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Fewer Than Half of Google Searches Now Result in a Click

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Re: Fewer Than Half of Google Searches Now Result in a Click

#161

Post by rchaud »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #31
cletus wrote: post #15

So a common trope in the startup world is the difference between a feature and a company, the idea being that lots of features are masquerading as companies. This inevitably leads to them being shocked--SHOCKED--when some bigger player adds that feature, eating their lunch. I feel the same way about a lot of outbound sites on Google. There are a bunch of things I just don't want to go to another site for. Off the top…

If I want exchange rates I type xe.com in the address bar

For an increasing proportion of users, the "address bar" is now the "Google search" bar. You may have discovered xe.com when the distinction was much more obvious, but as time went on the browser UI underwent changes, that will change as well.

New versions of Chromium will begin hiding the full URL entirely, probably so that more and more marketing/targeting related UTM parameters can be jammed in without the user ever even knowing.

Re: Fewer Than Half of Google Searches Now Result in a Click

#162

Post by TeMPOraL »

sixothree wrote: post #71
puranjay wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand your stand, but what Google did with its featured snippets is essentially a form of bait and switch. It encouraged entrepreneurs and creators to create content that could answer specific queries with the promise that Google will drive traffic to their sites. Now Google is using the same content and depriving them of the traffic. That's pretty scummy in my opinion.

Also the data they are serving is often incorrect or outdated. I've grown accustom to not trusting these info boxes.

I don't trust them either. They seem to pull info out of random places, and you can't easily tell how up-to-date the content is.

Re: Fewer Than Half of Google Searches Now Result in a Click

#164

Post by dageshi »

TekMol wrote: post #121
dageshi wrote: post #47

This will likely backfire in the long term. People writing content will shy away from writing articles on subjects or which answer questions that google will simply steal and display. Eventually the existing sources will become out of date and google will begin to serve inaccurate information.

What type of articles would that be? Looking at how complete Wikipedia is, it seems peoples will to write content for free is kind of unlimited. Look at HN. Your opinion is free text number 20688220 written here. Ready for Google to eat. Twenty million texts written. Without any payment at all.

That content will be much much harder to extract and determine authority than what google is using right now, giving greater chances of it being wrong.

Re: Fewer Than Half of Google Searches Now Result in a Click

#165

Post by bogwog »

tommoor wrote: post #122

My main takeaway from this was where the hell are they getting that data? A little digging… apparently if you install Avast antivirus they're tracking all of this and selling /providing to Jumpshot - wow. > Baker said Jumpshot’s data comes from 100 million devices worldwide, whose users have downloaded free security software from partner Avast. The devices include smartphones, laptops and tablets. https://marketingla…

This world we live in is terrifying.

Re: Fewer Than Half of Google Searches Now Result in a Click

#166

Post by jasode »

timbowhite wrote: post #139
jasode wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Now Google is using the same content and depriving them of the traffic. I found some instructions[1] that says a website can opt out of Google's Featured Snippets with special HTML code: Are there any cases of websites deliberately opting out of snippets and therefore seeing their referral links (and ad revenue) increase? [1] https://searchenginewatch.com/2019/03/27/google-featured-sni...

I deliberately opted out of snippets for TLD List [0], a price comparison site I made for domain names. I don't know if it's made any difference. Organic search traffic from them has slowly but steadily increased over the years. Google now sometimes displays a snippet from my competitor's website for searches like "cheapest .io domain" [1]. The snippet seems pretty useless as it doesn't include any registrars' names/…

>I deliberately opted out of snippets

Appreciate your datapoint. Also btw, when I "view source" the HTML of tld-list.com, I notice it has "nosnippet" inside a comment:

    
    -->
Does google crawler parse and obey "nosnippet" embedded in HTML comments?

Re: Fewer Than Half of Google Searches Now Result in a Click

#168

Post by jrochkind1 »

puranjay wrote: post #29
cletus wrote: post #15

So a common trope in the startup world is the difference between a feature and a company, the idea being that lots of features are masquerading as companies. This inevitably leads to them being shocked--SHOCKED--when some bigger player adds that feature, eating their lunch. I feel the same way about a lot of outbound sites on Google. There are a bunch of things I just don't want to go to another site for. Off the top…

I understand your stand, but what Google did with its featured snippets is essentially a form of bait and switch. It encouraged entrepreneurs and creators to create content that could answer specific queries with the promise that Google will drive traffic to their sites. Now Google is using the same content and depriving them of the traffic. That's pretty scummy in my opinion.

Can a web site simply stop providing the markup for featured snippets?

Re: Fewer Than Half of Google Searches Now Result in a Click

#169

Post by nradov »

rchaud wrote: post #146
SilasX wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm, I think there's scumminess on both sides, since (as GP noted) even simple sites (e.g. for lyrics) are bloated and unusable. Before: User: Hey Google, what's the monthly payment on a 20-year mortgage with 3.9% APR? Google: Oh, MortgateSite would know, go there. MortgageSite: Here's your calculator. User: Okay, let me put in the numbers ... awesome, thanks! Oh, neat, they can hook me up with lenders. Let me take a…

And yet if you type in a mortgage-related query, the first few entries Google will show you are ads. Not the calculator you're looking for. Even then, mortgages aren't something Google can realistically calculate because lenders don't structure loans that simply. There is a fixed rate period, and a variable period after that. First-time searchers may get suckered in by a personal finance site that relies on ads just…

The majority of US home mortgages are 30 year fixed rate with no variable period.

Re: Fewer Than Half of Google Searches Now Result in a Click

#170

Post by rubidium »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #149
SilasX wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm, I think there's scumminess on both sides, since (as GP noted) even simple sites (e.g. for lyrics) are bloated and unusable. Before: User: Hey Google, what's the monthly payment on a 20-year mortgage with 3.9% APR? Google: Oh, MortgateSite would know, go there. MortgageSite: Here's your calculator. User: Okay, let me put in the numbers ... awesome, thanks! Oh, neat, they can hook me up with lenders. Let me take a…

Perfect world: User: Hey Gateway, what's the monthly payment on a 20-year mortgage with 3.9 APR? Gateway: Here's your calculator, already prefilled with the data taken from your query. Done. The problem with all these little sites is, besides bloat, that the "Oh, neat, they can hook me up with lenders. Let me take a look." ends up with user getting malware and/or scammed. The problem with Google is that they can hard…

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=what%27s+the+monthly+p...

You're dreaming of what wolfram alpha is trying to build.

Edit: funnily enough, they parsed the input slightly wrong but you can quickly get to your answer.

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