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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

#221

Post by n3k5 »

notafraudster wrote: post #117
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 agree here. For the median search I make, having to click on a website is a failure. If I search "John McCain age at death", why would I click on a website? This seems trivial, but it is frustrating for even more technical issues. If I search "Non-standard evaluation in left-hand side of mutate command R", it's a bit weird that I'm expected to click the first StackExchange rather than getting a canonical answer exc…

> If I search "Non-standard evaluation in left-hand side of mutate command R", it's a bit weird that I'm expected to click the first StackExchange rather than getting a canonical answer excerpted.

Are you saying that there's no excerpt at all above the search results, when you expected one; or that there is an excerpt, but it's not from the most appropriate/relevant source?

It's annoying when there's a page that has all the information you might need, but to find it, you first have to scroll past a bunch of Stack Overflow posts that are more suitable for dilettantes who prioritise trying a quick fix over learning best practices. But when you do make the effort to find the most promising link and your browser allows the search engine to record your choice, you at least get a vote regarding how the ranking should be adjusted. When users just look at the results but don't interact with them any further, that feedback vanishes.

A win for Google isn't necessarily a win for Google users.

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

#222

Post by lern_too_spel »

bduerst wrote: post #36
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…

>with seemingly no opt out (on the consumer or publisher side) I though AMP was opt-in for publishers? As in you have to write the front-end spec and pick a CDN to cache with.

> pick a CDN to cache with.

Every link aggregator that indexes your AMP page will cache it, including Bing and Baidu. That's what makes safe prerendering possible.

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

#223

Post by stickfigure »

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…

User (spoken): Hey Google, what's the monthly payment on a 20-year mortgage of $500k with 3.9% APR?

Google Assistant (aloud): $3,004

Seems pretty straightforward, no need for a web page.

Actual current results: "Sorry, I don't know how to help with that yet"

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

#224

Post by anotheracc »

judge2020 wrote: post #195
iClaudiusX wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The increasing sprawl of non-search widgets invading the search result page reminds me of the AOL years where "the web" was funneled through a narrow portal controlled by one entity. Having to scroll down past ads, unrelated news, unrelated youtube videos, and ever more of these info boxes has pushed the actual content I'm looking for out to the second page. It's made it much easier to use ddg as default and use the…

And the downfall of AOL was Google because Google had a better product. In order for google to fall, you need a product that's better (or more of what people want; you need to give them a reason to change their search engine).

I have no trouble believing Google is going to fall.

Their results have gone into the toilet - I ragequit Google search about once a day and do something else like forum searches.

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

#225

Post by charlesju »

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…

It's important to note that this is strategically incredibly important for Google because this forms the backbone of their voice AI. The better at answering questions directly, the better their voice AI becomes and that leads to a lot of future products.

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

#226

Post by rchaud »

gambiting wrote: post #197
nradov wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The majority of UK home mortgages are 25 year with fixed rate for 2-4 years followed by variable rate(which if course no one ever goes on, you simply remortgage as you're about to go on the variable rate instead).

Canada is the same. Nearly impossible to find a mortgage where the fixed term is longer than 5 years.

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

#227

Post by lern_too_spel »

andrerm wrote: post #133

And with AMP, Google is trying ti do the same with entire sites. In the long run why will we continue to produce content for Google? Google must stop trying to suck the hole world into itself. Google is starting to look like a black hole. And the "it is good for consumers" or "users like it" are just offensive. It's good for Google. It may be good for users today but it's bad for content producers and in the long run…

All the other major search engines also use snippets and AMP precisely because users want it. Should all of them stop too? Can you clearly define the regulation you are proposing to impose on search engines?

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

#228

Post by goatinaboat »

amelius wrote: post #140
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…

Shouldn't they be liable for mis-information? Wouldn't that solve the entire problem?

Yes, Google and similar companies should be 100% responsible for anything published on their platforms. No more “safe harbour”. They have chosen to take positions in many issues, that makes them more like newspapers than phone companies.

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

#229

Post by pwython »

skybrian wrote: post #37

Maybe compare this with only reading the headline on Hacker News? We often prefer non-clickbait headlines for good reason. The answer to a question may be simple enough to fit into the headline, but the site will withhold it to get a click. Paywalls also encourage people to skip reading the article. I find I'm a bit annoyed at first, but it fades quickly and I realize the news probably isn't that important anyway.

But Hacker News comments are the best part. The top comment always disagrees with the headline/article. :)

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

#230

Post by cannedslime »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #23
dna_polymerase wrote: post #14

As bad as this sounds, I got to say I'm not even mad. The instant answers Google provides seem to come from websites that are mostly unusable, bloated with tracking and other BS that increase load times, and even worse SEO-content (that stuff that repeats words just to have more "relevant" keywords). I don't feel too bad about those pages losing traffic. Longform content, interactive content, blogs, videos, forums an…

The issue you are missing is that the sites Google stole that information from often invested money in gathering it. The CelebrityNetWorth example: https://theoutline.com/post/1399/how-google-ate-celebritynet... If Google kills CelebrityNetWorth's revenue, Google no longer can scrape updated data from CelebrityNetWorth, because they killed it already. So Google data gets worse or remains static, which quickly becomes…

Instead of an impossible to implement link tax, how about we just made it illegal for search engines to provide these kinds of "pirate" snippets without an opt-in... Either show meta desc, or don't show it at all. Adjust results by relevancy and pagerank (as they used to do) and everyone is happy.
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