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Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

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Re: Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

#171

Post by wyldfire »

goda90 wrote: post #154
rakoo wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know the cool thing about this integration ? Any part can be replaced. Some instantly, some take more time because they involve physical stuff. People use the Google integration because it's there by default, not because they are locked-in.

There's a part that already can't be replaced while keeping all the others. Google Fi only works with Nexus devices. It could be a lack of OEM interest, but who knows what Google does that might keep it that way.

Google Fi is an MVNO, one that entered into an area with arguably insufficient competition. Regardless of how you might rate the level of competition before Google Fi entered the market, it has definitely added ambitious customer-oriented features.

Its device-dependence exists because it's a unique dual-provider MVNO (Sprint and T-Mobile). This allows them to broker the best deal for the end consumer. But the bar is high -- devices must support dual-SIM, which is rare. Devices without explicit support aren't barred from Google Fi but may not get the full features and you can't get help with those devices if you run into issues.

Re: Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

#172

Post by adrianratnapala »

esrauch wrote: post #168
adrianratnapala wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then this is a half-baked solution to the problems caused by making tabbed browsing hard. On the desktop, I will open a bunch of tabs and close the ones that don't pan out. Not just after a Google search, but after anything resembling a search. Mobile browsers allow this (though slightly awkwardly), but most mobile apps which display web content don't allow anything like this.

Do you think that it how most people search? (I'm not being sarcastic, I doubt they do but I obviously don't know)

I think it is the way most people who care about trying out multiple hits do it. For everyone else, the back button is good enough.

Given that landscape, what is added by a fat page wrapper that makes it easier to go back to the search engine?

Re: Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

#173

Post by ozgung »

nv-vn wrote: post #106

Am I the only one here who has never seen an AMP site in the wild? Seems people in the comments are super familiar with the service.

I use google search and chrome on Android and haven't seen one either. I don't see the AMP icon when I search for 'git tips'. Maybe it's US only for now.

Re: Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

#174

Post by strictnein »

sdoering wrote: post #100
visarga wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is just sending a different type of traffic: "one page traffic", but let's not forget that it is Google that is sending the traffic to AMP pages in the first place, there should be no entitlement on the part of webmasters.

What would Google be able to show it's user if it weren't for this greedy webmasters who poured over their sites to generate content? What comes first? Hen or egg? Google isn't the internet, the web was there long before Google made things findable. You had to know how and where to look. And yes Google made things back then way better. Non the less without content on the web a search engine is just blank. Unnecessary…

Well, the hen and the egg came first. The egg (the content) was there and the hen (Yahoo) was already making it all findable.

Re: Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

#175

Post by wbl »

ohstopitu wrote: post #161
rakoo wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know the cool thing about this integration ? Any part can be replaced. Some instantly, some take more time because they involve physical stuff. People use the Google integration because it's there by default, not because they are locked-in.

I want to Android as an example to prove otherwise. While yes, you can install CyanogenMod (without Google Play Services), or others along those lines that remove the "Google" out of Android, it's true value (for most common users) is Google Play Services. While you can say that you can get apps from apkmirror or F Droid, most apps still won't work without Play Services (case & point - Snapchat) my entire point being…

And people can just buy an iPhone instead. Windows phone is still chugging along.

Re: Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

#176

Post by StephenConnell »

50CNT wrote: post #81
StephenConnell wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but Google knows where you are and could test the site from that general region. It would cause additional overhead for Google but may be worth it. Page render speed is just as important as server speed. A website bloated with ads is what I object to the most, or any type of pop over that obstructs the content.

I wonder whether they incorporate these things into their ranking metrics already, similar to how they do their Quality Scores for Adwords.

Good question, in 2010 Google said that they "... today we're including a new signal in our search ranking algorithms: site speed. Site speed reflects how quickly a website responds to web requests." [1]

I believe that page speed is also important, google provides PageSpeed Insights to help you improve your site. [2]

[1] https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2010/04/using-site-speed-i...

[2] PageSpeed Insights https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/

Re: Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

#177

Post by akras14 »

jrockway wrote: post #143
ComodoHacker wrote: post #109

>Hey, this is Malte and I am the tech lead of the AMP Project for Google. Of all his 725-words response only 18 words directly address the problem: >We’re looking at ways to make the source link more discoverable and will update once that is done. That's 2.5%. Is he really a tech lead?

This seems to compare favorably with the original article. How much information density are you expecting? Then you go on to imply that he's unqualified to be a TL because you don't like his polite and conversational tone in an article that criticized his project? I just don't understand HN anymore.

I wrote the article and I agree. I brought up a lot of things without (as it's apparent to me now) clearly stating which were my fault (mostly everything) and what I blamed on Google.

Re: Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

#178

Post by eumoria »

wbl wrote: post #175
ohstopitu wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to Android as an example to prove otherwise. While yes, you can install CyanogenMod (without Google Play Services), or others along those lines that remove the "Google" out of Android, it's true value (for most common users) is Google Play Services. While you can say that you can get apps from apkmirror or F Droid, most apps still won't work without Play Services (case & point - Snapchat) my entire point being…

And people can just buy an iPhone instead. Windows phone is still chugging along.

Define chugging along. I was under the impression it was broken down at the side of the road and moment away from being abandoned.

Re: Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

#180

Post by jacquesm »

cyrusshepard wrote: post #3

This is a good response and I appreciate Malte's effort to engage publishers, but it doesn't calm my nerves about the biggest publisher complaint about AMP: Google owns the chrome (top navigation) on all AMP pages. This makes it easy to navigate back to Google (why would you ever want to leave?) and other publishers in the AMP ecosystem, but much harder to navigate to the publisher that created the page in the first…

There were some search engines that displayed their results in an iframe rather than by going to the link directly. This was a very bad move and angered users tremendously. It's interesting to see how Google is trying to revive this concept through the backdoor of providing the user with a faster loading page. What with mobile being set to be a larger portion of visitors to websites at some point in the future this makes Google effectively the only real website on their view of the web and the rest of us chickens as information providers to Google, to be terminated at will.
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