Fewer Than Half of Google Searches Now Result in a Click • Hacker News Board

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

#211

Post by overcast » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 8:11 PM UTC

rlanday wrote: post #135

scott_s wrote: post #4

The presumption here, as I understand is, is that a zero-click search happened because Google used one of their inline apps to answer a question. (For example, if I search "population of new york city", I get a big and bold answer along with a graph that shows NYC's population over time, as well as LA and Chicago.) But I'm not convinced that's necessarily true. I frequently search for things to get a general idea of…

Google’s currently helping to perpetuate the myth that New York is a growing city and its population is at an all-time high of 8.623 million. In reality, it’s a dying city, and the current best estimate is 8,398,748; every bureau except Staten Island is losing population. People are fleeing New York (both the city and upstate) due to high taxes, crumbling infrastructure, bad weather, and a generally poor standard of…

Am I reading this incorrectly?

"Each of the city’s five boroughs registered gains in population. The Bronx saw the largest increase, up 3.4 percent, followed by Brooklyn (3.1 percent), Manhattan (2.7 percent), and Queens (2.2 percent); Staten Island showed the smallest gain (1.6 percent) over the 99-month period."

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

#212

Post by persistent » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 8:11 PM UTC

avian wrote: post #209

persistent wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's even more biased than this because it's desktop-only, Windows-only population. Mobile is HUGE.

From the article's "Methodology notes": > That includes millions of Android-powered devices and millions of PCs as well. They have much lower coverage on iOS devices and so don’t report on visit data from those browsers. I'm not saying that their sample is not heavily biased, but they do claim that it's not a desktop-only dataset.

My mistake. I didn't realize anyone was stupid enough to put an antivirus on an Android. Please amend my complaint to say that the sample is biased toward morons.

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

#213

Post by criddell » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 8:11 PM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #178

vilhelm_s wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they generally pay for it. It came up with song lyrics a couple of weeks ago, where Genius accused Google of scraping lyrics from Genius, but as it turns out Google payed a third party vendor LyricFind for them, and LyricFind pays the copyright holder, so if anything it seems Genius was more in the wrong... https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/18/18684211/google-song-lyri...

How was Genius in the wrong? They were not paid for the service, and the data was coming from them. It is possible LyricFind stole the lyrics from Genius, but then Genius is still not in the wrong to sue them for scraping their site.

So LyricFind says they licensed the lyrics from the publisher and then verifies against other lyrics websites. Somehow, they ended up with a copy of the lyrics as posted by Genius.

Genius doesn't own the copyright to the lyrics and screwing with the punctuation doesn't create a new work, so I'm not sure they have much of a case against anybody. Maybe they could come up with a ToS violation or CFAA case against LyricFind?

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

#214

Post by fasicle » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 8:16 PM UTC

saddestcatever wrote: post #210

Does anyone else use search at least a dozen times a day just for spellchecking a word or confirming a phrase? I find myself pasting phrases into the search bar when autocorrect or spellcheck just doesn't do the trick. I'd love to know what percentage of "searches" were never actually looking for a target.

Yeah I do this all the time. Quicker than opening up MS Word to spellcheck.

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

#215

Post by rogerkirkness » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 8:16 PM UTC

Sidebar: this suggests that ads may be a bit more useful than one would think, in the CPC model.

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

#216

Post by pbiggar » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 8:17 PM UTC

sli wrote: post #109

cyrusshepard wrote: post #86

I think what folks are missing is that a lot of these "zero-click" searches happen as a result of Google scraping your website, and displaying the results as a "featured snippet." Yes, they link to you below the featured snippet. No, more people don't click, because they've taken the answer from your website and displayed it right in their search results. For example: If I'm searching for "best nail for cedar wood" G…

On top of all that, Google's snippets aren't curated and therefore, aren't always correct. They can be (and almost certainly are) gamed. Users that don't click through open themselves up to carrying on being misinformed.

For a recent search "report amex card stolen", google showed a phone number for a scam who asked for a social security number as soon as you called.

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

#217

Post by knorker » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 8:17 PM UTC

> Maybe I need to stop being disappointed in Google and just start expecting them to lie, mislead, and refuse direct questions

Why exactly is it in Google's best interests to reveal internal competitive trade secrets just because someone asked? Or any company, for that matter. If a company discloses information it's because they think they'll gain more from disclosing it than from not disclosing it. So why should you demand that all companies answer all your questions?

I'd be interested in examples of lies, though.

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

#218

Post by checktheorder » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 8:20 PM UTC

SilasX wrote: post #52

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.

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…

>MortgageSite: HEY! It looks like you're new to this site. Want to get on our mailing list?

Dear every web developer in the world who makes no effort to fight your employers' marketing department on this: I hate you.

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

#219

Post by t0mas88 » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 8:21 PM UTC

beat wrote: post #179

TeMPOraL wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's not even malware/scams - it's just "Person who wants a mortgage calculator" is "person who is interested in getting a mortgage", which is some seriously high-value data. There's a lot more profit in selling you on to mortgage lenders (with a lot of data, like your budget, pre-filled) than selling you to scammers.

And surprise surprise... That's what DoubleClick (= Google) does, they'll sell your cookie ID as "interested in mortgage" audience to advertisers.

While in the interest of "privacy" Google limits the amount of data the banks and others you interact with get from any competing solution, they will sell all of it in Ads Data Hub which is a Google Cloud product. So not so much in the interest of privacy but much more in the interest of Google selling more cloud products.

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

#220

Post by puranjay » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 8:23 PM UTC

SilasX wrote: post #52

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.

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…

It's a chicken and egg problem. Website owners are forced to monetize more aggressively as the traffic from search slows down. And as they monetize more aggressively, the user experience suffers, causing them to tank in the SERPs, fueling even more desperation.