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We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

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Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#271

Post by freedomben »

drfloyd51 wrote: post #246
jordigh wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An ad is never helpful because ads are designed to mislead me into buying something I didn't need or knew about before I saw the ad. If nothing else, an ad cannot impartially compare a product with the competition (and sometimes the "competition" is buying nothing at all), therefore every ad lies. If I already needed or knew about it, I didn't need the ad. If I was happy with my life without the product advertised, I…

I saw an add for a medicine that was new on the market and my friend who could use the meds, was unaware of its existence. Now, after a doctor’s involvement, my friend is on the new med and it treats their condition better and the quality of their life is improved.

This happened to me as well, and during a football game ad (which I generally skip and despise highly). The signal-to-noise ratio is extremely low with ads, but they indeed can be helpful sometimes.

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#273

Post by satvikpendem »

fsflover wrote: post #213
bayindirh wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Far from widespread? SEO has seeped to all crevices of the internet for the last 20 years .

By this measure, any information you can get whatsoever is biased and there is no reason to trust anything at all.

All information has some sort of bias, as no information can truly be unbiased. There is no reason to trust any specific piece of information but taken in aggregate one can disambiguate the biases.

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#274

Post by Ajedi32 »

stingraycharles wrote: post #10
karlkloss wrote: post #8

Does nobody talk abot the elephant in the room? Will the answers the AI gives also be influenced by Googles customers?

This is not an elephant in the room, this is so obvious and discussed all the time. What else is Google going to do, give up their one and only goose that lays the golden eggs? Regular search being replaced with AI search means regular search (with ads) being replaced with AI search (with ads). The benefit of AI search will be that it’s much better “integrated” in the answer, aka even harder to detect.

They could have ads alongside the AI response, in a completely separate section of the page (like search results are). That seems fine. But if they start including ads in the AI context window then it becomes impossible to tell what parts of the response are driven by advertisement vs organic results.

It seems like for now they are making an effort to keep them separate.

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#275

Post by frm88 »

neuropacabra wrote: post #222

I never got into DuckDuckGo, but here we go. Defaulted from yesterday when Google made AI Search a default for Google Search. Well, I have been using Altavista and others so I can get used to another one.

They even do us the courtesy to still maintain an AI-free version at noai. duckduckgo. com

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#276

Post by ai_slop_hater »

timeattack wrote: post #266
jackdoe wrote: post #139

Get the last ounce of milk from the dying cow. The well is beyond poisoned. Almost anything I search for is returning AI generated vomit. I have not used google in weeks. On youtube I use Unhook and only look at /feed/subscriptions, when I search I use before:2022. And am actually downloading what I find interesting, before google starts deleting because of the flood of vomit. Hard disks can not be manufactured fast…

Well is so beyond poisoned that it is the groundwater which tastes like toxic waste now, no matter where you will try to dig up your own well. Transport layer that used to be clean as mountain air now full of hungry eyes peeking at you through the nether. Russia followed China's playbook and inserted black traffic-filtering boxes, which particularly dislike anything that looks like encrypted messaging. EU and rest of…

Isn't HTTPS encrypted messaging? Or does TLS not count as encryption?

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#277

Post by superloika »

SJMG wrote: post #259
superloika wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a way to see old results, by adding "before:2023" to the search query.

Great, as long as you don't mind the nexus of all human communication to be frozen in time three years ago.

For many queries it does not matter.

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#278

Post by freedomben »

nelblu wrote: post #15

> We’re introducing more helpful ads in AI Mode I always chuckle when ad companies say that. I have never seen a helpful ad in google search, but well I have been using adblockers forever so I would not know.I am honestly curious though, for those who don't use adblockers - what percentage of ads that you see are actually helpful?

I use an adblocker and despise most ads with a burning hatred, but the absolutist position of "never helpful" isn't right. My example: A game I've been wanting to buy for a while recently went on sale on Steam. I saw an ad when I opened Steam. I bought the game for the low price, and it is now one of my favorite games I've ever played (Burnout Paradise City - highly recommend, but wait for a sale)

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#280

Post by ZetsuBouKyo »

nelblu wrote: post #15

> We’re introducing more helpful ads in AI Mode I always chuckle when ad companies say that. I have never seen a helpful ad in google search, but well I have been using adblockers forever so I would not know.I am honestly curious though, for those who don't use adblockers - what percentage of ads that you see are actually helpful?

For people who think often, ad is only useful in very few situations.

The ability to think often is ultimately a capability that only a minority of humans possess. Therefore, for the vast majority of people, ad is very useful.

For example, my retired parents enjoy buying little gadgets from ads.

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