The "Don't be evil" Google feels long gone
It isn't, they just bought the term and redefined it. Nothing a few millions to the main dictionary editors won't fix.
We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot
301–310 of 603 posts
Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot
#302Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Since when have we considered ads something helpful? Depends. Ads a low-effort large-reach pathways for lead generation, mostly useful for B2C penetration. I also did sales when I ran my own company, and I can absolutely guarantee that ads can be helpful. When talking to leads you're talking to someone who a) never saw what you offered but is listening to you anyway, or b) saw what you offered and decided to contac…
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…
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Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot
#303The only reason Google is pushing this AI crap is so that they can shove ads right into people's throats without them being able to use ad blockers (it's easy to block a web script but virtually impossible to block the text itself), effectively doubling their profits overnight.
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Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot
#304Earlier quoted context omitted.
Personally, I sometimes like targeted ads. If I'm intentionally shopping, it is nice to see ads relevant to my interests. Not saying the whole Internet should be a highly surveiled mall, but they do have their place
It would be great if I was shown things "relevant to my interests". That's not what targeted ads are because ad placement depends on who is willing to pay the most, not on what optimally matches what I want. The most obvious example is search ads in the App Store that show you a competitor's product (or an outright scam) as an ad when searching for a specific app. Now extend that kind of dynamic to any other product…
True. I guess I forgot about the whole auction process.
Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot
#305Your friendly reminder to check out a search engine that you pay for. I use Kagi and love it, and you might too!
Seconding for Kagi! It still falls short in some places, like unfortunately googles maps/business/reviews system is just the only of its kind. But I have come to love the search experience over all.
Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot
#306I guess I'm used to seeing the english language being mangled by corp-speak but "creative" as a noun that doesn't even refer to a "creative" person (which also feels like a recent addition) really grates!
ad creative (also just 'creative' for short in an advertising context) has been around since the 1960's. It was used in web banner advertising at its inception in the 1990s.
Tribes have their own lingo, and language changes all the time. Sorry you don't like what the marketing tribe did more than 50 years ago.
Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot
#307Ah, well that was my first guess as to how they'd make money.
[Product placement in The Truman Show clip]
Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot
#308But who'll pay for those ads? Why would I pay Google if it just plops out some LLM answer with maybe my site as a source - which 90%+ of people will ignore as they don't care about it.
Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot
#309Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Of course it is an encrypted messaging. But it is safe as long as root certificates are not being imposed to be issued by government agencies only. Which is very easy to mandate in a totalitarian government. Want your website to serve customers in our jurisdiction? Then you ought to use certificate issued by us.
Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot
#310Earlier quoted context omitted.
I won't be able to use their AI results if they are, personally. If I ask the question "what is the best tool for doing x" and I can't trust that the answer is going to be the truth according to all available information, then the AI is useless or worse, misleading. If google is unbiased, and only highlights paid advertiser mentions, no one will pay. I'd only accept this if it was a clear separation of LLM response a…
Let me let you in on a little industry "secret" You can't trust those results no matter what The pages that they pull in to source that data all contain affiliate links and companies contact websites to get their tools to the tops of those lists by paying money often monthly. I know this because I do this... It's basically standard SEO but it also manipulates AI like ChatGPT very very easily
The cheat code for that used to be Reddit before they got growth-hacked 10+ years ago.