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Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

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Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#441

Post by milch »

latexr wrote: post #77
jsheard wrote: post #12

They do the same thing on the Play Store, for example I just searched for Firefox and the first result is a sponsored spot for Opera. Does Apple do that on the App Store? A funnier example: searching for Amazon gives Temu as the first result. Searching for Temu gives Shein as the first result. Searching for Shein gives Shein as the first result! ...but only because they outbid everyone else for the ad spot on their o…

> Does Apple do that on the App Store? Yes they do. Their search already sucks in normal circumstances—I remember searching for “Pinboard” (the bookmarking service) and had to scroll by thirteen pin ball (the game) apps before starting to see Pinboard apps—but you can type in the exact name of the app you want had have an ad for a competitor above it. Not only is it allowed, it’s encouraged.

They seem to have fixed that, at least for me all the top results are Pinboard clients or other products with Pinboard in the name.

With the ads it really feels like Apple is playing all sides, they almost always show the competitor first. When you search the competitor it's a different competitor at the top. You can keep going until you terminate at some app that presumably pays top dollar to appear as an ad for themselves right above their app in the search results. The only thing I'm surprised by is that they even allow people to put ads over their own first party apps

Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#443

Post by defgeneric »

If it's any consolation, these companies paying for ads on a competitor's brand name are probably paying through the nose to get clicks that only bounce. IF it's worth it at all, it's probably temporary. It's an indicator that market share is still up for grabs.

Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#444

Post by insane_dreamer »

leakycap wrote: post #100
evertedsphere wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also true on Apple's app stores, to be fair. I didn't know this until I got a MacBook Pro recently and my assumption that Apple's controls would be tighter than Google's was proven quite wrong when I opened the Mac App Store for the first rime.

The Mac App Store is such a wasteland. I don't know why Apple doesn't provide it a budget and some real human curation. The average person searching for Microsoft Word, which is on the App Store, gets screens of templates and junky overpriced apps.

This is not my experience.

In fact, I just tried searching for "Microsoft Word" in the Mac App Store, and it was the first hit (with other Office apps coming next).

I did a search for "Instapaper" and again, first hit.

On my iPhone I did the same thing, there was a single sponsored app as the first item (and oddly completely unrelated), and the first app after that was the one I typed.

Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#445

Post by remus »

thrtythreeforty wrote: post #312
asadotzler wrote: post #88

There was a time when Google disallowed this. Google even asked us (Firefox team) to report ads squatting on our trademarks. Eventually they stopped caring and now it's in their ad sales pitchdeck just how effective trademark squatting can be.

Can you in principle sue people buying these ads for trademark infringement? (I realize in practice the answer is that it's not worth the game of whack-a-mole.)

Where is the trademark infringement? It's like honda buying an advert outside a VW dealership.

Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#447

Post by insane_dreamer »

latexr wrote: post #77
jsheard wrote: post #12

They do the same thing on the Play Store, for example I just searched for Firefox and the first result is a sponsored spot for Opera. Does Apple do that on the App Store? A funnier example: searching for Amazon gives Temu as the first result. Searching for Temu gives Shein as the first result. Searching for Shein gives Shein as the first result! ...but only because they outbid everyone else for the ad spot on their o…

> Does Apple do that on the App Store? Yes they do. Their search already sucks in normal circumstances—I remember searching for “Pinboard” (the bookmarking service) and had to scroll by thirteen pin ball (the game) apps before starting to see Pinboard apps—but you can type in the exact name of the app you want had have an ad for a competitor above it. Not only is it allowed, it’s encouraged.

I just tried this, searched for "Pinboard" and it was the first app after one sponsored app (that was oddly completely unrelated). Tried a couple of other things, like "Instapaper" "Unread" and they were the first hits after a single sponsored app.

Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#448

Post by bawolff »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #268
bawolff wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These cycles have been going on a lot longer than the last 40 years. Everything eventually dies. Rome used to rule the world; sure it took about a thousand years, but it ultimately didn't last.

I fully accept the heat death of the universe will eventually take down Microsoft, but I don't think that's what the comment I was responding to was really about.

My point was that this cycle is not a recent thing, but has been present all throughout history. Bell labs fell. The hudson bay company fell. Arthur Andersen fell. All these were much more entrenched than microsoft is today. I'm not suggesting you have to wait for the heat death of the universe.

Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#449

Post by GeneralMaximus »

ares623 wrote: post #32
freediver wrote: post #7

They still get away with it as ‘only’ 1% complain and Google thinks they don’t matter. We built our entire company for that 1%.

How is Kagi for non-US folks? I've tried switching to DDG a while back but the experience for me, living outside the US, was not great. Sure, programming related searches were pretty good, but everything else was not. Does Kagi have a better localized experience?

> Does Kagi have a better localized experience?

I'm in India and it works well. I can even search in Hindi and get good results.

The only thing that doesn't work are local points of interests (restaurants, hotels, local businesses, etc). I still have to use Google Maps to look these up. Then again, even Apple doesn't have good local results for PoIs in India, so I don't expect Kagi to get this right either.

That said, I often turn off localized results completely and just use the international results. Those tend to be more diverse and more useful, at least for the sort of searches I tend to do.

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