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How Google is Killing Organic Search

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Re: How Google is Killing Organic Search

#181

Post by chii »

michaelhoffman wrote: post #38
nowarninglabel wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your hypothesis is quite far off. Can you give an example of an auto insurance company that is a non-profit? I couldn't find any. Perhaps you mean a mutual insurance company? Furthermore, when I bought car insurance last month, Geico gave me the most coverage for the least amount of money (after quite a bit of research), so I also don't agree with your assertation that Google is no help in that regard. While…

USAA ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USAA#Returning_profits_to_the_i... ), although most people aren't eligible ( https://www.usaa.com/inet/pages/pub_eligibility_task_entry ).

i like the business model of USAA, where it isn't a corporation, but that everyone who becomes a member gets some sort of benefit. its almost like voluntary communism. I wonder if this model would work for other sorts of institutions.

Re: How Google is Killing Organic Search

#182

Post by chii »

corresation wrote: post #141
jcampbell1 wrote: post #22

The auction model for ads basically ruins internet searches in transactional categories. If you want to win at the "italian restaurant" search game, you have to bid the highest for the ad, which means you must have the highest margin. The best way to win is to open a restaurant with ridiculously high margins (over priced wine and cheap ingredients). Want the "cheapest car insurance"? Google is zero help. It sends you…

The best way to win is to open a restaurant with ridiculously high margins (over priced wine and cheap ingredients). That's a rather terrible example: a restaurant that had over priced wine and cheap ingredients would fail miserably in short order, regardless of how many Google ad auctions they won. If you really want the cheapest car insurance, you need to find a company that doesn't advertise, and is non-profit I d…

> a restaurant that had over priced wine and cheap ingredients would fail miserably in short order, regardless of how many Google ad auctions they won.

unless if there's so many restraurants, and the quality of wine is so subjective that most customers cannot really differentiate it. Then exposure is really the only thing a (time poor) customer can rely on, and thus, by massively spending on advertising, and not on ingredients, they can convert more paying customers than the small, but quality restaurant who nobody knows exists.

I want some way to have word of mouth recommendations work over the net, without it being game-able. perhaps a system where you must pay (a very small token amount) to review?

Re: How Google is Killing Organic Search

#184

Post by peanutz454 »

boomzilla wrote: post #154
AJ007 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My assumption & opinion is they know exactly what they are doing. I assume every decision has firm logic & metrics to back it up. However, the very nature of the marketplace is for advertisers to squeeze as much value out of the customer as possible in order to purchase higher visibility. I don't see it as a mistake or a flaw, it is just the end reality of a set of circumstances. What makes Google's marketplace uniqu…

I wonder when (if at all) the pendulum swings back and users actively avoid clicking on the ads so much that makes Google scales back the number of ads shown. It's essentially a race to bottom and no matter how big a margins the current winners can make, it's gotta get thinner and thinner everyday.

I've read in certain places that most users are not aware that the top few links are ads.

With the new trend of usage of laptops increasing, a little shift of certain LCD screen on laptops changes the contrast of the advert background (very light pink) so much that it is impossible to determine that the first few links are ads.

I think people will continue clicking on ad links without realizing that they are doing so.

Re: How Google is Killing Organic Search

#185

Post by chronic25 »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #68

This is true of course, Google doesn't make any money on organic search, nobody does, so it gets the short shrift. At Blekko we built a search engine (crawler, extractor, ranker, fetcher, the whole stack) and let people know exactly how we rank things, for users who created an account and logged in they could turn off everything except organic results. We have been moderately successful (we were the first to use a 'm…

I prefer Bing.

Re: How Google is Killing Organic Search

#186

Post by lazyjones »

chaz wrote: post #104

Measuring the usefulness of a page by percentage of screen real estate only seems useful if the user is looking or clicking randomly around the screen. The structure, layout, and clarity of communication are far more important. > 7% is all that’s left for the entrepreneurs and restaurantuers who believed Google over the years when they were told that good business with well structured pages would be able to get in fr…

> Measuring the usefulness of a page by percentage of screen real estate only seems useful if the user is looking or clicking randomly around the screen.

You should tell Google that. They claim to be penalizing web sites with too many ads "above the fold": http://searchengineland.com/google-may-penalize-ad-heavy-pag...

The bigotry in this has been pointed out by many people already ... Google is basically forcing other sites to use less attractive advertising while offering extremely annoying ads "above the fold" themselves, smells like unfair competition to me.

Re: How Google is Killing Organic Search

#187

Post by crockstar »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #68

This is true of course, Google doesn't make any money on organic search, nobody does, so it gets the short shrift. At Blekko we built a search engine (crawler, extractor, ranker, fetcher, the whole stack) and let people know exactly how we rank things, for users who created an account and logged in they could turn off everything except organic results. We have been moderately successful (we were the first to use a 'm…

Hi Chuck,

I'm glad that folks like Blekko are trying to improve the search landscape but do you have any figures to back up the declining revenue per click?

I feel as though Google are becoming more and more focussed on profits (evidenced by their (not provided) data hypocrisy, role out of "enhanced campaigns, etc.) but their profits seem to grow[1] and they seem to focus on margins over advertiser or user experience with increasing focus.

I'm glad that folks like yourselves are in the market as I say but until someone develops better algos and better results (for the majority of queries) it's unlikely that folks will get angry enough to move or see a viable alternative.

In spite of these changes I haven't really seen a decline in Google's market share[2] drop consistently or significantly so I don't really see a change coming any time soon.

References: [1] http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2013/01/1-22-2...

[2] http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2275863/Google-Bing-Bot... (June, '13) "Google has the identical search share of 66.7 percent when comparing May 2012 and May 2013."

vs.

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2269591/Googles-Search-... (May, '13)

Re: How Google is Killing Organic Search

#188

Post by fastball »

This is absurd.

First, the author factored the screen space taken up by the google search bar into his calculations. Really? You want to press the back button each time you want a new search? And don't get me started on the fact that the author factored in the goddamn page margins as part of his percentage.

Secondly: the 7% of the page that is taken up by a map? Yeah, those are also organic results. In fact, they are probably more helpful to most people than the author's version of organic results (just links to websites).

Thirdly: after you scroll down (takes about 0.1 seconds) the percentages change significantly, as the entire box of sponsored results is no longer there.

So. If we eliminate the search bar and the margins, and we include the map in our percentage, and we scroll down a tad so that the sponsored ads disappear, you're looking at a page that is about 70% organic results.

FINALLY AND MOST IMPORTANTLY. Google did not become popular because it showed the highest PERCENTAGE of organic search results per page. It won the search wars because IT'S RESULTS ARE MORE RELEVANT THAN OTHER SEARCH ENGINES. Percentages DO NOT affect the relevance of google's results. It's all about relevance.

Re: How Google is Killing Organic Search

#189

Post by tripzilch »

Kylekramer wrote: post #19
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. Go…

> Google may be creepy in its tracking, but at least by tracking me they can point me to a mechanic in my area.

Surely you mean "at least by tracking me they can point me to a mechanic in my area without having to go through the trouble of specifying the area in the search box".

You almost make it sound as if Google is providing you service that is worth being tracked over. They're not. It's perfectly possible to find what you're looking for without the search engine knowing who or where you are.

The only thing you get in exchange for being tracked is the "convenience" of not having to type "New York" after your query.

Re: How Google is Killing Organic Search

#190

Post by tripzilch »

Shooti wrote: post #148
205guy wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I came here to say the same thing. But one of the other comments [1] points out how the "local" listings (Google-owned Zagat) or maps are actually Google's curated business listings, not the business' website. Same goes for Google shopping, Google books, etc, where in popular categories, Google slurps up all the content. On the one hand, that does level the playing field, because little guy doesn't need huge website…

> Let's say you change your business hours (and as a potential customer, I do love Google's display of today's business hours) or phone number, how quickly does Google update all that? Probably very quickly, but it's now out of your hands. On the contrary, its completely in your hands: http://www.google.com/business/placesforbusiness/ The point of contention is that its a Google controlled affair instead of going thr…

I know several small businesses (hairdressers etc) that have a wrong phone number or other data in Google's "zero click" information. One even has the number of another hairdresser by the same name.

Now while it's nice that people can in theory update their business information using that site (that I myself had never heard of before either), but the reality of the matter is that, even in the 21st century, the modal local business owner just isn't very good with computers and the Internet.

The difference?

The website they get from some (probably also local) webdev company comes with customer support. Google has none.

Wrong or outdated information? One phone-call with a human being and it's fixed.

Try that with Google. They'll be talking to a robot and filling out form after form after form, in no-time. Believe it or not, but "figuring out this Google stuff" probably takes them at least a whole afternoon.

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