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Fewer Than Half of Google Searches Now Result in a Click

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

#391

Post by baroffoos »

sixothree wrote: post #71
puranjay wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand your stand, but what Google did with its featured snippets is essentially a form of bait and switch. It encouraged entrepreneurs and creators to create content that could answer specific queries with the promise that Google will drive traffic to their sites. Now Google is using the same content and depriving them of the traffic. That's pretty scummy in my opinion.

Also the data they are serving is often incorrect or outdated. I've grown accustom to not trusting these info boxes.

They also crop the content so even when it is correct you can't see all the steps.

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

#392

Post by baroffoos »

inetknght wrote: post #41
hammock wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The one weird case here is AMP. If you have been to a local news site recently, you might agree that they are similarly "scummy," overrun with banners, popups and native ads.

Try a local news site with Firefox's Reader Mode. If it's still garbage then the local news site isn't worth any more time whatsoever. Keep a running mental list of what sites not to click on. They're typically in the top 1-10 links of search results.

I wish I could hit reader mode before the page loads so my phone doesn't melt in the time it takes for the page to finish loading its 10000 js frameworks.

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

#393

Post by BigJono »

elorant wrote: post #373
michaelmior wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If Google wants to go back to being a search engine While I understand the problems with Google scraping content, as a user these snippets help me find what I'm searching for faster. If that's all you're optimizing for, Google is fantastic. There are certainly good arguments to be made for other models, but for search, stealing content helps. I'm not advocating stealing content, I'm just saying that it produces mor…

How do you know that the content Google features is the best there is? If we stop clicking on sites and just rely on Google to provide us the content we'll go down a very slippery slope.

I don't really see how this problem is any different to 'how do we know the #1 search result is the best content there is?', if it provides you the information you want, then great, otherwise you load #2.

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

#394

Post by mxd3 »

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…

Great point, this was my first thought also. Google has been doing a slow creep of this type of content for the past through years through the featured snippet you mentioned, and other knowledge panel material. They now serve sports, weather, math, translation, flights, etc.

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

#395

Post by nixpulvis »

gumby wrote: post #379
nixpulvis wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you not seen the problems that have popped up due to the ad blocking arms race?

Not sure. I've seen complaints by some advertising sites, but no especial problems. Can you elaborate? I'd genuinely like to know more.

Well I've hit websites that break completely with ad blockers enabled. I've also seen sites that break regardless of my addons, just because it's Firefox, and it thinks I've installed something that's blocking ads specifically (frankly it's offensive to tell the user to disable something they never enabled, while blocking them).

Meanwhile, I waste my own time looking at how these are implemented because in about half the cases (or so) I can simply "inspect element" and delete the offending code. Though I waste the time in the other cases.

It's a disgrace, and something we shouldn't stand for...

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

#396

Post by moksly »

benoliver999 wrote: post #293
squeaky-clean wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They suck. And something about the way they are presented seems to make people believe them. I think it gives that one-shot answer to questions people have, even when the real answer is nuanced and multi-faceted.

I think they’re believable because google started by providing things that weren’t wrong. If you search for a time zone google shows it in your local time, if you search for currency conversion google does that. All those things that it’s done for ages, which were things that were also typically correct.

Then the snippets show up, and they are presented in a similarly trust worthy fashion. But the snippets are really just the really just the result of which ever site has the best SEO, and that’s often a really worthless metric these days. The time zone and currency stuff is easy, because it’s math, but opinions aren’t. The thing is though that even if google didn’t have the snippets, those sites that gets snippets would still be the top results that we clicked, and we’d still get the wrong information. That would probably be better, because it might be easier to spot obvious bad sources, but I still think there is just a fundamental flaw in how SEO professionals have learned to game the google bot to bring the world useless information.

I mean, part of it is certainly on google. No one in their right mind wants to comply with Google’s ranking terms, unless you make money from google searches. Which means a lot of useful personal blogs have dropped off the face of the internet, unless you’re really lucky to see them linked on a place like HN.

I wish libraries would band together and make a privacy focused and curated search engine, because librarians are actually kind of good at finding you the correct information.

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

#397

Post by Dylan16807 »

wongarsu wrote: post #356
Dylan16807 wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not sure why you are downvoted. Because they didn't say "in the EU", and it not being copyright is not just a technicality. Copyright is about creative expression, and utilitarian collections of facts aren't.

> Because they didn't say "in the EU" They also didn't say "in the US". From context you can only assume "in some jurisdiction google cares about" > Copyright is about creative expression That's not true, or at least a very US-centric view. The Berne Convention, the international standard for copyright, reads: "[...] shall include every production in the literary, scientific and artistic domain, whatever may be the m…

"by reason of the selection and arrangement of their contents"

If there was no selection or you make the original selection irrelevant, while also giving your own arrangement, then there's no violation of copyright.

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

#398

Post by prawn »

anotheracc wrote: post #224
judge2020 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the downfall of AOL was Google because Google had a better product. In order for google to fall, you need a product that's better (or more of what people want; you need to give them a reason to change their search engine).

I have no trouble believing Google is going to fall. Their results have gone into the toilet - I ragequit Google search about once a day and do something else like forum searches.

I stick with Google but increasingly try to tweak my searches to hit forums. They're just that much less likely to be made-for-AdSense content by a copywriter paraphrasing other information from the web.

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

#399

Post by eitland »

njharman wrote: post #380
zymhan wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So by having a website, I implicitly agree to Google's search practices? That doesn't seem right.

You put a resource on an open network and don't use any of the standard, recognized methods to indicate don't index, don't share, (nor lock it away with auth). It's like if you put a sculpture in front yard and get upset when someone points it out in their neighborhood tour company, even worse cause yard ornaments don't have standard accepted methods of saying "don't use". Two choices 1) use robots.txt 2) don't put i…

Nah. Take it easy here, there is a long way between indexing and showing the most relevant hit and outright lifting big parts out of the site and use them on their own property:

It is more like if the guide that used to send visitors to your property has set up their own boot on the best spot on the sidewalk next to you and are raking in money because of the useless (often, in the last few years) ads they have plastered all over it.

Even if it is an educational non-profit resource you don't want that as some of the details get lost when visitors only reads the guides summary instead of taking a closer look for themselves.

And according to people on this thread they will also complain and/or come with suggestions about how you can make it even more useful to them.

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

#400

Post by drivebycomment »

glangdale wrote: post #371
x0 wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Absolutely. I was trying to figure out something to do with timeouts in an SMT solver called Yices, so I had search strings about signals and alarm and Yices - of course. Google decided that this was a generalized programming question and displayed a lot of stuff about signals and alarm handling that didn't relate to Yices. How likely a search time is "Yices", ffs? Feels like something that exotic ("statistically unl…

I had no idea what Yices is. So I Googled it - the first link is SRI's Yices SMT solver. I tried "yices alarm" "yices signals" "yices timeout", and all of them showed only links related to Yices in the first result page (various manual pages, types, etc). So my attempt at reproducing your experience has failed.
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