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We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

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Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#461

Post by pbhjpbhj »

gomox wrote: post #224
FinnKuhn wrote: post #7

I would have expected them to wait with ads until OpenAI starts first and users switch to Gemini. Google is probably the player that could afford to wait the longest with this and increase their market share that way.

Actually I believe Google is the one caught between a rock and a hard place here because their stock will reprice once the market realizes how much their position has weakened re: search ads. They commanded an absurd premium on ads by virtue of being monopolistic leaders of search. They don't have a better product anymore, only a scale/distribution advantage.

They seem to have been actively making search worse for at least a decade. No surprise they made it worse, that's [seemingly] what they were trying to do.

They presumably were doing it to increase "engagement". More time spent getting infuriated with their worsening search meant more time seeing their ads.

They deserve to go under.

Meanwhile 1 minute unskippable ads on 30s YouTube videos, pop-ups on mobile that cover the video when you close an ad. I hope the UK TV ombudsman grows some balls and starts applying the law on advertising-to-tv-programming ratio. It needs to be applied when programs have ads in them too.

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#462

Post by saghm »

criddell wrote: post #460
gomox wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually I believe Google is the one caught between a rock and a hard place here because their stock will reprice once the market realizes how much their position has weakened re: search ads. They commanded an absurd premium on ads by virtue of being monopolistic leaders of search. They don't have a better product anymore, only a scale/distribution advantage.

I have a hard time believing the stock price is based on anything other than vibes. It's up 125% from a year ago!

Given how nowadays the payoff of a stock seems to just be from selling it later rather than having any direct correlation to the companies finances, it's all just a Ponzi scheme based on vibes.

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#463

Post by Forgeties79 »

MattRix wrote: post #356
FinnKuhn wrote: post #7

I would have expected them to wait with ads until OpenAI starts first and users switch to Gemini. Google is probably the player that could afford to wait the longest with this and increase their market share that way.

The idea that users will switch because a platform has ads has never played out in the past. The average user just doesn’t care.

The average user appears to care enough to go out of their way to use browsers and extensions and such that block ads, to the point that Google has spent enormous amount of time and money breaking those tools. I think that’s definitely something to consider.

Anecdotally, the number of people who have asked me about VPNs over the last 12 to 18 months has skyrocketed. I probably get a message a month from people of all backgrounds.

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#464

Post by pmdr »

inetknght wrote: post #418
pmdr wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but at $5/300 searches they're trying too hard to squeeze $10 out of you for the unlimited plan. 300 searches is ridiculous.

I suggest you try their service (for free) before you start criticizing their pricing.

I was a paying customer for a few months. Good service, but severely limited by the 300 quota.

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#465

Post by kingnothing »

pelagicAustral wrote: post #22

What I am really waiting for is ads on my commit messages.

Shitty startup idea of the day: pay developers $0.05 per commit message to inject an ad at the end of it in a git commit hook.

[PRJ-123] Fix the prod bug. This commit brought to you by Acme!

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#466

Post by kingnothing »

margorczynski wrote: post #308

But who'll pay for those ads? Why would I pay Google if it just plops out some LLM answer with maybe my site as a source - which 90%+ of people will ignore as they don't care about it.

You pay per impression or per click, just like in all the rest of their ads. Except these have a higher CPC since you're the only featured brand to go along with paragraphs of text about why your shoes are the best.

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#467

Post by pmdr »

handedness wrote: post #424
pmdr wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but at $5/300 searches they're trying too hard to squeeze $10 out of you for the unlimited plan. 300 searches is ridiculous.

Have you ever looked at the browsing history of a non-technical, non-tech-addicted older person? I'm usually surprised by how little activity there typically is. The $5 plan is great for gifting Kagi to non-tech friends and relatives who won't come close to exhausting that plan. I pay for it for older relatives I don't want to get burned by Google's decades-long unwillingness to police predatory tech support scam ads…

> Have you ever looked at the browsing history of a non-technical, non-tech-addicted older person?

Search-wise, all they know is Google. I've seen people open Internet Explorer, search 'google' via a Bing search box, then click on google.com where they finally searched for a website they basically opened every day. IMO had they known Bing is also a search engine, they would've skipped searching for Google, so I'm a bit skeptical to people changing search habits. If anything, AI could be the replacement.

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#468

Post by wunderlotus »

BoiledCabbage wrote: post #164
jdw64 wrote: post #29

I wonder whose bright idea it was to label ads as 'helpful'. Do Google execs actually look for ads first when they google a question?

You'd be shocked at how many people who work on ads really do delude themselves into thinking people find ads "useful". Their usual justification is in the end somewhere tied to "people click on ads so they must find them useful". And yet somehow always ignores the fact that their platform often does all it can to hide that ads are ads and makes them look as much like content as possible.

Ads can be useful when they are optimized for users and not for advertiser/ad platform.

I do agree with you about the deluding part though. I was (as a user) all for hyper-personalization of ads on all platforms when I worked in ads. Since I’m not longer working in ads, I’m more skeptical and value privacy a lot more.

Honestly, the core problem is that we can’t trust the platforms selling the ads.

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#469

Post by shimman »

johneth wrote: post #382
XCSme wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You won't be able to tell if it's an ad, if it's just biased (and the ad is not discolsed). They could always sell ads like "recommend my tool more when user asks for cupcakes in London". And then, the output would be: "My top 3 recomendations are X, Y, Z". And maybe only X is the one that paid and Y and Z are organic.

That's almost certainly illegal in many jurisdictions, and they'd definitely not be able to hide that they're doing it indefinitely. A sure way to be massively sued.

Being a monopoly is already illegal in many jurisdictions and that doesn't seem to stop Google.

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#470

Post by samat »

cebert wrote: post #457

It’s good to know that Google search will essentially be useless for me moving forward.

Yeah, thank you Google for the heads up, will look for alternatives (tbh already abandoned Google long time ago, need to find a maps alternative with public transport and working hours, near impossible in small European towns, Apple Maps db here is a joke)
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