How Google is Killing Organic Search • Hacker News Board

Re: How Google is Killing Organic Search

#11

Post by antjanus » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 4:51 PM UTC

GuiA wrote: post #6

sethbannon wrote: post #4

DuckDuckGo is far less cluttered, which makes sense considering they have less things to push aside from the results: http://i.imgur.com/OnBJHkS.png

In light of "designy" things like this, and other "ideological" things that have transpired in the past few weeks, I've been forcing myself to use DuckDuckGo. It's been about a month now, and I find the results terrible . I want to love it, but the first 10 results are pretty much never what I want. Sadly, Google still performs better on this front for me. If anyone has tips to make it better, I'd be very happy to he…

Bing is a little bit better in terms of screen real estate. They seem to push the top organic results at the top of the page, and put local results in between the top 2-3 and the next 6 results.

There are barely any ads.

Also, after a year of non-stop use, i can tell you right now that Bing predicts what I'm looking for far better than Google ever did.

Re: How Google is Killing Organic Search

#12

Post by marban » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 4:53 PM UTC

goto.com anyone?

Re: How Google is Killing Organic Search

#13

Post by soundgecko » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 4:53 PM UTC

There's the other problem of decreasing contrast and lack of borders separating the last ad and first organic search result.

http://ppcblog.com/fbf0fa-now-you-see-it

http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/01/31/is-google-intentional...

A few years ago this was the style http://www.ismoip.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Screen...

Before that http://cdn.userstyles.org/style_screenshot_thumbnails/58617_...

Now http://i.imgur.com/Wmdd0.png

Some of those keywords are worth tens of dollars per click so no wonder,the colors have been A/B optmized to get the most clicks from people not knowing they are ads.

Comparison:

Google: #fff7ec Bing: #f9fcf7 Yahoo: #fafaff DuckDuckGo: (255,212,0,0.18)

Not to say that Bing, Yahoo etc. are much better but I expect more from the "Do No Evil" Google rather than increasing the next quarter's earnings instead of targeting older people and people with bad monitors and hurting people who did a lot of good work to come in the first few in organic results but don't and/or can't pay Google for expensive ads. Also, Bing and the rest continue to mostly lose money and they can't afford to separate ads while the big guy continues to reduce the difference between ads and search results.

"Study:Contrast sensitivity gradually decreases with age" http://www.eyeworld.org/article.php?sid=818&strict=0&morphol...

Re: How Google is Killing Organic Search

#14

Post by programminggeek » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 4:55 PM UTC

What you don't understand is Google's been doing this for almost a decade now. It's about profit optimization while not pissing off your users, or sometimes helping them even.

A paid result can be a useful thing and might even be better than an organic result in many cases, but both have their pitfalls and it's not surprising for them to keep going this route more and more.

Google is a company, not a nonprofit. They are in it for the money. Why is anyone surprised?

Re: How Google is Killing Organic Search

#15

Post by philippelh » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 4:56 PM UTC

philhippus wrote: post #7

Let them greed themselves into irrelevance I say. That leaves the door open for some YC startup to implement some type of peer to peer search protocol that will leave google in the dust.

It remembers me this http://yacy.net/en/

Re: How Google is Killing Organic Search

#16

Post by Ziomislaw » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 5:00 PM UTC

GuiA wrote: post #6

sethbannon wrote: post #4

DuckDuckGo is far less cluttered, which makes sense considering they have less things to push aside from the results: http://i.imgur.com/OnBJHkS.png

In light of "designy" things like this, and other "ideological" things that have transpired in the past few weeks, I've been forcing myself to use DuckDuckGo. It's been about a month now, and I find the results terrible . I want to love it, but the first 10 results are pretty much never what I want. Sadly, Google still performs better on this front for me. If anyone has tips to make it better, I'd be very happy to he…

I believe it might be because DDG is not Google. What works on google might not work the same in DDG.

How long have you been using google? Probably long time. During this time you (unconsiously) learned how to ask questions "google way", now you need to learn to quack :p

I also found that DDG sometimes (not very often) does not find what I am looking for. Mostly it is because I know nothing of the subject ie. using a description of a "thing" I am looking for instead of its name, etc. - theese are the things google is better at.

Regardless, if you find such query than please submit it to ddg, they are very responsive and results do get better.

Re: How Google is Killing Organic Search

#17

Post by saalweachter » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 5:00 PM UTC

Nit: this article is really criticizing a UI change which makes local results more prominent (in that they take over the entire page). The local results at the top of the page when you search for "Italian restaurants" are all still organic. In fact, whenever there's a map on the right-and side of the page, it's displacing ads.

Now, you can be against Google ever making a UI change, or even against Google showing different results for "Italian restaurants" in New York and Chicago, but this doesn't really have anything to do with "organic" search results.

Re: How Google is Killing Organic Search

#18

Post by goostavos » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 5:02 PM UTC

oceanstone wrote: post #8

There is a way to increase the percentage of organic search results on a Google page, with relative ease. Just scroll down.

I mean, really, what is the article complaining about here? The most often clicked on organic search results appear above the fold. If you need more, scroll down a bit.

Maybe I'm the minority, but if what I'm looking for isn't one of the first few results, I modify my query. Google is showing the stuff that makes it money, and the organic stuff we're most likely to need.

And at the end of the day, what we're talking about is having to scroll down on a page. Faux blog outrage.

Re: How Google is Killing Organic Search

#19

Post by Kylekramer » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 5:03 PM UTC

sethbannon wrote: post #4

DuckDuckGo is far less cluttered, which makes sense considering they have less things to push aside from the results: http://i.imgur.com/OnBJHkS.png

Not exactly a fair comparison considering you are using some sort of software to block the ad I get on that search. I only get three search results on my screen, if you consider the Wikipedia info and ad to not be organic, very similar to Google search.

And frankly, those search results are useless. If I am searching for auto mechanic, it is highly unlikely I am doing so to know the definition of an auto mechanic. Google may be creepy in its tracking, but at least by tracking me they can point me to a mechanic in my area.

Re: How Google is Killing Organic Search

#20

Post by jmarbach » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 5:04 PM UTC

I agree with the arguments here on the whole. However, if you declare a local search on your own, by simply including "italian restaurant in tribeca", Google offers far more organic results. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32342947/Screen%20Shot%2...