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For some searches the whole screen on Google is now ads

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Re: For some searches the whole screen on Google is now ads

#421

Post by Guest42 »

hda111 wrote: post #418
gambiting wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google results have for a while stopped having anything to do with the actual search query. In the past they were magical, like Google could almost read your mind and guess exactly what you mean, but nowadays you can type in the exact search string, and still have the first page of results where Google just ommited half of the string to give you sponsored content. Like even for simple "C# " why are the first few resu…

Seems like the SEO people have successfully reverse engineered Google‘s algorithms.

That’s an interesting point. Was this passively intentional from Google? What methods could be used to generate more accurate results? How accurate do they want the results?

Re: For some searches the whole screen on Google is now ads

#422

Post by nicce »

Guest42 wrote: post #421
hda111 wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like the SEO people have successfully reverse engineered Google‘s algorithms.

That’s an interesting point. Was this passively intentional from Google? What methods could be used to generate more accurate results? How accurate do they want the results?

If the business model would be somehow changed to non-ad based, then there might motivation for the change.

Re: For some searches the whole screen on Google is now ads

#423

Post by freediver »

mbwgh wrote: post #363
freediver wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a few notes. Search costs money and it seems we needed to get to 2022 to realize that. We made a choice of user = customer so yes the cost is real, and it is suddenly on the user. What they get in return is (at least a promise of) a superior search experience with a product that has many features that Google and similar ad-supported search engines simply never can. Our $10 plan is likely going to give the user 1…

> Our $10 plan is likely going to give the user 1,000 searches. Do you intend to make the search limit a daily thing, or will it only apply over the whole month? For me at least, I have spikes in my search behavior, like when I'm working on some difficult project, while on other days there's not much going on. While having a search budget would maybe get some getting used to, I could see myself working with it if I h…

> Do you intend to make the search limit a daily thing, or will it only apply over the whole month?

Monthly for sure, even passing unused one to next month.

We are building a UI for consumption data right now :)

Re: For some searches the whole screen on Google is now ads

#424

Post by gregmac »

shiftpgdn wrote: post #269
heavyset_go wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still bitter that they've deprioritized results from SongMeanings.net in favor of garbage like Genius. The former is one of the only sources for lyrics from smaller acts, especially from the 90's to early 2010's. Since it's from the pre-Web 2.0 era, it's disappeared from Google's search results.

Same with Sheldon Brown’s website on bicycle maintenance. Much of the information on his site is still the best resource on the internet but instead Google would rather serve irrelevant results that show ads.

> but instead Google would rather serve irrelevant results that show ads.

Does showing Google Adsense ads actually result in a higher ranking in organic search results?

It makes total sense for their business model, to the detriment of users. I've just never considered that before.

Re: For some searches the whole screen on Google is now ads

#425

Post by freediver »

wakeupcall wrote: post #377
Closi wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am on Kagi Beta but IMO they do not have a valid monetisation strategy that I would pay for. Their current pricing model is planned to be $30 a month for an 'all you can eat' subscription, or $10 a month for a 'lite' membership that gives you 20 searches per day and then charges you $0.02 per search after that on a pay-as-you-go model (but if you check your search history, you may be suprised how many searches you…

I've been using kagi for a while. I was using google+ublacklist, and (mostly) searx prior to that. I only care about search, every other feature (maps, listicles, etc) is worthless to me. So far I've been quite pleasantly surprised. I didn't need to de-prioritize anything yet, and most of my queries are technical. I would pay for it, but like you say, I'm not sure how much. 5$ for unlimited searches is something I'd…

> I definitely see the problem with the API cost of the underlying calls though. That feels like a huge argument that having your own index is important to compete in the market.

A Google size index that is potentially able to replace google results would probably cost $100m-$1B to build. We have a fraction of that built for noncommercial results (try Noncommercial lens in Kagi to see how it works).

Re: For some searches the whole screen on Google is now ads

#426

Post by anaganisk »

hda111 wrote: post #418
gambiting wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google results have for a while stopped having anything to do with the actual search query. In the past they were magical, like Google could almost read your mind and guess exactly what you mean, but nowadays you can type in the exact search string, and still have the first page of results where Google just ommited half of the string to give you sponsored content. Like even for simple "C# " why are the first few resu…

Seems like the SEO people have successfully reverse engineered Google‘s algorithms.

Or google, they’re just interested in making more money

Re: For some searches the whole screen on Google is now ads

#427

Post by Closi »

b112 wrote: post #417
Closi wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 80% of users search less than that monthly, even average HN users (who are majority of our beta users). I suspect 80% of your users also are not daily-driving though, are also using other search engines at the same time, and have not set Kagi as a default on all their computers and their mobile devices (which I did!). In order to do that I had to change my mobile browser from Safari to Firefox, which is part of the…

I don't know how the paid search API of Google and Bing work, but I will say one thing here. When I'm searching for technical data, I often search, and click through to more than one thing. I also tend to modify search terms, too, trying to winnow the results a bit. My point being, there is a lot of potential for "show the same search results again, because the user re-searched 5 minutes later" and "show the same sea…

Completely agree with almost everything you have said, but to clarify on your caching point:

> But, even though it adds local cost for storage and DB, caching searches per user could reduce costs in some scenarios

There may be some opportunity to do this, and caching results would be a good idea, but most forms of caching are explicitly banned from the Google and Bing API T&Cs. Some caching is allowed in some circumstances, but this will limit the usefulness of caching to reduce costs.

> Because, while I love the idea of paid search... I think I do 100s of searches per day, so if you pay for each page of search results, and winnowing down results with additional terms....

Agree with this - and at your usage levels plus $1 per 80 searches plus the $10 fee for 30 / day, you will be talking about $40+ per month, or $480 per year - enough to buy a new Macbook every 2.5 years :)

But IMO having been on the discord group the founders have got themselves into a trap of thinking "Charging per query is the only way we can make the sums financially work because we use both the Bing and Google APIs, thus we will need to get users to accept to paying per query".

Re: For some searches the whole screen on Google is now ads

#428

Post by patrick451 »

gambiting wrote: post #378
function_seven wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Appreciate the effort, but my example was for clothes load sensing (what it does before determine the water required.) I've watched it at work and as best as I can tell, it takes inertial mass readings by wiggling the drum using a specified current, and measuring how far the drum oscillates. Or maybe it predetermines the amplitude and measures the power required? I'm just guessing. What I want to find out: is either…

The problem I am seeing is that yes, someone will write the exact nerdy explanation on how it works - on a private Facebook group, which you will never find in any search engine. I'm a member of several automotive FB groups and the wealth of knowledge there is enormous - but ultimately it all gets swallowed up in Facebook's belly and is not available for easy search like it used to be. It's a real tragedy.

Yeah the replacement of forums with facebook is one of the worst things to happen to the web. Like craigslist, many of them still exist, but are just not very active.

Re: For some searches the whole screen on Google is now ads

#429

Post by dorgo »

moron4hire wrote: post #302
jordigh wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My biggest feature request: A check box that says, "[ ] I'm not buying anything" The primary purpose of ads isn't to get you to buy something. It's to plant a brand in your brain so that next time you do want to buy something, you'll think of the brand. Ads are very good psychological manipulation.

If we are to believe advertisers are so great at their jobs, why can't they produce any meaningful metrics that don't commit egregious sins of statistical analysis? Here's a thing that I am absolutely convinced happens. Ad network tracks purchases. Ad network track ad impressions. Ad network correlates the two and finds that 90% of people who saw the ad also bought the product. But they conveniently "forgot" to check…

If 1 out of 100 impressions leads to a purchase it's alredy a good performance. The effort to improve this rate is not always worth it. That's the reason we are spammed with ads.

Re: For some searches the whole screen on Google is now ads

#430

Post by thfuran »

nicce wrote: post #422
Guest42 wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s an interesting point. Was this passively intentional from Google? What methods could be used to generate more accurate results? How accurate do they want the results?

If the business model would be somehow changed to non-ad based, then there might motivation for the change.

Everyone selling something would still have strong incentive to SEO themselves to the top.
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