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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

#461

Post by w1nst0nsm1th »

millstone wrote: post #407
BigJono wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Google lends the weight of its authority to the answers it presents. It's one thing if Infowars says that Obama is planning a coup against Donald Trump, it's another if Google says so.

Try googling "root M89 tablet".

The first three result lead you to fake android blog telling you how you can easily root every chinese android device and specifically the M89 tablet...

The real authoritative result (xda-developers) only appears in the fourth position, under sight. It will tell you if you follow the instruction given in the fake blog post from the 2 or 3 first results, you will brick your tablet.

In a similar way the word "cbd" (for cannabidiol) has been hijacked by dubious commercial compagnies through fake blog posts filling pages after pages of google results telling you how great cbd is for the treatment of every disease on earth... But there is no trace of an actual study in these results. You will have to go with the less popular word "cannabidiol" to start to see some serious articles about it.

Google results can be hijacked and Google do little about it. May be because the ads shown in these fake blog posts are from google ads network ? I don't know...

But google result have clearly deteriorated these last years and the authoritative figure of the companie is not anymore what it was in the past.

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

#462

Post by johnx123-up »

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…

As I mentioned before in HN, this guy predicted "Google SEO bubble" http://rajeshanbiah.blogspot.com/2018/01/technology-predicti...

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

#463

Post by wastedhours »

checktheorder wrote: post #218
SilasX wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm, I think there's scumminess on both sides, since (as GP noted) even simple sites (e.g. for lyrics) are bloated and unusable. Before: User: Hey Google, what's the monthly payment on a 20-year mortgage with 3.9% APR? Google: Oh, MortgateSite would know, go there. MortgageSite: Here's your calculator. User: Okay, let me put in the numbers ... awesome, thanks! Oh, neat, they can hook me up with lenders. Let me take a…

>MortgageSite: HEY! It looks like you're new to this site. Want to get on our mailing list? Dear every web developer in the world who makes no effort to fight your employers' marketing department on this: I hate you.

> employers' marketing department

In some places this a growth hacking/marketing tactic (that works), in others it isn't the marketing team but someone up high demanding it because they've seen it. Am still a marketer, but I've been in the latter and trying to fight the good fight.

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

#464

Post by jefftk »

SahAssar wrote: post #420
jefftk wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was curious what it was complaining about, since https://henryfjordan.com looks great to me. I tried to run it through Google's "Mobile Friendly Test" but fetching failed [1] because your robots.txt has: User-agent: * Disallow: / This would explain why you've gotten zero clicks from Google (or I would guess anyone else's) search results! On the other hand, it's surprising that you would get a notification if you ha…

Google seems to see robots.txt as "more what you call guidelines, than actual rules". Sites that block googlebot or all bots with robots.txt still turn up in google searches, just without a description, and are obviously still indexed.

robots.txt is a tool to control crawling, not to specify how you would like your site to be displayed (or not) in search results. If you don't want search engines to include your site, set:
while to block just Google do:
See https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/93710

If Googlebot is not respecting robots.txt, and is crawling something it's been instructed not to crawl, let me know and I can file a bug?

(Disclosure: I work for Google but not on Search, speaking only for myself)

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

#465

Post by prawn »

Ruthalas wrote: post #406
prawn wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you have any tips for this sort of search tailoring? It's something I try for, but I've yet to find any particularly good keywords to leverage.

I often just add "whirlpool" which is a fairly reliable Australian forum that started covering telcos but these days will have things about cars, home maintenance, personal health, etc. Or I add "forum" and that can be enough to tilt the results.

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

#466

Post by scarface74 »

milesskorpen wrote: post #312
gniv wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. There is an implicit contract between website publishers and search engines that it’s ok to do this. The website can set nosnippet in robots if they want to not have the snippet in search results.

It's a faustian bargin. Google is so powerful you can't do without them, but they're also inexorably eating your future.

Yes you can. There are other ways to market yourself and your website. For instance, the author of “Fearless Negotiation” has appeared in four or five podcasts I follow. The well known pundits in the Apple ecosystem grew an audience organically through word of mouth.

Hoping to stand out on Google results as a business plan is recipe for failure. You are one algorithm change from going out of business.

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

#467

Post by scarface74 »

goatinaboat wrote: post #264
root_axis wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not like either. If anything they're like a phone book for URLs instead of phone numbers.

Except this is a phone book that sorts not alphabetically (no pun intended) but according to its own interests. No phone company ever did that.

It’s called the Yellow Pages. The more money you spent, the more noticeable your business was.

On top of that every Locksmith and towing company had names like “AAAAA Aaron’s Locksmith”.

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

#468

Post by kabacha »

eitland wrote: post #399
njharman wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 plaste…

> It is more like if the guide that used to send visitors to your property

Here is where your argument falls apart. The web is a public space - it's not your property or your front yard. It's more akin to going to the town square wearing a fancy hat and getting upset if people look at you and your weirdly shaped headwear.

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

#469

Post by tremon »

wutbrodo wrote: post #413
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…

> Micro data only serves Google. Not my clients. Not my sites. Just Google. Well it also serves Google's users, to be clear. Though I should also be clear that I don't think that justifies it, since I think it's bad for the ecosystem in more subtle ways than are expressed in immediate user satisfaction.

That depends on how you define "users". If you define a website creator also as a Google user (by virtue of wanting to be found through Google), then Google is serving part of its users to the detriment of their other users.

And if you view Google instead as a connection broker, e.g. a middle-man between publisher and consumer, then Google is destroying their own business by snubbing publishers. Assuming that Google is still making rational, intelligent decisions, it follows that Google no longer sees itself like that.

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

#470

Post by checktheorder »

zaat wrote: post #234
checktheorder wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>MortgageSite: HEY! It looks like you're new to this site. Want to get on our mailing list? Dear every web developer in the world who makes no effort to fight your employers' marketing department on this: I hate you.

I'm not related in any way to that scene, but what would you tell to marketing when they tell you that that while the mailing list pupup is obnoxious and annoying, it results in X users enrolling and later on Y of them actually ends being customers?

Are you asking for a hypothetical scenario where I was the web developer in question having to stand up to some marketing drone?

Take a closer look at the key phrase in my post: "makes no effort". If a web developer who's trying to pay the rent makes even a single comment to the marketing drones about how email signup forms might not be a good idea, and asks if they're sure they want to do it, then that web developer has my sympathy and not my hatred. But if they just cheerfully say "Yes sir!" when the marketing drones make that demand, then I hate them just as much as I hate the marketing drones, because at that point they are marketing drones.

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