Fewer Than Half of Google Searches Now Result in a Click • Hacker News Board

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

#381

Post by telotortium » Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 2:36 AM UTC

mthoms wrote: post #364

telotortium wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like all the things you listed :) More seriously, from a moral standpoint, I would argue that what's at most a short paragraph extract from a website falls under fair use. I don't believe any site is entitled to clicks from Google's search results page, certainly not for such short snippets, which I believe don't exhibit the level of creativity that deserves denying the right to copy to others. By contrast, the oth…

Indeed, one of the four criteria in determining fair use is "how much" was copied. You know what another one is? Whether the usage affects the originators ability to make money from their work. A legal determination of Fair Use is subjective and can only be decided in court. But, citing only one of the four pillars as moral justification while blatantly ignoring the other (equally important) ones is a little rich. ht…

I agree that there are other factors to be considered, including the ability of the originator to make money from their creative expression. However, from the page you linked, "[b]ecause the dissemination of facts or information benefits the public, you have more leeway to copy from factual works such as biographies than you do from fictional works such as plays or novels." In many cases, Google's knowledge box comes from sources such as this. In the US at least, given the short length of most snippets in the knowledge box, you'd have to argue that the particular expression of the fact in the search box is both sufficiently creative and sufficiently central to the work. Even in the case of a snippet reflecting human judgement, such as the box displayed for "best nail for cedar wood", the short snippet appears to be considered fair use, at least in the US. Google Books has been considered fair use, for example: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/04/fair-use-prevail...

In the case of artistic works, the criteria for fair use outside of parody are more limited (although see the Google Books case). For example, the display of a stanza of a poem, or a section of song lyrics, might not be seen as fair use (I'll leave my personal opinions out of this). However, in the case of song lyrics, Google has permission from the rights owners to reproduce them in their search results.

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

#382

Post by O_H_E » Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 2:48 AM UTC

x0 wrote: post #360

kryogen1c wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. I cant tell if my questions are just getting more specific and technical, but Google search results have been getting pretty useless in the past year or so

I love how google likes to completely ignore what I'm trying to search for. I wish I could think of an example because it happens to me often, but I can't so I'll make one up. Imagine you're searching for tail lights for your car or something, but you don't know the size, so you search "Astra tail light size". This might bring up headlights. Wrong but no matter, you'd go on to google "Astra tail light size -headlight…

I am kind of happy and sad in the same time to know that it is not just me.

This is SO annoying.

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

#383

Post by calimac » Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 2:49 AM UTC

does this mean google has even more influence over the coloring of reality. Are users taking there cursory summaries over source information?

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

#384

Post by sharatvir » Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 2:52 AM UTC

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.

It sucks. Sometimes the bold text is the exact opposite of the answer to the query I search for. It’s very misleading unless you click through and read the full context.

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

#385

Post by provolone » Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 3:00 AM UTC

Stop writing naive content in meta-description and cards. Use this content as a teaser. Be cynical. Sell your content. Survive.

I read this as 50% of web developers failed to open, so they'll never close.

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

#386

Post by dingo_bat » Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 3:01 AM UTC

henryfjordan wrote: post #292

reaperducer wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, more people don't click, because they've taken the answer from your website and displayed it right in their search results. It's for this reason that's I've stopped embedding micro data in the HTML I write. Micro data only serves Google. Not my clients. Not my sites. Just Google. Every month or so I get an e-mail from a Google bot warning me that my site's micro data is incomplete. Tough. If Google wants to use m…

I just got one of those emails for the first time about my personal site that's basically my resume. Apparently my text is small on mobile (it's not...) and some other crap I don't get why google thinks it's acceptable to critique my site without prompting. It honestly just feels rude. They want me to do a whole bunch of micro-optimizations on a site that already works fine because it doesn't fit their standard of "h…

You should mark it spam, because that's what it is.

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

#387

Post by jammygit » Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 3:03 AM UTC

I want to take the opportunity to blame SEO for this. The top results are games so hard that not-rarely the first page is nothing but spammy seo sites now. Depends a lot on what you are searching for though.

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

#388

Post by egypturnash » Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 3:06 AM UTC

Article: "Throughout this post, I’ll be using numbers from the clickstream data company, Jumpshot. They are, in my opinion, the best, most reliable source of information on what happens inside web browsers because of how they gather, process, and scale their estimates."

Me: How do they get this data. This is some pretty thorough data on a site they don't own.

Article: "Jumpshot is the data arm of Avast, a well-regarded maker of numerous Internet security products. This suite of products, in order to function, must collect and analyze every URL visited by every browser of every machine on which its installed. [...]

Article: "Because Avast has to see and process all these URLs anyway (in order to serve their function of providing web security), they anonymize, aggregate, and remove any personally-identifiable information from the browser URL visits and then provide them to Jumpshot, who then makes estimates about broad web usage behavior."

...I hate this world. Everyone's tracking you. Everyone's selling you to advertisers.

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

#389

Post by baroffoos » Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 3:09 AM UTC

egypturnash wrote: post #388

Article: "Throughout this post, I’ll be using numbers from the clickstream data company, Jumpshot. They are, in my opinion, the best, most reliable source of information on what happens inside web browsers because of how they gather, process, and scale their estimates." Me: How do they get this data. This is some pretty thorough data on a site they don't own. Article: "Jumpshot is the data arm of Avast, a well-regard…

* Every corporation

There are still plenty of individuals working on projects not driven by money which respect your privacy.

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

#390

Post by JoshMnem » Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 3:12 AM UTC

With AMP, signed HTTP exchanges, and "portals" it's getting even worse. Users never leave their servers, and they control the publishing format and require you to include their JavaScript. (It's only briefly mentioned in the article.)