Wikipedia Lost 3B Organic Search Visits to Google in 2019 • Hacker News Board

Re: Wikipedia Lost 3B Organic Search Visits to Google in 2019

#161

Post by tasogare » Wed, Jun 10, 2020, 5:25 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #84

the_duke wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally don't like the short Wikipedia excerpts. I almost always want more information, and Google tries to make the Wikipedia link as unintuitive as possible in order to keep the user on Google property. What's more, showing the info box means that the real article link is removed from the results list. Edit: to clarify, I do find the blue Wikipedia link decidedly small and I often have to actively look for it…

> Google tries to make the Wikipedia link as undiscoverable as possible Huh? If I search for "who founded the new york times", then immediately below the three-line snippet answer, is a big (not small) blue link to "The New York Times - Wikipedia". In fact, it's literally the easiest, most prominent thing on the page for me to click on. Google is helping to guide me on to visit Wikipedia for more info. I think you're…

> I almost always want more information, and Google tries to make the Wikipedia link as unintuitive as possible in order to keep the user on Google property.

I have exactly the same problem, so I hate those Wikipedia boxes. Half of the time I go to a Wiki page for some term then switch to another language (either because I searched an unknown word or because I’m searching for a translation) so the box don’t solve my need. The other half I want more info than what is displayed anyway. And I also find super confusing the position of the link, I have to search for it each and every time.

Re: Wikipedia Lost 3B Organic Search Visits to Google in 2019

#162

Post by dontblink » Wed, Jun 10, 2020, 5:25 PM UTC

ebg13 wrote: post #158

wnevets wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I personally love it when my search results just give me the answer I'm looking for This is one of the things I love about google as a user. Googling "what is my ip" or "how many inches in a meter" used to require you to visit some random website filled to the brim with ads.

> filled to the brim with ads You let yourself see ads on the web?

Its funny to note that many people here complain about Google preventing page views, but have no restraint in doing the same by blocking ads. Pot meet kettle...

Re: Wikipedia Lost 3B Organic Search Visits to Google in 2019

#163

Post by xapata » Wed, Jun 10, 2020, 5:28 PM UTC

nend wrote: post #68

crazygringo wrote: post #44

> ...zero-click results have cost Wikipedia’s English language subdomain tens of millions of organic visits. > ...Google was able to steal over 550 million clicks from Wikipedia in six months... "Cost"? "Steal"?! This would make sense if Wikipedia were ad-supported. But Google saves Wikipedia money by requiring less servers to support traffic. And Wikipedia is open content , you literally can't steal from it -- being…

As the article points out, the problem isn't specifically that this harms Wikipedia, it's that this practice harms pretty much every for profit business that Google does this to. Pretty much every company in an established space that Google has entered, is losing traffic and thus revenue due to this practice: Yelp, any flight/hotel/tourism based company, video hosting sites, weather data sites, the list goes on and o…

At the moment, it's good for users, as with most increases in competition. Google's hotel search and flight search user interfaces are superior to those provided by many of the task-specific businesses.

Stratechery had a good analysis of the situation not long ago. https://stratechery.com/2019/the-google-squeeze/

Re: Wikipedia Lost 3B Organic Search Visits to Google in 2019

#164

Post by psexec » Wed, Jun 10, 2020, 5:28 PM UTC

wnevets wrote: post #151

crazygringo wrote: post #44

> ...zero-click results have cost Wikipedia’s English language subdomain tens of millions of organic visits. > ...Google was able to steal over 550 million clicks from Wikipedia in six months... "Cost"? "Steal"?! This would make sense if Wikipedia were ad-supported. But Google saves Wikipedia money by requiring less servers to support traffic. And Wikipedia is open content , you literally can't steal from it -- being…

> I personally love it when my search results just give me the answer I'm looking for This is one of the things I love about google as a user. Googling "what is my ip" or "how many inches in a meter" used to require you to visit some random website filled to the brim with ads.

> what is my ip

    alias my-ip='dig +short myip.opendns.com @resolver1.opendns.com'

Re: Wikipedia Lost 3B Organic Search Visits to Google in 2019

#165

Post by smt88 » Wed, Jun 10, 2020, 5:31 PM UTC

dontblink wrote: post #162

ebg13 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> filled to the brim with ads You let yourself see ads on the web?

Its funny to note that many people here complain about Google preventing page views, but have no restraint in doing the same by blocking ads. Pot meet kettle...

These are not comparable practices.

Google is a search monopoly. Republishing search results to keep users on Google (rather than the publisher) is literally stealing content and the pageviews the content generated.

As a user, blocking programmatic ads (such as those served by ad marketplaces) is the only way to browse the web safely.

Websites are free to use affiliate links, subscriptions, donations, non-marketplace ads, or any other safe monetization strategy. I will not apologize for blocking the unsafe monetization strategies.

Re: Wikipedia Lost 3B Organic Search Visits to Google in 2019

#166

Post by alex_young » Wed, Jun 10, 2020, 5:33 PM UTC

nend wrote: post #68

crazygringo wrote: post #44

> ...zero-click results have cost Wikipedia’s English language subdomain tens of millions of organic visits. > ...Google was able to steal over 550 million clicks from Wikipedia in six months... "Cost"? "Steal"?! This would make sense if Wikipedia were ad-supported. But Google saves Wikipedia money by requiring less servers to support traffic. And Wikipedia is open content , you literally can't steal from it -- being…

As the article points out, the problem isn't specifically that this harms Wikipedia, it's that this practice harms pretty much every for profit business that Google does this to. Pretty much every company in an established space that Google has entered, is losing traffic and thus revenue due to this practice: Yelp, any flight/hotel/tourism based company, video hosting sites, weather data sites, the list goes on and o…

Any site can control indexing through robots.txt.

You either want this information in the search engine or you don't.

Don't like one of the indexers? Tell it not to index you.

Re: Wikipedia Lost 3B Organic Search Visits to Google in 2019

#167

Post by lewapkon » Wed, Jun 10, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

encom wrote: post #57

MiroF wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point, I basically have to append "reddit" to every search if I want to get quality answers.

What? Reddit.com is essentially unusable since the update a few years(?) ago.

Don't you think 'essentially unusable' is quite an overstatement?

Re: Wikipedia Lost 3B Organic Search Visits to Google in 2019

#168

Post by cma » Wed, Jun 10, 2020, 5:35 PM UTC

ForHackernews wrote: post #134

nend wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the article points out, the problem isn't specifically that this harms Wikipedia, it's that this practice harms pretty much every for profit business that Google does this to. Pretty much every company in an established space that Google has entered, is losing traffic and thus revenue due to this practice: Yelp, any flight/hotel/tourism based company, video hosting sites, weather data sites, the list goes on and o…

Those businesses should license their content differently, then. Wikipedia is CC BY-SA licensed.

Does google "share alike" the rest of the results page? Or is embedding considered enough separation to not need to share alike?

Re: Wikipedia Lost 3B Organic Search Visits to Google in 2019

#169

Post by Angostura » Wed, Jun 10, 2020, 5:36 PM UTC

alex_young wrote: post #166

nend wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the article points out, the problem isn't specifically that this harms Wikipedia, it's that this practice harms pretty much every for profit business that Google does this to. Pretty much every company in an established space that Google has entered, is losing traffic and thus revenue due to this practice: Yelp, any flight/hotel/tourism based company, video hosting sites, weather data sites, the list goes on and o…

Any site can control indexing through robots.txt. You either want this information in the search engine or you don't. Don't like one of the indexers? Tell it not to index you.

How about if you want the information in a search engine, but you would prefer that the "search engine" didn't just nick the contents and display it on their site, rather than sending searchers to yours?

Re: Wikipedia Lost 3B Organic Search Visits to Google in 2019

#170

Post by georgeecollins » Wed, Jun 10, 2020, 5:37 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #44

> ...zero-click results have cost Wikipedia’s English language subdomain tens of millions of organic visits. > ...Google was able to steal over 550 million clicks from Wikipedia in six months... "Cost"? "Steal"?! This would make sense if Wikipedia were ad-supported. But Google saves Wikipedia money by requiring less servers to support traffic. And Wikipedia is open content , you literally can't steal from it -- being…

Google is selling ads against free content created in Wikipedia, and Wikipedia sees none of that. That isn't fair to Wikipedia and it would be catastrophic for many for-profit websites.