: post #186
sytelus wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On my 26" display I have almost never seen ads taking up all the space. In fact most of the time, there is one or two ads at the top and rest 80% of the space if organic search results. People cherry pick examples to show how bad ads are but in general it's not true. So, no, ranking is still critical, well and alive with good algorithms. Current revenue increase is because of YouTube's contribution that's finally hap…

> On my 26" display I have almost never seen ads taking up all the space It depends what you search for. If you search for something Google can monetize, like this search for sofas http://i.imgur.com/KAZ6zuq.jpg then little room is left for "normal" results. But if you search for something non-monetizable, of course less ads will show up.

If you just type "sofa", the most logical assumption is, you're trying to buy one. Here's what I got, searching for "sofa" from a WAN address in the Boston area:

http://goo.gl/QuLvsD

Lots of ads, and the organic results are also mostly sellers, essentially free ads.

However, the results change radically, and the ad density drops, as you add qualifying keywords, e.g., "sofa kinds", "sofa quality", "sofa donation", "sofa wiki", etc. I would judge Google's results as top-notch.

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

#196

Post by damon_c »

wtvanhest wrote: post #17
turing wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And in my experience Google products have gotten significantly better and more polished in the last few years. Goes to show that their products aren't getting worse , just shifting in focus and priority.

Which products specifically have gotten better?

Google places API makes my customers happy!

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

#197

Post by plywoodtrees »

thetrb wrote: post #187
rprospero wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I performed your experiment and it didn't seem to match your conclusions. My search was: jwt web toolkit The search page itself had no Google ads on it. The top link was the homepage for the toolkit project. There were no ad links on the page. The second and third links were for wikipedia, which contained no Google ads. The fourth link did have Google ads on it. The fifth and sixth lengths did not. The seventh link d…

"jwt web toolkit" and "neutron spin echo" are your best examples of results that might contain ads? How about "playstation 4" for example?

I get one ad there. The first organic result is the Sony homepage. The second is the wikipedia page.

Seems pretty reasonable.

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

#198

Post by ChuckMcM »

grey-area wrote: post #166
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…

Both Google and Apple have reached this stage at around the same time in my opinion - both are now milking existing users rather than looking for innovative new markets or products. Once companies grow to a certain size it seems almost inevitable.

I'm not sure of the 'milking users' (which seems more pejorative than I feel about the situation). It's more of a 'business rules' than 'loose rules.'

I was at Google from 2006 to 2010, I arrived just after they decided "mini kitchens" (which were amazing collections of snacks and drinks near every bunch of engineers) needed to be reigned in, and left just after the first of the big purges of non-project projects. I was fortunate that since I had worked for Eric Schmidt at Sun we knew each other enough that I felt comfortable asking him pointed questions, like "Uh, seriously? What does changing out the juice supplier (Odwalla) for a cheaper one do for employess?" And he would often answer with insights into Google 'growing up' in many ways the same way Sun did. Much of the fiscal questions were being driven by Patrick Pichette who was the new CFO and trying to get a handle on where all the money was going, and of course in 2009 there was the economic crash and it really drove home the issue of "How much money is 'too much?'" (answer none) and "How much money do we need for the worse case scenario?" (answer all we can get) and questions of "Gee we burn money like gasoline, what would happen if suddenly nobody wanted to advertise on the Internet?" Those kinds of questions lead to a maturation process around money, and making sure that all the money that could be in the bank, was in the bank. Just good business. Challenging to make compelling user experiences though, although Apple had done so.

So long way of saying I don't think that Google is "milking" their customers so much as they are no longer giving quite the value they used to, choosing instead to keep that additional value for themselves.

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