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

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

#41

Post by skinnymuch »

nostrademons wrote: post #16
mattmanser wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how long it will take them to get slapped by someone though? In the UK papers have to clearly identify adverts if presented in an editorial format. Why do google get away with presenting adverts as search results without clearly identifying them? A greyed out 'sponsored link' in the right hand corner is just pathetic, I bet most users don't even understand what that means.

Do you remember what Web 1.0 was like before Google? Search engines would often mix sponsored links into their results with no indication at all that the link had paid for their placement. Google at least puts them in a separate section of the page, labeled.

Google wasn't the first to do that.

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

#42

Post by skinnymuch »

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…

No people aren't actually always looking for Youtube videos. Do you know how many times a big viral video hits and Youtube has to remove it due to copyright and ownership issues? Now you have worthless Youtube video results when you just want the actual video. This is just one example of when Google will put their product in your face without regard to what you want.

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

#43

Post by JshWright »

psranga wrote: post #30
JshWright wrote: post #19

From the article: "Update: it looks like Google claimed the phone number removal was a bug, but weird timing that the bug appeared at the same time they started selling premium local ads that appear on the regular search results." Why is it weird timing that a bug would appear when a system is being modified? Isn't that pretty much when most bugs are introduced?

Umm, don't you think they have a regression test that checks if everything that's supposed to be displayed in a search result is actually displayed? Seems like they're stretching the definition of bug here. Maybe a bug in the specification, almost certainly not in the code.

A fair point... I still think it's more likely for stuff to break when you're tinkering it with than when you're not.

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

#44

Post by DougBTX »

Periodic wrote: post #37
seldo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 se…

> I thought that above-the-fold still has to do with first impressions.

Sure, the original version (lets call it the "strong" version), was based on the idea that "Users don't scroll", but now we know they do, so the strong version has fallen.

The weak version could well be to do with first impressions, part of a more general, "Put the most important stuff first" rule.

I distinctly remember a forum I used to post to, where they put very large banner ads at the top of every page. I'd have started scrolling before the page finished loading - you soon learn where the real content is on a page. Add in "banner blindness", and all bets are off.

Hence the increasing popularity of putting ads between sections of content... I'm looking at you, StackOverflow.

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

#45

Post by vaksel »

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 bet it has to do with improved mice. Having to move towards the \/ and keep hitting that to scroll = pain in the ass.

Now you just click on the mouse wheel and scroll

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

#46

Post by dspeyer »

lawrence wrote: post #36
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.

All the links on the right of the map go straight to the remote sites in question. That's still where Google is driving the traffic.

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

#47

Post by endtime »

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…

I don't think so. It looks like subsequent refreshes of the same query lower the number of sponsored links shown. I searched for "San Francisco dentists" (I'm in the Bay Area) and I got exactly what was shown in the article. Refreshed a few times, and the number of sponsored links shown was decremented by one each time until, until it got down to just the four small 2x2 ads.

Got the same behavior searching "Palo Alto dentists", though the number of sponsored links started lower.

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

#48

Post by holygoat »

psranga wrote: post #30
JshWright wrote: post #19

From the article: "Update: it looks like Google claimed the phone number removal was a bug, but weird timing that the bug appeared at the same time they started selling premium local ads that appear on the regular search results." Why is it weird timing that a bug would appear when a system is being modified? Isn't that pretty much when most bugs are introduced?

Umm, don't you think they have a regression test that checks if everything that's supposed to be displayed in a search result is actually displayed? Seems like they're stretching the definition of bug here. Maybe a bug in the specification, almost certainly not in the code.

You have a lot of faith in QA ;)

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

#49

Post by qeorge »

vaksel wrote: post #45
seldo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bet it has to do with improved mice. Having to move towards the \/ and keep hitting that to scroll = pain in the ass. Now you just click on the mouse wheel and scroll

That's really interesting. I've always assumed it was a knowledge / teaching problem, but I'd forgotten how much the addition of mousewheels changed my entire browsing experience.

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

#50

Post by dhimes »

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 never understood that preference, actually. In the early/mid 90s the connections were sporadic, and I always preferred to get the entire page when I (finally) got a working connection. If I found a page that I had to follow links to keep reading, the experience was often read->click->wait............read->click->wait.......... I personally preferred downloading an enormous page, even going away from the computer for a few minutes, but then having it all available.
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