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

Excuse Me, But Where Did Google's Organic Search Results Go?

seobook.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 51 posts

Re: Excuse Me, But Where Did Google's Organic Search Results Go?

#31

Post by seldo »

BenS wrote: post #17

Personally, when I do a local search query, seeing short listings on a map with ratings and a phone number is pretty much exactly what I was looking for even though it doesn't meet the author's definition of 'organic'.

A map with ratings and a phone number is exactly what I want; unfortunately I'm also getting two full-bar text ads and another 4 pay-for-placement local search ads before I get to that. Combined they take up nearly 800 pixels of vertical space, a user experience so terrible and un-Googley that I have to assume it's an error.

Update: seconds after posting this, I refreshed and the full-bar ads went away. Have they just fixed the results?

Re: Excuse Me, But Where Did Google's Organic Search Results Go?

#33

Post by qeorge »

guelo wrote: post #25

I thought everybody had agreed that "above the fold" means nothing.

Not exactly, as I read it. In the Nielsen studies about the fold, I thought the takeaway was that users didn't realize they could/should scroll, and that this is no longer a problem.

That doesn't mean that what content appears above the fold has no effect on the bounce rate or user experience. If all I see above the fold are ads, I'm moving on. Of course, this is Google, so they can get away with significantly more than most.

Re: Excuse Me, But Where Did Google's Organic Search Results Go?

#34

Post by andreyf »

seldo wrote: post #31
BenS wrote: post #17

Personally, when I do a local search query, seeing short listings on a map with ratings and a phone number is pretty much exactly what I was looking for even though it doesn't meet the author's definition of 'organic'.

A map with ratings and a phone number is exactly what I want; unfortunately I'm also getting two full-bar text ads and another 4 pay-for-placement local search ads before I get to that. Combined they take up nearly 800 pixels of vertical space, a user experience so terrible and un-Googley that I have to assume it's an error. Update: seconds after posting this, I refreshed and the full-bar ads went away. Have they jus…

Update: seconds after posting this, I refreshed and the full-bar ads went away. Have they just fixed the results?

Nope, the GoogleMind probably crawled the site, and upon discovering your dissatisfaction with the ads, updated your personalized results appropriately ;)

Re: Excuse Me, But Where Did Google's Organic Search Results Go?

#35

Post by ars »

jimmybot wrote: post #23
niyazpk wrote: post #11

I think even if you get the organic results, they are not organic enough. I searched for "django video tutorial" earlier today. The first organic result? A link to the official django docs and that page does not even include the word "video".

Unfortunately you gotta do this these days: +django +video +tutorial http://www.google.com/search?q=%2Bdjango+%2Bvideo+%2Btutoria... There's probably a Greasemonkey script for this somewhere that can automatically get this old behavior back for you.

When did they change that? I remember when altavista used "or" by default, and then came google which did the (controversial for the time) "and". And it actually did work better!

And now we are back to "or"? Why? So many times I'm not happy with the results because of that.

Re: Excuse Me, But Where Did Google's Organic Search Results Go?

#36

Post by lawrence »

Elepsis wrote: post #20

I'm sorry, but this is a bunch of SEO guys whining about the fact that their dubiously useful sites they spent lots of time trying to move up Google's ranking are no longer at the top of the page. When most people search for "san francisco dentists," why wouldn't they want locations and phone numbers of some of these dentists presented right upfront? This is no different than what Bing, Yahoo and even Duck Duck Go ar…

I didn't see much whining in here.

Aaron is pointing out that there might be big changes coming to far and away the biggest source of referral traffic on the web.

I probably don't have to spell this out for you, but it's a big deal if Google shifts focus from driving traffic to other sites, to driving traffic to its own sites.

Re: Excuse Me, But Where Did Google's Organic Search Results Go?

#37

Post by Periodic »

seldo wrote: post #29
guelo wrote: post #25

I thought everybody had agreed that "above the fold" means nothing.

Yes, all the recent user research we've done (I work at Yahoo) says that users have got a lot more comfortable with scrolling since Nielsen's original research in the 90s. We officially Do Not Care About The Fold now. Anecdotally, for some applications (documentation, news) a single really long document is preferred to lots of pagination. I haven't seen research to that effect though.

I thought that above-the-fold still has to do with first impressions. If I get to a website and I see a link that I looks a mostly-like-what-I-want, but a link that is definitely-what-I-want is further down the page, I'll probably click the mostly-like-what-I-want link because I saw it first and it looks "good enough."

Let's do a thought experiment. If you put the ads all at the top of the page, and all the non-ad search results below the fold you'd probably get a reasonable click rate on the ads. Now, let's think about if we put all the non-ad search results above the fold, and all the ads down at the bottom. Do you think people would get to those ads and read them nearly as much?

Re: Excuse Me, But Where Did Google's Organic Search Results Go?

#38

Post by Periodic »

TFrancis wrote: post #6

Wow, AdBlock makes Google better. I didn't know this was going on.

This has been a trend for me. I've even moved away from using AdBlock, but I still use NoScript, and it's still amazing.

It often surprises me how different some websites look on other people's computers. It makes me realize that advertising really does change the user experience, especially when they're the animated flash ads. A nice, relaxing read suddenly becomes flashy, distracting, and obnoxious.

Re: Excuse Me, But Where Did Google's Organic Search Results Go?

#39

Post by rbrcurtis »

jagjit wrote: post #22

It looks like the results are actually good. If you are searching for dentists in a particular area, chances are you would also like to see them on a map. To me it is a case of Google trying to give a good search result - but using another Google app. And in the bargain raising eyebrows. But if you compare it with Bing, the difference between ads and results on Bing is even harder to make out. I am sure this will dra…

except that maps returns reviews from non-google sites. search maps for "localino atlanta" to see what I mean.

Re: Excuse Me, But Where Did Google's Organic Search Results Go?

#40

Post by skinnymuch »

seldo wrote: post #27
niyazpk wrote: post #11

I think even if you get the organic results, they are not organic enough. I searched for "django video tutorial" earlier today. The first organic result? A link to the official django docs and that page does not even include the word "video".

My first result for the same search: http://www.google.com/search?q=django+video+tutorial was this page: http://showmedo.com/videotutorials/video?name=1100000&fr... Is it possible they fixed the results since you searched?

Peronsalized search and different data centers depending on location make a difference. I received the same result as you.
Post reply on HN