[HN Gopher] Google critiqued the practice of displaying ads abov...
___________________________________________________________________
Google critiqued the practice of displaying ads above search
results
Author : hubraumhugo
Score : 291 points
Date : 2022-01-31 15:36 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| caaqil wrote:
| The earliest version [1] of this page is from Dec, 2015, which is
| (relatively) recent. Not sure if the Archive missed it but I
| imagined it'd be much older page.
|
| [1]:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20151213182805/https://www.googl...
| smitop wrote:
| It's from March 2002:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22109078
| ec109685 wrote:
| And they had been showing ads above search results on Mobile
| for a while: https://searchengineland.com/google-confirms-
| three-mobile-te...
|
| And enabled this on desktop in 2016:
| https://searchengineland.com/google-no-ads-right-side-of-des...
| ndiddy wrote:
| This enables rent-seeking from Google. If you sell a product and
| don't buy an ad for it, your competitor can pay Google to put
| their product on top of the results for anyone searching for your
| product.
| tester756 wrote:
| to be fair nothing in this post is really weird except
|
| "Every ad on Google is clearly marked and set apart"
|
| I opened Chromium based browser without AdBlock and they actually
| put "Ad" next to those first result(s).
|
| It is marked as an Ad, but the thing is whether it is "clearly".
| I'd say not really.
| sullivandanny wrote:
| What was tweeted isn't what the page says. I work for Google
| Search. That's about our Honest Results policy, which means we
| don't allow people to buy better rankings in non-paid Search
| results: https://www.google.com/about/honestresults/
|
| Like many newspapers separate ads and editorial, Google has a
| strict separation between our Ads departments and our Search
| departments -- and our results. Buying ads will not gain you any
| better ability to rank in the non-paid Search results. Nor will
| it get you any special support.
|
| That's what the page explains. It never says we don't have ads
| that show at the top of the page and, in fact, acknowledges that
| we do: "While advertisers can pay more to be displayed higher in
| the advertising area." Nor is it true that at the time, we only
| had ads that appeared on the right-side of the page. Google's
| first ads appeared at the top of the page way back in 1999.
|
| In addition, we continue to keep ads separated from Search and
| labeled so they can be identified.
|
| I totally get that some people would like to see fewer ads. I
| don't work on the Ad side of Google, but I know that feedback has
| been heard.
| NelsonMinar wrote:
| Thank you for correcting this Danny.
| tofuahdude wrote:
| Google has a long history of making their ad placements look
| more like their search placements.
|
| The ads used to be a clearly yellow block. Then it became more
| and more faded yellow-to-white. Today, the ads have literally
| the exact same CSS, except that they do say "Ad" at the start,
| the legally mandated minimum disclosure.
|
| How do you reconcile this?
|
| To me, "honest" is already dishonest, in that Google
| deliberately tries to make ads vs search results visually
| ambiguous and thus the ads at the top are barely different from
| paid search placement.
| sullivandanny wrote:
| The Honest Results policy is that we're not going to allow
| advertisers or partners or any one with a relationship to
| Google to have an advantage in our unpaid search results.
|
| As for ad labeling, I don't work on the ad side. I work on
| the Search side. My understanding from those on the ad side
| is that the labels are visible and do work. And ads are
| always labeled.
| bagacrap wrote:
| title (and Twitter post) highly editorialized. Google said
| nothing about layout of ads on page, but about being "clearly
| marked" and "set apart" from search results. It's subjective what
| is "clear" but I don't see why the only way for something to be
| clear is delta X.
| pokoleo wrote:
| It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his
| salary depends upon his not understanding it. -Sinclair
| dvngnt_ wrote:
| This practice has enabled scams. Many crypto sites now have a
| fraudulent version showing as a top result in ads which will
| allow the user to enter their seed phrase and empty their
| accounts.
|
| at this point an adblocker is more useful than an antivirus
| software
| elboru wrote:
| Here in Mexico we had a similar scam that ran for months, if
| not years. There was this site (or sites) pretending to be an
| official government's passports website. It was the first link
| in the search result for "pasaporte mexicano". I personally
| know people who fell for it, the page would ask for bank
| deposits to get your Mexican passport.
|
| The page looked legit, it even had https and the url name
| looked fine, the only thing giving it away was that it missed
| the official .gob.mx domain at the end, but regular people
| don't Pay attention to that. It was the first result link! And
| they didn't remove it for months, amazing.
|
| Edit: I thought that scam was removed already, but no! It's
| still there, the first three links (the only visible ones on
| mobile) are scam websites.
|
| https://ibb.co/PMHCQ31
| [deleted]
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| My favorite search engine ad scam test query is "mapquest". It
| almost always returns sites that force you to install a
| malicious browser extension via the Chrome Web Store.
|
| Reason why: Senior citizens go to MapQuest for directions
| because it's the term they associate with getting directions on
| the Internet.
| mountainb wrote:
| Every time I get a new iPhone and forget to install an ad
| blocker, Safari crashes due to an ad problem and then I
| remember to install the ad blocker.
| 3np wrote:
| Which ad-blocker(s) would you recommend for iOS?
| [deleted]
| rukshn wrote:
| I use AdGuard. There free version is more than enough to
| block ads including YouTube ads.
|
| For Safari on my Mac I use the Ka-boom extension
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Firefox Focus is free, but I use Wipr on both iOS and
| macOS.
| taftster wrote:
| I use Firefox Focus, which includes an ad blocker that can
| be enabled for Safari integration.
|
| It works pretty well for me, but then, I don't generally
| surf on my phone and only use Safari when I have clicked a
| link from messages or something.
|
| I'm interested in other possible options on iOS as well,
| though. Hoping to see more replies.
| johnnypangs wrote:
| AdGuard is pretty nice, you can also use other browsers
| like Firefox focus' add blocker by installing them then
| turning it on in the extensions section of the safari
| settings.
| theturtletalks wrote:
| Hyperweb is very nice. They even redirect Reddit links to
| Teddit so you can avoid their dark patterns.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| AdGuard provides DNS servers that allow you to filter for
| the whole device, regardless of device type or which app
| you use.
|
| Configure your home router to use it to filter for every
| device on your home WiFi network.
|
| They have one set of DNS servers that just blocks ads and
| another set that additionally attempts to filter out adult
| content.
|
| https://adguard-dns.com/en/welcome.html
| Scaless wrote:
| It is not just crypto, it has been happening in gaming
| communities for a long time. Sometimes it's just fishing for
| more of their own page views, other times it it more malicious
| such as offering a trojaned game client that will steal your
| login details [0]. It is very cheap and easy to do because the
| communities are relatively small.
|
| [0]
| https://old.reddit.com/r/2007scape/comments/95zk30/psa_first...
| justin_oaks wrote:
| dekhn wrote:
| When sundar took over he changed some policies within google to
| reduce previous commitments to a high quality internet, with the
| goal of increased growth. This includes a mixing of ads and
| search results in a way that maximizes revenue as well as many
| other dark patterns. I believe that Google concluded that it was
| going to lose relevance and market share if they didn't do this.
| Note also that the vast majority of google revenue in ads comes
| from mobile video ads, not search results these days.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| > Note also that the vast majority of google revenue in ads
| comes from mobile video ads, not search results these days.
|
| So theoretically in a few years Google might decide to kill
| their search product and nobody will really come in and make
| another one because after all the years of bad search results
| from Google everyone will naturally conclude that search on the
| internet just doesn't work.
|
| That's right, I'm so paranoid I think that song is about me.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| Sundar never "took over" in anything but a job title sense.
| Larry and Sergey continue to hold supermajority voting power
| over the company's board. The business operates the way Larry
| and Sergey want it to.
|
| I think people want an excuse to justify their previous
| positive outlooks on Larry and Sergey by claiming something has
| changed. But Larry and Sergey still sit in charge of an
| extremely harmful company under investigation for numerous
| types of illegal and inappropriate conduct. Both had
| inappropriate relationships with subordinates that should've
| gotten them both fired, and both of them have yachts and/or
| islands that are worth more than some small countries.
| dekhn wrote:
| Larry and Sergey have absolutely zero involvement in Google's
| daily activities (I don't think Sergey even comes around X
| any more, but might still hang around research once in a
| while).
|
| Larry handed sundar effective control over Google when he
| promoted himself to Alphabet. Even 10 years ago, Larry lost
| interest in search (it was really sad for the search folks
| when they realized that). Larry picked sundar because sundar
| is a robot that makes money, and larry needs that money for
| his longterm mission.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| I'm not sure what you think the long term mission is, but I
| suspect taking private yachts to and from his private
| island is most of it.
|
| They may not be day to day involved, but they vote down any
| shareholder proposals to fix what Google is doing, they're
| aware of what's going on. And the sleezy practices started
| long before Alphabet did, ads and search results have been
| becoming less distinguishable for a decade.
|
| And Sundar's claim to fame, lest we forget, is hijacking
| everyone's browser settings by injecting the Google Toolbar
| into every Adobe Flash Player installer.
| cutenewt wrote:
| > When sundar took over he changed some policies within google
| to reduce previous commitments to a high quality internet, with
| the goal of increased growth.
|
| Do you have more details for this?
| colordrops wrote:
| They will lose relevance and eventually market share for doing
| these things. It almost seems inevitable that companies
| eventually degrade in quality and die or become shadows of
| their former selves due to compromises brought about by the
| endless growth expected by investors.
| cm2012 wrote:
| The bit about mobile video revenue is not true.
|
| "Today, Google parent Alphabet Inc. reported a record $65.1
| billion in revenue during the third quarter of 2021, with the
| company's advertising business increasing 43.2% to $53.1
| billion. Quarterly search advertising made up the bulk of
| revenue with $37.9 billion in the third quarter, rising from
| $26.3 billion during the same period in 2020. YouTube ads
| accounted for another $7.2 billion--up from $5 billion in Q3
| 2020--and Google's ad network revenue brought in $7.9 billion."
| dekhn wrote:
| I used to work there and I think my statement is technically
| correct, regardless of what the breakdown in the earnings
| say.
|
| Oh, sorry- I should have said "profit", not "revenue".
| chmod775 wrote:
| In the same vein: https://i.imgur.com/y0xl11R.jpg
| advisedwang wrote:
| And thankfully after much community and employee noise, they
| reversed that:
| https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/16/youtube-t...
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I do believe their motivation for people using their real name
| / identity came from a push to prevent abuse - theory being
| that you'd be more careful of what you post online if it's
| under your own name.
|
| But in practice, it made people indifferent about what they say
| online.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| I think it was actually tied to the integration of YouTube
| with Google Plus, which was intended to be a "real name"
| social network like Facebook.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I do believe their motivation for people using their real name
| / identity came from a push to prevent abuse - theory being
| that you'd be more careful of what you post online if it's
| under your own name.
|
| But in practice, it made people indifferent about what they say
| online. And of course, bots and malicious users will just use a
| fake name. The backlash that Facebook got when trying to force
| people to use their real identity, and to have their friends
| tell on them, must have been enormous - and likely lead to
| lawsuits, not to mention things like violence and death (think
| people trying to evade stalkers, trans people, etc.)
|
| (And before replying to that last statement, think about
| whether you're about to commit victim blaming)
| sp332 wrote:
| I can't quite make out the text there. Does the first one say
| "don't put your name on the internet" and then the second one
| demands your name?
| openknot wrote:
| Yes, that's the essence of it. A high-resolution version
| appears upon clicking the image.
|
| Transcript for accessibility (2011):
|
| First red box: Safety Center, Protecting Your Privacy
|
| Second red box: Never post things like your name
|
| Third red box: Prevent privacy trouble before it starts. Once
| your privacy has been compromised, you might not be able to
| undo the damage.
|
| Fourth red box: Protecting your privacy means that you are
| taking care not to post personal information that could
| result in you being harmed over the [internet].
|
| 2013 (no red boxes, but relevant elements are):
|
| Start using your full name on YouTube.
|
| How you appear now: 1337_megahacker [no profile picture]
|
| How you'll appear after: Lewis C. Skolnick From your Google+
| profile [profile picture of person].
|
| Two buttons appear at the bottom-right. "I don't want to use
| my full name" [colored similarly to background, de-
| emphasized] and "Next [blue background, emphasized].
| dpark wrote:
| > _A high-resolution version appears upon clicking the
| image._
|
| Not for me. Maybe imgur does something different in mobile
| than desktop.
|
| Thanks for the transcription.
| hadrien01 wrote:
| The first one is the YouTube help saying "Never post things
| like your name" and the second one is the YouTube website
| saying "Start using your full name on YouTube", prefilled
| with your Google+ info.
| syrrim wrote:
| https://i.imgur.com/y0xl11R_d.webp?maxwidth=2360&shape=thumb...
| tester756 wrote:
| I disagree, its way more complex matter.
|
| Internet evolved from "that computer thing where you should
| avoid stranger and putting your real info"
|
| to something that's as important as infrastructure,
|
| we spend so much time in it that it is basically part of the
| world
|
| Facebook and similar pushed it
| scotty79 wrote:
| DuckDuckGo has a nice browser fir android that uses their search
| engine as default one.
| jsnell wrote:
| The screenshot text does not say at all what the author of the
| tweet claims it does (and what's in the HN title). Nowhere in the
| text does it actually talk about "above" and "sidebar", that is
| just an interpretation that the author made up about what "buying
| a better position in the search results" would mean. Given the
| context of the times, it was clearly not a statement about layout
| but about actually reordering the "organic" search results based
| on payments and without marking those boosted results as ads.
| jancsika wrote:
| What an apologia!
|
| I just typed "new car" in Google. Literally the _only_ results
| I can see are ads. Ads where the presentation and content is
| identical to the organic search results, save for the tiny word
| "Ad" in the title. Ads where the link reliably navigates to the
| page that has the content summarized by Google in their search
| result ad. Moreover, the UI for me clicking a foo.com link from
| a Google ad is _identical_ to me clicking an organic foo.com
| link. Finally, the UX is improved if I click an ad because _I
| don 't have to scroll_.
|
| So it's not even a "above" vs. "sidebar" situation. The ads are
| the _only_ results that show up without scrolling. Arguing that
| this isn 't "buying a better position in the search results" is
| the extreme-skiing of pedantry.
| jsnell wrote:
| This isn't nitpicking about a minor detail, the fabricated
| claim is the entire core of the submission and the only
| reason it is getting this HN engagement. Imagine that they'd
| written a tweet saying "I think Google should not show ads
| above the search results" or "there should be fewer ads", and
| not added the screenshot. Do you think that would be near the
| top of the frontpage? I don't.
|
| If the author's point is that the "Ad" text is not distinct
| enough and conflicts with the doc's view that ads need to be
| clearly marked, why not actually say that? Because what is
| distinct enough is just a matter of opinion. So instead the
| author has taken something that's not a matter of opinion but
| a clear fact ("there are ads above the search results") and
| just made up the part about the doc critiquing this. It's
| genius, because everyone loves a good story of corporate
| hypocrisy. But it's also not true. Why exactly are we looking
| to reward dishonest clickbait?
| zamadatix wrote:
| "Not scrolling" isn't a useful metric, you can make it say
| whatever you want it to say. On my small screen phone I see 1
| result entry without scrolling, on my large screen desktop I
| see all 10 result entries. If I feel one way about the issue
| I can grab my phone and claim "I see nothing but ads without
| scrolling!" even if it's a single ad while if I feel another
| way I can go to my desktop and claim "the vast majority of
| results shown on screen after searching aren't ads" even if
| there are 3.
|
| The former is a firey way to say "an ad is shown at the top"
| and the latter a dismissive way to distract from how many ads
| there are, neither actually talks to the state of the number
| of ads despite what their wording implies.
| glenstein wrote:
| Like many other comments here, I think this is continuing to
| miss the point.
|
| Google certainly _does_ sell ads above search today. And it
| certainly _is_ irritating and it definitely _is_ reflective
| of Google 's following their financial interests at the cost
| of user experience. Google's expressed ethos in the statement
| certainly _does_ seem at variance with their design choices
| and ad placement in the present day.
|
| We can talk all day about their pivot away from don't be
| evil.
|
| But tweet, the title, the framing, and the thing everybody
| are talking about, ads placed above search, has nothing to do
| with anything. The statement doesn't mention that, and these
| gotcha charges premised on something that was never said.
|
| Google is in many important respects a bad actor that needs
| to be criticized, but that truth shouldn't be a blank check
| to misinterpret them and dismiss corrections as pedantry.
| passivate wrote:
| Those are all great points that you made. However, is it
| more important to be fair to them or to criticize them for
| their bad practices? Can you win a fight by being
| principled, when the other side is fighting dirty? Maybe.
| Personally, I'd let small errors slide, and look at the
| larger picture - How the tech world is slowly shifting
| towards a pay-to-play, rent-seeking, monopolist model. I'm
| optimistic about the future, and we can still save it. I'm
| no organizer, but I would focus our efforts on taking down
| these mega corps that have abused our trust and good-will -
| to make room for smaller companies to flourish that do
| believe in doing the right thing.
| jancsika wrote:
| > But tweet, the title, the framing, and the thing
| everybody are talking about, ads placed above search, has
| nothing to do with anything. The statement doesn't mention
| that, and these gotcha charges premised on something that
| was never said.
|
| I'm just not grokking what you mean.
|
| Let's construct an example of an evil Google who decided to
| start "selling better positions in search results." Let's
| say they decided to do it using the following method:
|
| 1. Sell the first three positions in the organic search
| results in an automated auction
|
| 2. So as to avoid accusations of trickery, they put a
| little "Ad" indicator by the top three positions in the
| three top search results.
|
| 3. They put a little "news" display below the first three
| results to separate them from the rest of the search
| results. This means the user typically has to scroll to see
| the rest of the results, adding value to those first three
| positions.
|
| Would what I just described count as a relevant example of
| hypocritical behavior for the company quoted in that Tweet?
| If so, then the search results I got were the same as what
| I just described-- only the history of how Google got there
| is different.
|
| If it's not a relevant example, then I still don't
| understand the point of OP or your comment.
|
| Edit: clarification. Also, could you perhaps give me an
| example of how _you_ think a company could hypothetically
| act in a way that contradicts the quote from the tweet? If
| it 's not what I laid out here, what would it be?
| glenstein wrote:
| This is basically an extended exercise in equivocation.
| It's pretty cut and dry that the statement does say one
| thing (keep ads out of search), and doesn't say another
| thing (don't place ads above search).
|
| And as I've said in numerous comments, there's a thematic
| level at which the statement is clearly at odds with
| Google's ethos in 2022, but that point can be made
| without equivocating between unlike things for the
| purpose of misrepresenting the statement.
|
| Edit: in response to your question: Google's statement
| critiques the placement of ads into search results. So
| one example of them acting in a hypocritical manner would
| be to place ads directly into search results.
| jacquesm wrote:
| They did just that (at the top) and then changed the
| layout over time to what it is today. Of course the top
| spots are far more valuable than spots further down, in
| fact if your search result is not on page one it might as
| well not exist.
| CTmystery wrote:
| From the expecation of the user, the page that you see
| after punching the 'google search' box, _is_ the google
| search results page. Ads in the top position of this page
| are clearly in a better position than organic search
| results. So advertisers have bought a better position in
| search results, against the claim of this google doc.
| glenstein wrote:
| If you equivocate on the meaning of "search results",
| then sure.
| Macha wrote:
| Others disagree that an ad presented among the search
| listings, with visual presentation only distinguisable from
| a search result if you know the very small indicator to
| look for, as the first few entries is a meaningful
| distinction from just selling search listing results
| directly, rather than euphemistically.
| glenstein wrote:
| I agree, I think the line between ads and searches are
| blurred, but I think that point can be made without
| misrepresenting the statement from Google as an explicit
| critique of ads placed above search results.
| onli wrote:
| Since they sell ads that look like search results (which
| you agree on), they arrived at the same point of selling
| the top search result positions. Keeping that in mind I
| don't feel like the tweet is a misrepresentation. Do you,
| really?
| glenstein wrote:
| The tweet is attributing to Google a statement explicitly
| decrying placement of ads at the top of search results.
| This is not anywhere in the statement.
|
| To make an untruth into a truth, it's necessary to zoom
| out and get fuzzy in words so the one thing kinda-sorta
| means the other.
|
| So you can make things fuzzy by saying "ads on top" kinda
| sorta means "making ads look like search results" which
| kinda means it's okay to attribute a thing to Google that
| wasn't said.
|
| I think the breakdown is this: people feel like this
| clarification is a challenge. When I say "google didn't
| say that about ad placement" people hear "Google has
| never done anything wrong with their search ads." And so
| it's a proxy for that argument.
| onli wrote:
| Maybe. I think it's less fuzzy - the ads back then were
| clearly ads and harder to mix up with search results. So
| even if Google had ads on top of search results then, it
| wasn't as misleading. Or rather: The statement looked
| valid then, but doesn't anymore. That's what people pick
| up on.
| Macha wrote:
| You think the line has been blurred, but not removed, so
| a statement that Google won't sell search results because
| Google draws a distinction at sale time between ad slots
| and search results is not evidence of a change in
| position to the reality now where you can buy "things
| that look 99% identical and sit in the same location as
| search results" because those things are called ads in
| the purchase interface.
|
| Others view these things as sponsored search listings
| because.... they have 99% in common with search listings
| and only 50% in common with ads as presented at the time
| that Google made this statement.
|
| What they are selling, despite being called ads, are for
| all intents and purposes search results. So I don't think
| it's unfair to call them out for how it conflicts with
| earlier positions against the selling of search results.
| glenstein wrote:
| Google's statement was that they will make it clear that
| ads were not the same as search results.
|
| Krebs paraphrased that statement as Google "critiques the
| practice of displaying ads above search results" and
| noted that they were instead placed on a sidebar.
|
| He's not flagging the statement out of a belief that ads
| and search basically amount to the same thing.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Exactly what information were you hoping to glean from a
| search like "new car"? There are searches that are too
| insipid to be considered as part of search quality signals.
|
| There is a corresponding meme where people complain about the
| quality of the results for "best pants" where they have to
| amend it to "best pants reddit". Well, I have news for you:
| "best pants" is not a search that can be usefully answered.
| There is no such thing as "best pants".
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Might me a locale thing? For me (southwestern Ontario), a
| "new car" SERP shows a Google Maps block at the top with non-
| ad links to dealerships, but after that are some pretty
| reasonable organic results for pages like Edmunds,
| caranddriver.com, etc.
|
| The organic results even include an optional transparency pop
| up (click the ...) that explains in more detail the factors
| that went into showing the result.
|
| EDIT: Oh wait, never mind. On desktop, the ads are loaded in
| from a separate domain that my router blocks. On mobile, I
| see several at the top of the page. Fail.
| [deleted]
| josefresco wrote:
| > Given the context of the times, it was clearly not a
| statement about layout but about actually reordering the
| "organic" search results based on payments and without marking
| those boosted results as ads.
|
| It's actually worse. Google didn't just say "our competitors
| put ads on top of results". They're suggesting/hinting that
| those competitors accept payment for placement when in fact
| that wasn't happening, their competitors like Bing (MSN then)
| were doing what Google is doing now - merely placing ads above
| the results, not selling placement.
|
| The end result is that they're all now selling placement. The
| visual difference between ads and organic results is almost
| non-existent.
| glenstein wrote:
| >It's actually worse.
|
| Well hold on. We can go ahead and talk about how different
| this Google statement is from their ethos in the present day.
| But the framing of this being about ad placement was
| incorrect, and that has nothing to do with anything.
|
| >They're suggesting/hinting that those competitors accept
| payment for placement when in fact that wasn't happening
|
| It wasn't? This strikes me as yet another completely out of
| left field reaction. I mean, is there a consensus that that's
| obviously false? A source? Where is this "in fact that wasn't
| happening" coming from? Was there a big media cycle where
| there was a deep dive investigation into this that settled
| the question, that everyone remembers except me? There's a
| whole field of actors who at one time were relevant: Jeeves,
| Lycos, Altavista, Infoseek, Dogpile, Hotbot, Webcrawler, etc.
| And they went through any number of permutations of design,
| ownership, were sold and reacquired and it stands to reason
| that at some point some versions of these did things that
| Google is suggesting.
|
| At a minimum it seems prima facie plausible that competitors
| entertained this.
| ddalex wrote:
| > suggesting/hinting that those competitors accept payment
| for placement when in fact that wasn't happening
|
| https://www.searchenginejournal.com/yahoo-adopting-paid-
| incl...
| josefresco wrote:
| It was a fee to be included in the directly, not placement.
| I bought that "directory listing" aka hire PR paid link for
| many clients.
| glenstein wrote:
| Exactly. And, remarkably, so far this is not registering for
| anybody else in this thread. It is about not placing ads within
| search results, and making clear that ads, wherever they are,
| are different from search.
|
| On a very vague, thematic level, this kind of grandstanding in
| Google's statement does seem to be in _some sort_ of conflict
| with Google 's approach to ad placement in 2022, because ads do
| very much seem similar to search results, but it has nothing to
| do with "ads above search results" or ads in the sidebar.
| yojo wrote:
| Not sure I agree. I worked in AdWords support when the decision
| was made to move the top 1-3 ads above the search results.
|
| There was a lot of internal chatter about whether this was
| compromising the integrity of the results. The decision was
| made to make the ad unit super obviously distinct from organic
| content, and to make a high quality threshold for getting
| promoted to that position - many pages would still be served
| with ads on the right of results but not above.
|
| Even still we were very worried about the perception that the
| organic results were for sale. I would definitely believe that
| at one point in time the company was prepared to draw a line in
| the sand around "no ads above organic results."
|
| Edit: at launch the top ads looked like this:
| http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3892/2343/1600/google_adw...
| usrusr wrote:
| These days I assume that Google does two things at once:
| place clearly identifiable _and directly billable_ ads, and
| include "is a known business" in the relevance algorithm
| blackbox as one of the inputs. One of the many factors and
| criteria would just happen to be ad spend. There wouldn't be
| an item "make us more relevant" on the bill, but relevance
| for a company stopping spending would drop unless some other
| organic factor happened to compensate.
|
| And I'd take it as a given that if that assumption was true,
| a large majority of Googlers would not have the faintest idea
| that this is happening and refute any speculations that it
| might exist without even a trace of insincerity.
|
| I'm not even saying this intending a "look how evil Google
| has become!" implication, I actually think that it would
| likely be a quality decrease, from the users perspective, if
| they deliberately left that out. From the user's perspective,
| "Is a business known to us" is likely a valuable relevance
| improvement, not a quality decrease. But it shows how scarily
| dominant Google's position can be.
| edge17 wrote:
| I don't find it super obvious at all. I have to actively
| spend brain energy scrolling to find the first real result
| yojo wrote:
| Yep. The original top ad unit had a dark blue background,
| plus I think some sort of "sponsored" text that clearly
| delineated the ads. It has since become almost
| indistinguishable from organic results.
|
| Edit: Used to look like this: http://photos1.blogger.com/bl
| ogger/3892/2343/1600/google_adw...
| Jensson wrote:
| The appearance of the ads has gotten closer and closer to
| search results. The first time the ads moved above the
| results they did look different.
| iso1631 wrote:
| I don't use google, so I had a look for "new car" and
| didn't see any adverts.
|
| Then realised I had to turn off my blocker.
|
| Looks like
|
| $('#tads').remove()
|
| will remove the adverts?
| zo1 wrote:
| No amount of adblocking will help with the fact that I
| got a top-hit to a car selling website when I searched
| for "new car".
| [deleted]
| PKop wrote:
| What _should_ be the top hit to the query "new car"?
| What was the desired goal?
|
| It's a good chance someone wanting to find a "car
| selling" website might use that phrase, no?
| zo1 wrote:
| Could be a lot of things, including wanting to buy a new
| car, yeah. But maybe I want to search for "new car
| smell", which is a thing. Maybe I want to read blogs or
| experiences people have buying new cars vs used.
|
| Search as it is now is fundamentally at odds with us as
| our own agents. We're 30 years into the internet. I
| shouldn't just be presented with a magical search box
| that tries to figure out what I want and intermingles it
| with trash that makes them money and fosters a broken
| internet. Instead, I should get knobs, settings,
| configuration galore, include/exclude operators, filter
| lists, curated lists, sub-lists of internet sites,
| dynamic lists determined automatically by the search
| engine (only blogs, only forums, only search sites), etc.
| Who knows where search might be if we didn't have "magic"
| results from Google.
|
| A good "taste" of what search _might_ have been is if you
| look at Google 's product or shopping search tab.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Glad to see this up in the comments. This is why I hate so many
| internet discussions, in that they are deliberately made in bad
| faith, _even when the general topic under discussion is valid_.
|
| It's quite clear to anyone who has used Google over the past
| decade that:
|
| 1. When you search for anything _remotely_ commercial, your
| first page is essentially all ads, especially on mobile. It
| _used_ to be possible that, if you were a site but had the top
| spot in Google for a commercial term, you had a great
| opportunity. That is no longer the case now, in that you are
| forced to pay "the Google tax", because there will be 4-5 ads
| above your primary search position if you don't pay for an ad.
|
| 2. Over time Google has made the distinction between organic
| results and ads _much_ less clear. All you get now is teeny
| bolded "Ad" text in the upper left corner, everything else
| looks the same.
|
| These are valid criticisms. Saying "Google critiqued the
| practice of displaying ads above search results" is simply _not
| true_ based on the poster 's own linked screenshot.
| brimble wrote:
| I just looked at it and your post doesn't seem related at all.
| The post is pointing out that Google says they don't sell
| search result positioning, which is equivocation because if you
| watch any normal person use Google or just _look at their
| search results page_ they absofuckinglutely do. "Oh but it's
| not 'in the search area'" yeah OK, so they're both tricking
| people _and_ are disingenuous about it, like that apparently-
| Google-employee (Danny Sullivan) who shames themselves by
| pathetically defending it in the Twitter thread. That 's not
| better.
| fellowniusmonk wrote:
| Google Serps definitely tested not having inline ads at
| different stages, I don't remember if is was ever solely
| sidebar ads, I think it was keyword dependent going back pretty
| far.
|
| I've got three wayback machine links below and the nostradomous
| one eschewed inline ads in 2002 so I think the experience was
| somewhat dependent on what keywords you were searching.
|
| But going back to 2000 (when scraping DMOZ was still how
| everyone seeded quality), you can see that "inline ads" above
| organic results were a relatively early thing.
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20021002224152/http://www.google...
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20001205201000/http://www.google...
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20021105030346/http://www.google...
|
| Looked through old posts from the google dance days on
| webmasterworld, I couldn't see any discussion of ads
| repositioned from the sidebar to inline, so yeah, I think
| inline placement was around a long time, certainly by the time
| this google blog post was first published.
| gleb wrote:
| Exactly. This was called "paid inclusion" and was offered by
| Yahoo, for example.
| fellowniusmonk wrote:
| Yeah, if memory serves the overture ad network (which powered
| yahoo ad results before yahoo bought them) had better roi for
| a short time period for that very reason.
| JeremyNT wrote:
| You may be correct, but I don't think the "letter of the law"
| is a particularly useful standard to judge Google by. So you
| can't pay to have your site ranked higher? Who even cares now?
| At this point you can pay Google to deploy dark patterns that
| trick people into clicking on ads thinking that they're
| actually organic results. In a sense that is even _better_ than
| a higher page rating...
| iJohnDoe wrote:
| Many companies have to spend big dollars on their trademarked
| terms or company name to get it listed as the top result only via
| a paid ad.
|
| Google artificially pushes down those company results to keep
| forcing them to pay big bucks for the top result only via
| advertising. Pretty slimy business Google is in these days. Like
| paying the local thugs to protect your grocery store.
| nemacol wrote:
| I wonder if there is something like "The Peter Principle" for
| businesses.
|
| > everyone is promoted to their level of incompetence
|
| Where the business sees some success and grows until they lose
| the thing that everyone liked about them to begin with
|
| Business outgrows their market or something.
|
| Blizzard stops producing highly polished experiences for money.
|
| Googles search results are degraded and littered with ads for
| money.
|
| Microsoft shifts from software to consumer data collection and
| now my servers all have Xbox services and a touch UI for some
| stupid reason (sorry, for money).
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| "Either you die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself
| become the villain."
|
| It applies to politicians and businesses alike.
| billyhoffman wrote:
| The full version of Brin and Page's classic paper "The Anatomy of
| a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine" [1], which
| describes the early architect of Google and is an interested read
| in its own right, literally has "Appendix A: Advertising and
| Mixed Motives." Highlights include:
|
| -"We believe the issue of advertising causes enough mixed
| incentives that it is crucial to have a competitive search engine
| that is transparent and in the academic realm. "
|
| - "We expect that advertising funded search engines will be
| inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs
| of the consumers."
|
| - "A better search engine would not have required this ad, and
| possibly resulted in the loss of the revenue from the airline to
| the search engine. In general, it could be argued from the
| consumer point of view that the better the search engine is, the
| fewer advertisements will be needed for the consumer to find what
| they want. This of course erodes the advertising supported
| business model of the existing search engines."
|
| To be clear: the "we" in these quotes are the founders of Google.
|
| [1] https://storage.googleapis.com/pub-tools-public-
| publication-...
|
| As an aside, I've been reading a bunch of academic papers about
| early web crawlers and search engines. It's a fun and interesting
| subject. Mercator [2] (which became Alta Vista) is another early
| search engine and one of the few that discusses its architecture
| in detail.
|
| [2] https://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/Compaq-DEC/SRC-RR-173.pdf
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| Bait and switch. "Look at our more transparent search engine in
| the academic realm." Gotcha. Look again. Google is not an
| unbiased search engine. Its ~100% funded by advertising.
|
| Google collects more data about users than it does about the
| topics that users want to search, all for the ultimate purpose
| of selling advertising services, and often under the guise of a
| parallel construction with respect to the purpose of such
| collection, e.g., "to improve user experience".
| llaolleh wrote:
| I remember reading the first paper and my impression is that a
| lot of the engineering limitations back then no longer apply in
| 2020+.
| hubraumhugo wrote:
| Another interesting paragraph talks about search engine bias:
|
| "Since it is very difficult even for experts to evaluate search
| engines, search engine bias is particularly insidious. A good
| example was OpenText, which was reported to be selling
| companies the right to be listed at the top of the search
| results for particular queries [Marchiori 97]. This type of
| bias is much more insidious than advertising, because it is not
| clear who "deserves" to be there, and who is willing to pay
| money to be listed. This business model resulted in an uproar,
| and OpenText has ceased to be a viable search engine. But less
| blatant bias are likely to be tolerated by the market. For
| example, a search engine could add a small factor to search
| results from "friendly" companies, and subtract a factor from
| results from competitors.
|
| --------
|
| This type of bias is very difficult to detect but could still
| have a significant effect on the market. Furthermore,
| advertising income often provides an incentive to provide poor
| quality search results."
| aantix wrote:
| It'd be interesting to see a breakdown of their add revenue and
| what portion come from these top level ad results.
|
| My guess is it's a majority of their revenue.
|
| It's such a slimy practice.
| tyingq wrote:
| Well, and they've gone way beyond 3 or 4 ads on top of the
| search results if the query terms are particularly valuable.
|
| Try "vegas hotels" or "mortgage rates" as queries on google
| and see how far you have to scroll down to find something
| that isn't an ad, ad widget, etc.
| brimble wrote:
| So much of it's making companies pay to be at the actual-top,
| when they're already result 1 or 2 in the natural results and
| are obviously what the searcher wanted. I go out of my way
| not to click these but most people I observe do click them,
| even when the non-ad link is also above the fold. That's a
| "success" for Google, maybe a "success" for the company's
| marketing department, a _loss_ for the company in fact, and
| at best neutral for the searcher.
|
| Then there's tricking (largely) old people into clicking
| pages they _didn 't_ want, thinking it was a search result.
| Sometimes even scams.
|
| IMO Google's core business model has become scamming
| advertisers, helping scammers to fool unsophisticated users,
| and extorting companies, _all_ heavily driven by their inline
| ads move. I consider them contemptible for continuing it for
| years when they _have to_ know that 's the case, and likely
| have all along.
|
| I hate seeing the same on DDG--and they seem to be getting
| worse. It must be _super_ effective, but _of course_ tricking
| people is effective. It 's also very, very wrong.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| Am I the only person who remembers Google criticizing their
| competitors for mixing search results and ads in the same list at
| all?
|
| This was back when Google still placed text only ads off to the
| side of the results page in a blue box to make them even more
| distinctly separated from the search results.
| jeffbee wrote:
| At the time, Google's competitor Yahoo!/Overture were 100% pay-
| for-placement. There was no such thing as organic results.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| The company I remember them criticizing was Alta Vista, which
| did include organic search results intermixed with ads at the
| time.
|
| >Google may be big with the cyber-cognescenti, but AltaVista
| is still reaching a lot more users. While AltaVista reaches
| 17.7% of Web users, Google gets just 7%, according to the
| latest Media Metrix numbers.
|
| https://www.forbes.com/2000/10/20/1020alta.html?sh=68521b3e7.
| ..
|
| They weren't bought by Overture until 2003.
| colmvp wrote:
| I can't imagine navigating the web without an ad-blocker.
| phkahler wrote:
| A few weeks ago I was looking for Free Software (as in freedom)
| so I searched for GPL <category> and the top 4 results were ads
| for commercial software in the category. I was going to provide a
| link here to such result with a hahahaha but Google isn't
| behaving that way now...
| jb1991 wrote:
| It was a different time. Google's motto was also, "don't be evil"
| which they retracted years later. It's a different era now.
| AtNightWeCode wrote:
| This is fake, or the person is very not aware of how Google
| search was intended to work in the first place. The whole USP of
| Google search was to index ads in the same way as other content
| and display it in the search results. It has always been more
| about target practice where the "ads" are placed.
| monkeybutton wrote:
| There's some interesting images of the evolution of what ads
| looked like in Google's search results over time. Starting with
| distinct background colours and slowly fading to looking more and
| more identical to organic results with just a little icon.
| wldcordeiro wrote:
| It's always felt like something that should be regulated away.
| Ads should be very distinct not a single tiny text label saying
| "sponsored" but 100% distinct from any non-ad content.
| ShaneMcGowan wrote:
| This headline is misleading, the image in this tweet says you
| can't buy better search placement. Ads shown at Google are
| labelled as ads, the person is not buying a better search result
| placement. I do say this ignoring the fact that Google's
| labelling of ads has been getting more and more subtle over time
| but that is a separate unrelated issue. This seems to be another
| attempt of generating hype around "google bad"
| ChildOfChaos wrote:
| This is standard practice though in pretty much everything.
|
| A new upstart criticises the way it is being done, comes in and
| changes things, then takes over and then slowly becomes the big
| guy they were fighting against in the first place.
|
| There is are reason to criticise what is being done because it's
| not the best for the consumer, but there is a reason it's done
| that way because it's good for business. So the upstart takes
| over by building a better product but soon corporate needs become
| a bigger priority once the company reaches scale, so it's
| prioties change.
| julienchastang wrote:
| Now I am seeing some Google search results that are nothing but
| ads on the first page. I recently switched to DuckDuckGo and so
| far I have been entirely happy with it. I recommend everyone give
| it a try.
| zriha wrote:
| I would say, this is misleading, as often do Google Ads
| campaigns, and I follow Google, well, from first day of Google
| Ads advertising, the position of Google was always the sam
| regarding ads - there is no way you can buy a position in the
| search results.
|
| Yeah, there are SEO tactics, but they don't grant you fixed
| position. And Google Ad, well Search Ad is always different (from
| day one) than the organic search result.
|
| And even so, Google Ad can't be misleading, because it directly
| affects the search result for the user, so you have some
| parameters like Quality score of the ad and the keyword, and
| yeah, if you try to mislead, they will disapprove your ad.
| thefingerer wrote:
| I may the only greybeard arund here who remembers (and has the
| screenshots to prove it), used to be from 2005--2008 when you
| would open a message in Gmail, all of the sponsored ads would
| show up over on the right-hand-side of your email message, and
| would all be related to keywords from the inside of the email.
|
| Making it grotesquely blatant, how very much the Google computers
| were reading all your email.
|
| At least now they conceal it a little better, by storing your
| keyword/interests in a giant permanent database, then bringing
| the advertisements up on other, non-Google pages!
| dpark wrote:
| Didn't they announce that they stopped scanning email for ad
| purposes? (Presumably because it wasn't actually very
| lucrative.)
| passivate wrote:
| Is there any user data that passes through Google owned
| servers that _DOESN 'T_ get data mined?
| dpark wrote:
| That's literally not possible for me to answer.
|
| They did say they aren't scanning email for advertising
| purposes anymore though.
|
| https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
| way/2017/06/26/534451513...
| rurp wrote:
| Eh, sort of. They released a statement to give that
| impression but the wording was fairly weasely. They likely
| stopped using email content for directly targeting ads in
| Gmail, but there's almost no chance email content isn't being
| used to target people in other contexts.
| dpark wrote:
| Why is there "almost no chance"? They said they won't email
| for advertising purposes. There wasn't much wiggle room
| with the way they phrased it. It's possible that they
| outright lied, I guess.
|
| _"Consumer Gmail content will not be used or scanned for
| any ads personalization after this change"_
|
| https://blog.google/products/gmail/g-suite-gains-traction-
| in...
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Yeah, I quite liked the contextual ads and did go to Google
| many times just to look at the ads, ignoring the rest of the
| contents (not only for gmail, for search too).
|
| When they started with the permanent database, the ads
| immediately got useless.
| the_biot wrote:
| IIRC Google was clear about this even when they launched Gmail:
| they were doing it so they could read your emails and use that
| info to add to your ad profile.
|
| I couldn't even *believe* at the time why anyone would sign up
| for that. Still can't believe it.
| reidjs wrote:
| "I have nothing to hide"
| freediver wrote:
| "Canceling" someone for what they said/claimed in the past is a
| double-edged sword.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| While I'm glad to see the comments pointing out that, no, the
| tweet's linked screenshot did NOT say anything about displaying
| ads "above search results", I do think this highlights the need
| for better regulation around having more visual distinction
| between ads and organic results. And this doesn't just go for
| Google, should also go for things like Amazon and Instagram
| influencer paid posts.
|
| From a response tweet:
|
| > To be fair, the approach taken by Google (and most search
| engines) abides by the rules as set down by folks like the
| Advertising Standards Authority which let "Ad" work as a get out
| of jail free card regardless of context or visuals.
|
| At the very least I think there should be a requirement of a
| different color background, along what Google _used_ to have in
| their "Sponsored Links" section at the top of results.
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| I mean that was back when 'don't be evil' was credibly the
| company philosophy. Going public didn't help.
| thefourthchime wrote:
| Does anyone else fondly remember the early 2010s. When
| companies at least pretended to "Make the world a better
| place". Now it seems they're just racing to see who can be
| worth the next N trillion dollar company.
| folkrav wrote:
| The Silicon Valley TV show quite vividly portrayed that era
| of tech, especially in the earlier seasons.
| z3c0 wrote:
| I'm beginning to use "going public" as my indicator to stop
| using a product. My decade-old reddit account was recently
| deleted for this reason, as they were showing all the signs
| _before_ they announced their intention to go public.
|
| I'm really hoping DigitalOcean and Gitlab prove my theory
| wrong. You would think that private companies would be more
| prone to unethical practices.
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| You might be able to use it as an indicator when to stop
| working there too. Which sucks because public companies tend
| to pay nearly twice as much.
| z3c0 wrote:
| I've had a mixed bag of results on this one, but as someone
| who works in data, the sudden crunch to bring a company's
| architecture into SOX compliance can certainly be stressful
| enough to warrant leaving.
| rebelde wrote:
| Right. They need to show growth every year in search
| advertising. One way to grow is to put more ads in more places.
| Of course, even before going public, they still had to grow (so
| that they could go public), but they had natural growth then.
| bitwize wrote:
| Yes, and EA was once ideologically opposed to copy protection;
| today they are the DRM kings.
|
| Welcome to capitalism. The pursuit of profit ruins everything.
| bmitc wrote:
| Just like I've been actively moving away from Amazon, I've been
| actively moving away from Google. These companies are leeches on
| society.
| dpark wrote:
| You can certainly hate Google and not support them. I don't
| know how you can classify them as "leeches on society", though.
| I remember the days before Google, when web search was utter
| garbage, free email providers gave you 10mb of storage and
| stuck ads on the bottom of every email you sent, map apps were
| limited to about 400x300 for some inexplicable reason, and
| Android didn't even exist. Google very much seems like a net
| positive historically.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Google has turned just 24 years old and is allready a monster
| since more than a decade. Historical Google was just us being
| blazed by the promises of the future.
|
| They single handedly lead the assault on our online privacy.
| Not that no others were trying, but they succeeded.
| macilacilove wrote:
| I am dpark from 2032. I have absolutely no human rights, and
| I never need to think about what to buy/watch/read, because
| Google consolidated all markets. I don't vote anymore because
| every aspect of life is controlled by G anyway. I have access
| to a shiny new tech that you don't yet have a name for!
| Google is still a net positive "historically" _.
|
| _ everything you think you know about "history" is
| misinformation. In 2032 Google AI-generates colorful VR
| videos of the Real Past and boy, I am telling you, we are
| much better off now!
|
| Keep Googling, dpark, 2032
| properparity wrote:
| > I remember the days before Google, when web search was
| utter garbage
|
| I remember altavista giving me interesting results from
| actual personal websites and I could tweak it by being more
| precise. On google today the top results are pretty much
| always garbage SEO optimized aggregate nonsense.
| dpark wrote:
| I remember looking for stuff on page 20 of Altavista
| results.
|
| Although lately Google does seem to be losing the battle
| with the scammers/spammers, at least for certain classes of
| queries. The number of garbage results I have to wade
| through if the answer isn't in Wikipedia seems to be
| growing.
| bmitc wrote:
| They were useful once upon a time I think, but those days are
| long and gone in my opinion. And they are leeches. They are
| the prime example of making money off of people's data (which
| is at least one instance of their being parasitic). Maybe
| back in the day this was acceptable because their search and
| Gmail benefitted users, but I don't see that anymore. For
| Gmail, I currently use Gmail because it just happened to be
| the best e-mail 18 years ago, and it's hard to switch.
| There's very little about it today that makes it the best.
|
| Over the past six years, they've made $755 billion and not a
| cent paid to people for the use and sell of their data. And
| all because they provide services like ads above searches and
| link to shopping websites and Wikipedia, meanwhile selling
| people's data to whoever? Honestly, it's so hard to use
| Google as an actual search engine it feels like Google is
| more like a directory these days. Like, when I have to input
| a search as: "yes" "i" "really" "want" "to"
| "search" "these" "terms"
|
| something is broken. The only other product of Google that I
| really use besides their search and Gmail is YouTube, and
| that's only because it's entrenched. It's pretty adversarial
| towards, well, everyone except copyright holders.
| dpark wrote:
| > _For Gmail, I currently use Gmail because it just
| happened to be the best e-mail 18 years ago, and it 's hard
| to switch. There's very little about it today that makes it
| the best._
|
| This really undercuts your message. Google is a leech on
| society and their products aren't even good, but you keep
| using Gmail because it's kind of a hassle to switch.
|
| You could switch to a different email provider and use
| DuckDuckGo for search. But you don't. So your principled
| stance against Google doesn't even extend to them most
| obvious examples of not giving them your business.
|
| But sure, it's very believable that the days of their
| products being good are "long and gone".
| frabjoused wrote:
| It's frustrating that there's no date associated with this, at
| least without digging. Time is very important in evaluating
| something like this and the tweet doesn't bother to state it.
| coding123 wrote:
| Actual ordering by Google:
|
| - Ads results
|
| - Sites that display Google Ads
|
| - Google's original algorithmic results
| hdesh wrote:
| "What are you looking at? Never seen a hypocrite before?"
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