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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

#651

Post by rorylaitila »

MidJourney not being the first organic spot is a bad experience. But it's normal practice that you can place ads on users searching for other company names.

This seems counter intuitive at first, but I think its reasonable. You don't get to exclude every advertiser from any random search string just because you have a domain name with it. How would that be enforced? There are many reasons to bid on brand names that are not necessarily squatting. Such as if my product is an integration of the tool. Many brand names are just basic words. Many brand names are very similar in SMBs.

But you can't use another company's trademark in your headline or adtext. Using another companies name is asking to get your ads taken down and lead to an account ban.

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

#652

Post by yifanl »

array_key_first wrote: post #637
yifanl wrote: post #622

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only real difference that matters between a fake site and a real site is that the information on it is genuine, the form doesn't really factor into it. Which makes this a very tricky problem: You can't tell if the data is genuine before you have the genuine data.

Domain names is how you do this reliably. This is why everyone should use a password manager. It makes phishing much, much harder to do.

There are no best practices for domain names, there's nothing that can differentiate between NPM and a fraudster from hosting "npmjs.help".

It also doesn't help when you have to visit a new domain for the first time, which tends to be the case when looking up novel information.

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

#653

Post by MichaelRo »

gtowey wrote: post #635
xg15 wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a user, I'm still baffled that the interface to view and manage the apps I have installed on the system - which is 90 out of 100 times why I'm opening the play store - is tucked away in some obscure corner of the app. The other 10 times, it's because I want to install some specific app that I already know and I just want to get to the page of that exact app - either through a direct link or through the store's sea…

Of course they know the UI doesn't really do what you want. But they also know they make more money when it's filled with manipulative anti-patterns. Companies love algorithmic content because because it's the ultimate shield from criticism. "Don't blame us for bad content! It's just the algorithm and we can't control it! Maybe if you interact with it more it will give you better results." Or course in practice it me…

In the old days, TV was chock full of ads, sometimes to such a degree that you watched more ad time than movie time during a movie, assuming you didn't switch to other channels in between, always either missing the beginning of next part of the movie, or resigned yourself to watch some ad content afterall in order not to miss that beginning.

Ads will always be around, I guess. Doesn't Google offer a pay search version too, without ads? Like youtube...

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

#654

Post by cuu508 »

jeremyjh wrote: post #642
cuu508 wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me personally the issue is that some of my money would go to Yandex, and, by extension, to Russian government. I understand it is only a symbolic amount per user, but still, for me, this is unacceptable (I was a happy Kagi subscriber before I found out about this).

America is nearly as bad as Russia. Dollars paid to American companies are taxed and used to bomb children in Gaza. Are you boycotting all American companies?

From my point of view United States, all things considered, is not nearly as bad as Russia. I do not boycott all American companies but I do boycott some.

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

#655

Post by thehappypm »

_superlevure_ wrote: post #549
remus wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

No, it's like searching for the location of a VW dealership on your phone and Google Maps taking you to an Honda one instead.

No, it’s more like a billboard saying, “looking for a Honda? ᶠᵒʳᵈˢ ᵃʳᵉ ᵇᵉᵗᵗᵉʳ ᵃⁿᵈ ʸᵒᵘ ᶜᵃⁿ ᵍᵉᵗ ᵗʰᵉᵐ here!

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

#656

Post by goldchainposse »

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…

I don't understand how no one's brought a racketeering suit against them.

> You wouldn't want someone looking for your website to find your competitor instead. For a small fee, I can make sure that doesn't happen.

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

#657

Post by mock-possum »

SoftTalker wrote: post #406
Denzel wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google SERPs are personalized. Likely OP is a Midjourney user which is recorded in his targeting profile. When OP searches for Midjourney as a Midjourney user, Google’s algorithm infers he might want to consider an alternative because why would an existing user search for the product they’re already using. We see evidence supporting this given no Midjourney ad showed up for a direct keyword match query; and only alte…

So in fact Amazon is incentivized to sell you a shitty toaster on your first purchase, hoping you’ll then come back and buy a better one.

they still have to pay to stock, ship, then return and restock the shitty one - then stock and ship the better one. Hard to imagine there’s profit in that.

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

#658

Post by Ukv »

rorylaitila wrote: post #651

MidJourney not being the first organic spot is a bad experience. But it's normal practice that you can place ads on users searching for other company names. This seems counter intuitive at first, but I think its reasonable. You don't get to exclude every advertiser from any random search string just because you have a domain name with it. How would that be enforced? There are many reasons to bid on brand names that a…

> You don't get to exclude every advertiser from any random search string just because you have a domain name with it.

To my understanding, Google keywords are already semantic. It's not that it shows ads because it can't tell that the string is a specific product name - it's showing ads because it determined that string to be referring to Midjourney (the entity in Google's knowledge graph).

> There are many reasons to bid on brand names that are not necessarily squatting.

Google is a leader in AI - I feel they could very easily filter out these blatantly misleading ad campaigns, while keeping "legitimate" ones, if they didn't have financial incentive to turn a blind eye and have more people fooled into clicking ads.

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

#659

Post by 542354234235 »

WhyNotHugo wrote: post #488
zeroq wrote: post #373

One of my "sales pitches" is "I can find answers online, I know kung-fu". I've been using internet since '98, and I somehow developed this elusive skill of knowing how to navigate all these ads, seo farms, paid content, murky websites, and getting straight to the answer, no matter what the question was. For a long time I didn't thought of that as a special power. I thought it was natural, like driving a car, or speak…

> I didn't thought of that as a special power. I thought it was natural, like driving a car, or speaking English. You’re clearly taking for granted any learnt skills which you have and projecting them to others. A substantial portion of the world population can’t speak English, and I suspect the grand majority of humans don’t know how to drive a car either. I know you have to turn the wheel to turn the car and that I…

I'm going to assume good faith on your part. OP is using analogy as a rhetorical device, using things in their own life that would be recognizable and transferable to others. When he says its like "speaking English", it is because he speaks English, but it can be understood that any non-English natives would insert their own mother tongue. 88% of European households and 92% of US households own at least one car. Driving, as something that once learned you take for granted since you do it pretty much daily, is something most people can related to. Even those that cant, are probably intimately familiar with those that do. It isn't something exotic and specialized, like airline pilot or submarine crewmember.

If I say "its like finding out someone ate the last of your favorite candy", it is meant to analogize a feeling of disappointment. If you personally don't like candy, I would expect that you have the ability to understand the meaning and intent and not focus on how the analogy doesn't perfectly align with your individual personal experiences and preferences. If you want to complain about how some cultures don't really eat candy, while others focus on collective sharing over individual ownership, I suppose you can.

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