Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Fewer Than Half of Google Searches Now Result in a Click

sparktoro.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

471–480 of 531 posts

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

#471

Post by checktheorder »

dredmorbius wrote: post #331
adtac wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sometimes I try to mess with sites that ask for an email address for a mailing list by entering their own addresses: like "support@domain.com", "webmaster@domain.com", etc. let them deal with their own spam, then they'll understand.

My go to has been "ceo@example.com" for years. Or various Five Eyes addresses.

>My go to has been "ceo@example.com" for years.

I think I may make the effort to learn how to make a Firefox extension to automate this. Scrape "about us", "contact", etc. page in background for first email address, then autofill it into the email spam form. Boom, done.

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

#472

Post by concert-gilled »

ummonk wrote: post #148
concert-gilled wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both cases showed 2 decimal places for me.

You get 5 decimal places if you divide by 1000...

Thanks, I missed that. I was just looking at the number of decimal places. Is that method accurate?

(1000 * incorrectly_rounded) / 1000 == incorrectly_rounded

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

#473

Post by tremon »

kabacha wrote: post #468
eitland wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The web is a public space - it's not your property or your front yard.

You're wrong here. Just because it's a public space does not mean nobody owns the property. As a simple example, a shopping street is usually a public place. That does not mean that all window displays, doorways and adjacent buildings are automatically a free-for-all.

In fact, only "the tubes" of the web are a public space. The rest is owned property, even if there are no visible fences.

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

#474

Post by skinnymuch »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #256
skinnymuch wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you using a userscript app or extension for jailbroken iOS devices?

I'm using software that allows me to load userscripts in Mobile Safari on my iPhone. I guess you'd call it an "extension"? It feels weird to use that term, as it implies (to me) that there's some sort of extension framework in place. There isn't, it's just code injection.

Thanks I’ll try looking it up!

Yeah extension does sound weird.

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

#475

Post by tremon »

bartimus wrote: post #320
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…

I'm still on the fence somewhat. Searching for "best car engine oil" has certain brands displayed straight on the featured snippet. Who cares about the click if Google found your customer for you and got your message through for free?

In the end, Google should care. If a search for "best car engine oil" got your product featured, that means you won a sale. But assuming the sale happens completely offline, Google lost its opportunity to inform you of the search, and of the succesful search->sale conversion.

That means your marketing department can no longer justify investing money in Google SEO, which means less optimization towards Google's crawler, which means less reliable search results, which means less Google searches in the long run.

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

#476

Post by Wowfunhappy »

skinnymuch wrote: post #474
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm using software that allows me to load userscripts in Mobile Safari on my iPhone. I guess you'd call it an "extension"? It feels weird to use that term, as it implies (to me) that there's some sort of extension framework in place. There isn't, it's just code injection.

Thanks I’ll try looking it up! Yeah extension does sound weird.

Oh, you're Jailbroken? Feel free to shoot me an email (in my profile), there's one thing that's a little tricky...

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

#477

Post by Hitton »

jefftk wrote: post #375
wbl wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't like the product? Switch. While you still can.

Any search engine is going to want to know what people click on so they can make their product better. For example, I just searched for [test] on DuckDuckGo and when clicking on the first result I see DDG sending a ping back: https://improving.duckduckgo.com/t/lc?... which contains which URL I clicked. (Disclosure: I work for Google, speaking only for myself)

That's not true, for instance Startpage doesn't do that.

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

#478

Post by goatinaboat »

scarface74 wrote: post #467
goatinaboat wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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”.

Yet there is no spam in the Yellow Pages. It’s very unlikely that if you call Aaron he’ll clone your credit card or install hidden cameras in your house. Also, it’s very likely that he actually is a locksmith, has the accreditation he claims to, is a legitimate business registered at Companies House, fully insured, all the things you expect of a normal business.

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

#479

Post by root_axis »

pyrale wrote: post #443
root_axis wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s not reasonable that they can pick and choose. Either they’re the phone company or they’re a publisher. It’s their right to be either of course, but they must choose. This is 100% wrong, the opposite is true. The law explicitly protects website operators from being liable for content posted by 3rd parties while simultaneously granting them the explicit freedom to curate content that they deem objectionable.

No content on Google is posted there by 3rd parties. Google does select what is displayed and, in the case of snippets, they go out of their traditional way to promote that content.

The use of the word "post" is my own colloquially imprecise language, the law actually states

> No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

So content indexed by google absolutely falls under the definition of "provided by another information content provider"

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

#480

Post by sverige »

arcturus17 wrote: post #411
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…

> Google has a policy against scraping their results, but their whole business model is predicated off scraping other sites and making money off the content Yea a couple days ago I was checking the Places API, which they’ve built off user-generated content and scraping Yelp and others. They charge $17 / 1000 calls for certain items and don’t you dare cache anything for too long. Great way to build a business: get dat…

That's the ancestry.com business model as well.
Post reply on HN