Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

youexec.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 382 posts

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#241

Post by mikkom »

neya wrote: post #193
cconcepts wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The spammy links thing fascinates me. I don't know much about search algos or SEO but on our small, industrial business site we couldn't understand why, after many hours and thousands of dollars spent on the procedures that Google recommends, our organic ranking in SERPs for a very niche product (of which we are one of only three providers in our region) was appalling - often page three. It wasn't till we realised we…

I second the other commenter's opinion on disavow-ing links. It did have a positive impact on one of my online properties. Reference: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487?hl=en

If one would be a target of automated spammy link attack - let's say a competitor would order 100 spammy links a month for example 3 a day - how could one defend against this kind of attack? (I'm not in such situation, just speculating)

What I'm wondering is how easy it is really to get to top at some more obscure search term by just using nasty black hat tactics. I'm also wondering if this is actually the easiest way to get top of search results. If that is the case than it's really alarming IMHO.

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#242

Post by kofejnik »

iopq wrote: post #220
coldtea wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Says who?

Nobody in China uses Google other than English speakers. Google is notoriously bad at breaking Chinese characters up into words. Few people in Russia use Google for Russian language searches, this is because Google is not as good at declining Russian nouns and conjugating Russian verbs. Yandex gives more results of a higher quality for certain searches.

>> Few people in Russia use Google for Russian language searches

This is not true, Google has >20% share in Russia iirc

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#243

Post by ernestbro »

crablar wrote: post #107

This is due to the ad fraud bubble. We have covered it extensively on Software Engineering Daily: https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/?s=ad+fraud

Thank you! This makes perfect sense: "A huge percentage of online advertisements are never seen by humans. They are viewed by bots–automated scripts that are opening web pages in a browser and pretending to be a human. Advertising scammers set up web pages, embed advertisements on those pages, and then pay for bot traffic to come and view those advertisements."

https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2016/12/20/ad-fraud-res...

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#244

Post by dajohnson89 »

enraged_camel wrote: post #188
victorhooi wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me address your three points in order: 1. There is a lot of free content - yeah, the internet is full of free content, but much of is click-bait garbage, or re-posted a billion times. Let's be honest - true, honest-to-goodness original journalism costs money. Good writing costs money. Investigating journalism costs money. Getting people to actually go out into the real world, and interview people, or write about…

>>Let's be honest - true, honest-to-goodness original journalism costs money. Good writing costs money. Investigating journalism costs money. Getting people to actually go out into the real world, and interview people, or write about stuff costs money. Who's going to pay for that? Investigative journalism is in its death throes, and it's not because of lack of money. It's because of lack of interest from audiences. N…

>Investigative journalism is in its death throes, and it's not because of lack of money. It's because of lack of interest from audiences.

How do you explain the success of vice?

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#245

Post by kapauldo »

SloppyStone wrote: post #127
emmanuel_1234 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" I guess my point is the current situation, basically 2 companies controlling so much traffic, seems, well, bad for small business in this country " Why " in this country "? Isn't it a problem for the entrepreneurs in the rest of the world too?

More importantly, which country?

Fake indignation devalues legitimate indignation, you know which country.

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#246

Post by dajohnson89 »

maksimum wrote: post #186
victorhooi wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you've actually thought your logic through to completion. You claim that you would "never consider paying for a news site", because it'll just get re-posted somewhere else. I urge you to think and reflect on what you've just claimed. Investigative journalism costs money. Going out and interviewing people, or taking photographs costs money. Digging through old archives, or filing Freedom of Information…

> If everybody stops doing that - what exactly are you going to re-post? An issue is that for a high quality investigative story, say the Boston Globe's story about how the catholic church covered up abuse by priests for years, is that although it is expensive to produce, and interesting, it is difficult for me to quantify how I should value it. I'm neither from Boston, nor catholic, so in a sense that story is compl…

I have a hard time trusting the impartiality of a government-funded news service.

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#247

Post by maxdo »

iopq wrote: post #220
coldtea wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Says who?

Nobody in China uses Google other than English speakers. Google is notoriously bad at breaking Chinese characters up into words. Few people in Russia use Google for Russian language searches, this is because Google is not as good at declining Russian nouns and conjugating Russian verbs. Yandex gives more results of a higher quality for certain searches.

That's bulshit, Google auditory is bigger even in Russia, not saying about other russian speaking countries. prof: https://www.searchengines.ru/google_oboshel.html

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#248

Post by dajohnson89 »

agumonkey wrote: post #115
dajohnson89 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We, as users, have been oversaturated and desensitized. There is so much crap shoved in our faces, that we've learned over the years to ignore all ads. Speaking for myself, I have an almost visceral negative reaction with ads. I would (and do) pay dumb amounts of money for a service if that means I'm not served ads.

Depends on the audience too. I'm anti consumerist somehow and reject ads mentally (it's as if they didn't exist on TV to my mind). The few times I've clicked on ads were for odd geek products (SBC). A few times I found a website / company that indeed taught me something about a brand / product / idea ... but in retrospect a webpage ad is way too superficial for me to know that in advance, and doesn't trigger curiosit…

The scary part is that we can only tune out ads so much. The subconscious absorbs them, and marketers totally know this.

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#249

Post by kapauldo »

I have found that all display ad clicks and all mobile ad clicks are worthless for our business with adwords. You have to blow a thousand bucks to learn that lesson. Once you eliminate that traffic, its not bad. Makes me wonder if google is one ftc lawsuit away from halving in value (tinfoil hat).

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#250

Post by dajohnson89 »

agumonkey wrote: post #204
phamilton wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, that was just an example though. Where do you buy gas? Which lightbulbs do you buy? Which batteries do you buy? Etc.

Yeah sorry, I got caught in my own head. I think more than brand, it's shelves that drive the decision for such commodities. Whatever is close and in good supply I'll take without too much attention paid to the brand. Or brand reputation when I'm feel picky. But never advertising itself.

You cannot escape the influence of advertising. To think otherwise is self-deception bordering on ignorance.
Post reply on HN