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

Fewer Than Half of Google Searches Now Result in a Click

sparktoro.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 531 posts

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

#251

Post by skinnymuch »

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…

The slight decline has been happening for two years. You can’t state a bunch of reasons over something that just started. As if you know those are the reasons.

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

#252

Post by skinnymuch »

overcast wrote: post #211
rlanday wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

Next paragraph states there’s been declines mostly since 2016. And tables lower than that show declines from 2017.

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

#253

Post by mtgx »

charlesju wrote: post #225
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.

Can you even imagine what will be the end result of this strategy?

Basically 1 site getting 99% of the traffic when everyone does voice searches and Google only gives them the "top answer" (which may or not may be correct).

From a UX perspective, once they've already committed to this, it will be difficult for Google to change this to giving users "more alternatives" even if they wanted to (which they won't, unless there' a lot of backlash about it). It will also be worse than what we have now, as far as "giving alternatives" goes, as those will be limited

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

#254

Post by skinnymuch »

rchaud wrote: post #171
rlanday wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sure, but "nuance" and "context" is not what Google is trying to optimize for. They are going for the "instant fact check" audience, like the sidekick gophers on podcasts who look stuff up while the main host and their guest warbles on.

The parent included their biases no proof agenda in their comment. And that seems to be the primary reason for the comment in the first place. I’d say that’s worse than Google.

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

#255

Post by cortesoft »

jodrellblank wrote: post #172
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…

Perfect world: User: I can afford a livable four walls and a roof from a small amount of savings, without needing to mortgage decades of my future. Brilliant.

Are you arguing that everyone should be able to buy a house, that they can live in forever, with cash they have with little savings?

The problem with that is that if a poor person can afford a house with cash, then a slightly richer person would just go, "wow, I can buy a really big house! Or two!", and suddenly there is no more space.

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

#256

Post by Wowfunhappy »

skinnymuch wrote: post #247
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard of this strategy before, but it has never worked for me. Encrypted.google.com just redirects to google.com, and I still get AMP. I now use https://github.com/bentasker/RemoveAMP , but that's only possible because I'm lucky enough to have a Jailbroken iPhone. :/

Are you using a userscript app or extension for jailbroken iOS devices?

I'm using software that allows me to load userscripts in Mobile Safari on my iPhone.

I guess you'd call it an "extension"? It feels weird to use that term, as it implies (to me) that there's some sort of extension framework in place. There isn't, it's just code injection.

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

#257

Post by mtgx »

squeaky-clean wrote: post #187
sli wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I've found them to be incorrect so often on things when I would click through to the actual page or find a better link. I don't trust just the blurb for any answers any more.

Let's hope Google doesn't intend to enable the feature for the 2020 elections (or any election), because this one thing could single-handedly do to Google PR-wise and politics-wise what the trending topics did to Facebook in 2016/2017.

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

#258

Post by HenryBemis »

soup10 wrote: post #245
charlesju wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

AdWords is and always has been the goose that lays the golden eggs, none of Google's other initiatives have ever rivaled that revenue. That's why they put so much effort into bolstering and optimizing their search results pages.

Another reason is the use of add-ons such as: "Google search link fix - Prevents Google and Yandex search pages from modifying search result links when you click them."

I have stopped using Google a few years ago, but just in case I keep this (or similar) add-ons of my Firefox.

I have no idea of the popularity of such addons, but they would also impact the tracking that Google does.

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

#259

Post by scohesc »

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…

So they're like a modern ebaums world for the information age.

Interesting way to put it - the biggest bully with the most money wins!

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

#260

Post by hinkley »

It feels to me like the SEO optimizing folks have gotten out ahead of Google's algorithm. I've been getting back into an old hobby and looking for where to buy supplies or advice on which supplies to buy and it's just all spam, fake sites and low quality products.

And it occurs to me that I've been experiencing a lesser version of this for years. Google search just isn't working for me anymore.

Post reply on HN