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Google ad exec: “it is a worse user experience to not have ads on the page”

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Re: Google ad exec: “it is a worse user experience to not have ads on the page”

#41

Post by chankstein38 »

sayrer wrote: post #30
TheChaplain wrote: post #2

I believe this quote explains the situation well; "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

I think it can be true in some situations. If you think of magazines, it would be a disappointment for Rolling Stone to contain no ads. Same for camera magazines. News content really doesn't benefit, though. Just clickbait stuff.

I don't know man I've never turned to an ad in a magazine and been thankful it was there. Ads could evaporate completely from existence tomorrow and I'd miss absolutely nothing.

Re: Google ad exec: “it is a worse user experience to not have ads on the page”

#42

Post by janalsncm »

Terretta wrote: post #21
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, sure, build a better search engine that functions and is better without ads. Easier said than done. The internet is 99.99% scams and trash. It's easier said than done to find the signal in the noise. Some times - willing to pay (and being vetted not to be a scam) is a good indication of signal. Unfortunately, Google could do a little better on vetting their ad partners. Too often these days, ads are scams.

> build a better search engine that functions and is better without ads https://kagi.com > The internet is 99.99% scams and trash. It's hard to find the signal in the noise. https://blog.kagi.com/small-web

Spot on. However I do wonder if the cost of indexing the internet would be prohibitively expensive for a company looking to bootstrap without ad money.

Re: Google ad exec: “it is a worse user experience to not have ads on the page”

#44

Post by saalweachter »

CharlesW wrote: post #40
sayrer wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it can be true in some situations. If you think of magazines, it would be a disappointment for Rolling Stone to contain no ads. Same for camera magazines. News content really doesn't benefit, though. Just clickbait stuff.

> If you think of magazines, it would be a disappointment for Rolling Stone to contain no ads. I'll bite…because they're pretty? Or because how else would one stay on top of the latest Axe body spray releases?

Woodworking magazines are 1/3 about shop organization, 1/3 about project ideas & techniques, and 1/3 about the latest and oldest woodworking tools and where to buy them.

Re: Google ad exec: “it is a worse user experience to not have ads on the page”

#45

Post by lesuorac »

chankstein38 wrote: post #41
sayrer wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it can be true in some situations. If you think of magazines, it would be a disappointment for Rolling Stone to contain no ads. Same for camera magazines. News content really doesn't benefit, though. Just clickbait stuff.

I don't know man I've never turned to an ad in a magazine and been thankful it was there. Ads could evaporate completely from existence tomorrow and I'd miss absolutely nothing.

Isn't that almost the whole point of the magazine?

I guess for something a bit more catch-all like "Rolling Stone" Ads would detract.

But for something like USA Hockey, honestly the Ads are more interesting than half the actual content. Although seeing the same 4 ads for home skating rinks has gotten old.

Although I guess this would be more akin to searching Google for "new hockey products" and then it would make a lot of sense to return pure ads.

Re: Google ad exec: “it is a worse user experience to not have ads on the page”

#46

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

FWIW, I used to enjoy ads on Google's search page (or at least weren't bothered by them), but importantly, when they were clearly identified by (a) a yellow background, with at most one or two entries at the top, and (b) an unobtrusive sidebar (random example I found online, https://www.avidlyagency.com/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/searc...).

What I despise now is that for most remotely-commercial searches every entry above the fold is an ad, and it's barely marked with a tiny "ad" box (otherwise the visual treatment is the same as organic results). I especially hate it when I search for a particular branded item, and the first 5 results I get back are competitors' ads, in addition to an ad from the brand because they have to pay "the Google tax".

Re: Google ad exec: “it is a worse user experience to not have ads on the page”

#47

Post by keepper »

CharlesW wrote: post #40
sayrer wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it can be true in some situations. If you think of magazines, it would be a disappointment for Rolling Stone to contain no ads. Same for camera magazines. News content really doesn't benefit, though. Just clickbait stuff.

> If you think of magazines, it would be a disappointment for Rolling Stone to contain no ads. I'll bite…because they're pretty? Or because how else would one stay on top of the latest Axe body spray releases?

Because who then pays for the content? Time and time again, the average person has shown that they will rather spend X times more on a trivial thing than content.

This is more acute on hard news. Where a single page article may cost 100k to produce, yet wont be able to be monetized per its "cost to produce".

So yes, it would be a disappointment to lose "great content". now, here lies in the kicker. You get to decide great content with your patronage ( or lack there of)

Re: Google ad exec: “it is a worse user experience to not have ads on the page”

#48

Post by mstipetic »

baja_blast wrote: post #4

Anyone else feel that Google as a search engine has gotten really bad these past few years? Finding information outside of looking up restaurants, songs or products the results are often times completely irrelevant and limited now.

I’ve been talking about it for a while - try searching for any industry metrics, research into topics, trends reports etc, it’s impossible. Unless I know the exact title of an article, even though I remember concrete things about an article I read and try to use them in a search it returns nothing useful.

Re: Google ad exec: “it is a worse user experience to not have ads on the page”

#50

Post by chankstein38 »

baja_blast wrote: post #4

Anyone else feel that Google as a search engine has gotten really bad these past few years? Finding information outside of looking up restaurants, songs or products the results are often times completely irrelevant and limited now.

One thing I think affects this, aside from Google just being trash now, is the age of content available. I can't tell you how many times I google for a solution while writing some code and find irrelevant crap from 2013 or something.

Don't get me wrong, it's good those things are available to be searched still but I don't routinely need 10 year old data. It would be nice if they'd archive things older than a certain date and give you an alternate way to search those things.

Maybe I'm searching for something where the tech is 10 years old so I need that answer and Google's results say "No current results. (number) archived results available. Click here" and let you click to load the archived results the same way they do with omitted results.

I don't know this is just something I've been thinking about for a long time. Maybe it's stupid but I get so tired of scrolling through stackoverflow posts from the 2010s when I'm looking for an answer on a new version of a language I'm using.

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