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Google breaks 2005 promise never to show banner ads on search results

theguardian.com

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Re: Google breaks 2005 promise never to show banner ads on search results

#91

Post by Aldo_MX »

mapgrep wrote: post #68
jeffclark wrote: post #14

In related news: I am no longer with my college girlfriend, despite the fact that 8 years ago I told her I would never leave her.

Good to know that the company that holds my email, appointments, two-factor-auth, credit card number, and search data has the reliability of a flaky college freshman. Also good to know that there will literally ALWAYS be people willing to minimize the broken promises of corporations (when they're not insisting that no corporation would ever be so stupid as to break a highly visible promise because the outcry would be…

> Hitler promised not to invade Czechoslovakia, Jeremy. Welcome to the real world!

Re: Google breaks 2005 promise never to show banner ads on search results

#93

Post by jeffclark »

mapgrep wrote: post #68
jeffclark wrote: post #14

In related news: I am no longer with my college girlfriend, despite the fact that 8 years ago I told her I would never leave her.

Good to know that the company that holds my email, appointments, two-factor-auth, credit card number, and search data has the reliability of a flaky college freshman. Also good to know that there will literally ALWAYS be people willing to minimize the broken promises of corporations (when they're not insisting that no corporation would ever be so stupid as to break a highly visible promise because the outcry would be…

> Also good to know that there will literally ALWAYS be people willing to minimize the broken promises of corporations

At some point, people realize that corporations exist to maximize profit and not necessarily for the good of the customer.

Re: Google breaks 2005 promise never to show banner ads on search results

#94

Post by Dylan16807 »

jeffclark wrote: post #14

In related news: I am no longer with my college girlfriend, despite the fact that 8 years ago I told her I would never leave her.

That's just puffery. Everyone understands it to be based upon a continued mutual attraction, but the situation changed.

The advertising situation hasn't changed, and promising no banner ads is not puffery.

Re: Google breaks 2005 promise never to show banner ads on search results

#96

Post by T-hawk »

graeme wrote: post #69
peejaybee wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say that even URL-literate users use it this way, because the business-to-URL mapping is not always clear, and the naive guess is sometimes the worst possible one (e.g. Dick's Sporting Goods.)

Yes, I thought this was (likely unintentionally) insulting. I rarely use urls unless it's a known site. Especially since I'm Canadian and the TLD isn't always predictable. And on a phone, it's usually faster to google 'hacker news' or even 'hack new' if I'm lazy, than it is to type 'news.ycombinator.com'. (Yes, I'm horrible. And no, I don't want to bookmark it and make it too easy to come here....)

Good point, yes there are reasons other than URL illiteracy (convenience) to use search as a DNS replacement. So this new behavior of Google helps even you. And without any deceptive downside since if you are URL-literate you're probably pretty well aware of what's advertising and what isn't.

Re: Google breaks 2005 promise never to show banner ads on search results

#97

Post by jeanlo »

mapgrep wrote: post #68
jeffclark wrote: post #14

In related news: I am no longer with my college girlfriend, despite the fact that 8 years ago I told her I would never leave her.

Good to know that the company that holds my email, appointments, two-factor-auth, credit card number, and search data has the reliability of a flaky college freshman. Also good to know that there will literally ALWAYS be people willing to minimize the broken promises of corporations (when they're not insisting that no corporation would ever be so stupid as to break a highly visible promise because the outcry would be…

Let's not start revving that hyperbole engine, it's an experiment. Also the web looks very different now from what it was in 2005, obviously much more visual.

All search engines did back then was spew blue links, now they speak the answer back at you. It wasn't very forward looking statement, but that is a silly article obviously looking to capitalise on the "Google outrage porn"™.

Re: Google breaks 2005 promise never to show banner ads on search results

#98

Post by d23 »

mapgrep wrote: post #68
jeffclark wrote: post #14

In related news: I am no longer with my college girlfriend, despite the fact that 8 years ago I told her I would never leave her.

Good to know that the company that holds my email, appointments, two-factor-auth, credit card number, and search data has the reliability of a flaky college freshman. Also good to know that there will literally ALWAYS be people willing to minimize the broken promises of corporations (when they're not insisting that no corporation would ever be so stupid as to break a highly visible promise because the outcry would be…

As it turns out, corporations are made up of people and, like people, have the tendency to change.

Re: Google breaks 2005 promise never to show banner ads on search results

#99

Post by ChuckMcM »

This is not wholly unexpected, after all their earnings have shown that CPC is down and while you can make that up in volume for a while, eventually you exhaust that path too.

And that then is what I think the real "problem" is. You reach a point where your biggest money maker, search advertising, by at least one and possibly two decimal orders of magnitude, is no longer growing. And all of the things you've ever done which were never as successful as search advertising are supposed to give you the growth that your stockholders are looking for. Interesting place to be for a company like Google I expect.

This is just another example of how that it process is coming along. It will be interesting to see what happens if it starts damaging their brand.

Re: Google breaks 2005 promise never to show banner ads on search results

#100

Post by BashiBazouk »

graeme wrote: post #69
peejaybee wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say that even URL-literate users use it this way, because the business-to-URL mapping is not always clear, and the naive guess is sometimes the worst possible one (e.g. Dick's Sporting Goods.)

Yes, I thought this was (likely unintentionally) insulting. I rarely use urls unless it's a known site. Especially since I'm Canadian and the TLD isn't always predictable. And on a phone, it's usually faster to google 'hacker news' or even 'hack new' if I'm lazy, than it is to type 'news.ycombinator.com'. (Yes, I'm horrible. And no, I don't want to bookmark it and make it too easy to come here....)

Exactly. For me if I type "hac" Hacker News is the first drop down result. Practically faster than even clicking a bookmark drop down.
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