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Google ad exec: “it is a worse user experience to not have ads on the page”

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Re: Google ad exec: “it is a worse user experience to not have ads on the page”

#51

Post by JellyBeanThief »

sayrer wrote: post #30
TheChaplain wrote: post #2

I believe this quote explains the situation well; "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

I think it can be true in some situations. If you think of magazines, it would be a disappointment for Rolling Stone to contain no ads. Same for camera magazines. News content really doesn't benefit, though. Just clickbait stuff.

What I want is for ads to be sequestered in places for people who are actually looking to solve something. Just take all the ads in the camera magazine and put them at the end, neatly categorized. If I'm interested in buying a new lens, then I'll flip to the lens category. If I'm not interested in buying a new lens, I won't.

"But what about things you didn't know you wanted?" I can't want something I don't know about. I can want something I can imagine, in which case I might go searching to see if someone else has made it reality. But I don't need others trying to artificially inflate my demand for goods and services.

Re: Google ad exec: “it is a worse user experience to not have ads on the page”

#52

Post by tommica »

jjoonathan wrote: post #28
TheChaplain wrote: post #2

I believe this quote explains the situation well; "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

I like this one too: > The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users. - Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page, The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine

Damn, now I feel like a fool. Of course google is in the ad business, but I never considered that they could compromise the quality of their results to boost up ads, but it's absolutely possible.

Re: Google ad exec: “it is a worse user experience to not have ads on the page”

#53

Post by janalsncm »

RankingMember wrote: post #9
baja_blast wrote: post #4

Anyone else feel that Google as a search engine has gotten really bad these past few years? Finding information outside of looking up restaurants, songs or products the results are often times completely irrelevant and limited now.

There was a post yesterday about the literal operator (double-quotes around a word) no longer working. I had noticed weirdness like that but hadn't thought much about it. I've noticed a lower quality experience in general searching for things on Google, though, yes.

That seems like a weird thing for Google to intentionally break. I’m guessing there’s a more technical reason.

For example Google probably directly indexes by keyword. So “foo bar” probably searches the union of all “foo” and all “bar” pages for “foo bar”. But if the page changes since indexing, they will serve matches that aren’t actually matches. Or websites might game the indexer so that “foo bar” isn’t actually visible but it shows up on the Google search page.

Re: Google ad exec: “it is a worse user experience to not have ads on the page”

#54

Post by preommr »

asah wrote: post #3

Before HN jumps all over this, I worked at Google and other ads and search companies... and this is technically true (in selected cases) ! There are certain categories of websites and search results pages, where ads actually improve user experience, measured by nearly any metric you want to pick, from user perception to CTR/conversion, etc. There's lots of random categories, but the obvious ones are commercial/produc…

Downvoted for not only having a bad point but also trying to lampshade it as just an unpopular opinion by pre-empting downvotes.

Ads can be good depending on some metrics (e.g. conversions) or usability if a person is looking for a certain product - I check flyers for deals near me for when I want to eat out sometimes. But to claim "by nearlly any metric you want to pick", is hyperbole.

Re: Google ad exec: “it is a worse user experience to not have ads on the page”

#55

Post by neuralRiot »

sayrer wrote: post #30
TheChaplain wrote: post #2

I believe this quote explains the situation well; "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

I think it can be true in some situations. If you think of magazines, it would be a disappointment for Rolling Stone to contain no ads. Same for camera magazines. News content really doesn't benefit, though. Just clickbait stuff.

A magazine without ads would be fine if the content would be good enough. Personally I didn’t hate ads until they got completely obnoxious, irrelevant and distracting and lately invasive and creepy.

Re: Google ad exec: “it is a worse user experience to not have ads on the page”

#56

Post by chankstein38 »

lesuorac wrote: post #45
chankstein38 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know man I've never turned to an ad in a magazine and been thankful it was there. Ads could evaporate completely from existence tomorrow and I'd miss absolutely nothing.

Isn't that almost the whole point of the magazine? I guess for something a bit more catch-all like "Rolling Stone" Ads would detract. But for something like USA Hockey, honestly the Ads are more interesting than half the actual content. Although seeing the same 4 ads for home skating rinks has gotten old. Although I guess this would be more akin to searching Google for "new hockey products" and then it would make a l…

That's fair! To be honest I haven't looked at a magazine in a long time unless I was in a waiting room so maybe I am just a bad example.

Re: Google ad exec: “it is a worse user experience to not have ads on the page”

#57

Post by siliconc0w »

I imagine, to a certain extent a willingness to bid highest for an ad display is itself a pretty good sign of relevance.

I can imagine alternatives though, like a real time auction to donate the most to charity and the platform maybe gets a set fee or a %. This would still generate a useful signal but remove some of the current negative incentives.

Re: Google ad exec: “it is a worse user experience to not have ads on the page”

#58

Post by wlesieutre »

jrockway wrote: post #38
wlesieutre wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Meanwhile the alternative is mobile apps and an icon on your homescreen, an effect that makes Apple and Google rich for taking a % of the revenue from those apps, and one of the largest job programs ever for software engineers. Not to mention that you suffer the same problem in the App Store when you go searching for the Faceboook app. They have to bid for ads against competitors that want to show up when users try…

Something I think about a lot is what the world would look like without advertising, i.e., you'd have to make every decision on its merits, and never rely on bought opinions. Like imagine you walk into a grocery store, and every shelf is lined with plain cardboard boxes with the name of the product on it ("chocolate-covered breakfast cereal") and a nutrition label. You walk in and there is nothing other than the meri…

Funny you use light switches as an example because I have indeed spent some hours looking at light switch options. Decided not to blow a bunch of money on smarthome stuff (yet…), but for anyone who likes to tinker with that kind of thing the Inovelli switches look pretty fun.

Time well spent? Who knows. But I know more about smart light switches than I used to!

Re: Google ad exec: “it is a worse user experience to not have ads on the page”

#59

Post by EA-3167 »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #20
valine wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you fill the search results with enough SEO garbage eventually ads will look better by comparison. If ads are making your user experience better you have a serious problem.

Okay, sure, build a better search engine that functions and is better without ads. Easier said than done. The internet is 99.99% scams and trash. It's easier said than done to find the signal in the noise. Some times - willing to pay (and being vetted not to be a scam) is a good indication of signal. Unfortunately, Google could do a little better on vetting their ad partners. Too often these days, ads are scams.

> Okay, sure, build a better search engine that functions and is better without ads.

As others have said, Kagi. It's a great search engine, even if it's less powerful than Google, because unlike Google it works with you and for you, not against you and for advertisers.

The fact that alt-search companies can flourish and grow even with Google's 800lb gorilla in the room should be a massive red flag to Google execs.

Re: Google ad exec: “it is a worse user experience to not have ads on the page”

#60

Post by asah »

Terretta wrote: post #16
asah wrote: post #3

Before HN jumps all over this, I worked at Google and other ads and search companies... and this is technically true (in selected cases) ! There are certain categories of websites and search results pages, where ads actually improve user experience, measured by nearly any metric you want to pick, from user perception to CTR/conversion, etc. There's lots of random categories, but the obvious ones are commercial/produc…

Ads improve conversion? You don't say.

don't be snarky - I mean compared with lower quality free/organic content.
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