[HN Gopher] For some searches the whole screen on Google is now ads
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For some searches the whole screen on Google is now ads
Author : steelstraw
Score : 67 points
Date : 2022-02-04 20:59 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| aparsons wrote:
| This has been the case for a long time on mobile. 1.5 vertical
| screens of ads is not uncommon.
| kehrin wrote:
| A little bit ironic that you can see an actual result at the
| bottom of the already cropped screenshot.
| ejb999 wrote:
| thats why I don't use google anymore (well one of the many
| reasons actually)
| tenpoundhammer wrote:
| Try neeva . com it's really similar to google but with none of
| the garbage experience from ads and SEO Spam. I switched from
| duckduckgo to neeva recently and have enjoyed it wayyy more.
| voisin wrote:
| What do you like about Neeva vs DDG
| imwillofficial wrote:
| That screenshot was shocking. It truly has been a slippery slope
| to get here. So subtle I barely noticed the group shifting
| beneath my feet.
| dvngnt_ wrote:
| been using ublock origin for years I have no idea what you're
| talking about. good luck though
| dmitriid wrote:
| "We sell advertisement, not search results"
|
| https://twitter.com/krebs_adrian/status/1488173888068542466
|
| https://www.google.com/about/honestresults/ (Note: the url of
| this page is /honestresults/)
| post_break wrote:
| I love that line. It's like coke saying we sell sugar water,
| not soda.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Did anyone replicate this? I couldn't on desktop and mobile.
|
| Seems like flame bait
| lelandfe wrote:
| Yes, I see this constantly when my adblocker is off. Search for
| anything related to "job search" et voila:
| https://i.imgur.com/dBXghPh.png
|
| Here's "mattress," which has ads that extend beyond the fold:
| https://i.imgur.com/Z9dGSKR.png
|
| Those two I just took. I mercifully cannot replicate this one
| anymore, but here's one for "indeed" I took in December, where
| _LinkedIn_ had an ad that took up my entire laptop screen:
| https://i.imgur.com/x7g5Uo3.png
|
| I can't replicate OP's specific one, but remember that ad buy
| is very dynamic. I do get the top two positions as competitors,
| one of which is seen in OP's link as well:
| https://i.imgur.com/hYjaWm4.png. I certainly do not think this
| post is fake.
| endisneigh wrote:
| I'm talking about the exact query in the OP. No one is
| shocked that Google has ads.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| There is zero way to exactly replicate OPs query as Google
| heavily tailors results to each person, logged in or not.
|
| And yes, people are shocked at the amount of ads google is
| pushing.
| endisneigh wrote:
| a very loud and annoying minority of people are shocked,
| yes. Go look at Alphabets Q1 results on Search - queries
| up, users up, ad money up.
| lelandfe wrote:
| The title of this post is "For some searches the whole
| screen on Google is now ads" - I hope it's shocking that
| that's true, irrespective of if we can replicate the
| _exact_ ad placements in this post?
| tonetheman wrote:
| Yes. I have seen it a lot. More and more as the days go on.
| Google search results are no better than any of the other
| search engines and even worse for people not in tech they do
| not even know they are ads.
|
| Just dark patterns. Sad it used to be a good search engine.
| olyjohn wrote:
| I saw this myself months ago with my father. He calls me up,
| and tells me that Google is only showing him ads, and he can't
| find any actual content. I figured it was some kind of malware
| he installed, but nope, I get over there and it's exactly like
| this screenshot. The entire first screen of results was ads.
| Then when I scrolled down, there weren't Google ads, but just a
| bunch of SEO spam. Wasn't gonna waste my time figuring it out,
| so I put him on DDG, and his problems were solved.
| endisneigh wrote:
| lol, OK what was the query? let's see the DDG and Google
| results side by side.
|
| I swear people _always_ say nonsense like this and when I ask
| for specific queries they stop replying. Check my history if
| you doubt it.
|
| I don't doubt you saw ads, but Google very strictly limits
| the percentage of the screen that can be ads _or_ percentage
| of results. If you can find a single query in which every
| result on the first page is a sponsored ad I 'll send you $5
| via Venmo right now, no questions asked.
|
| people just like saying 'omg all my screen is ads' and then
| they crop their screen showing like 20% of the screen on a
| 1080p monitor. >_>
| mikeyouse wrote:
| I'm on a 13" Macbook Pro, here's what a Chrome search for
| "Salesforce Integration" with my adblocker turned off looks
| like:
|
| https://i.imgur.com/AkQWJeF.png
|
| 100% ads.
|
| DDG for the same search is better, but not by much:
|
| https://i.imgur.com/pcpxr4l.png
| endisneigh wrote:
| what's after the fold? Why do you crop it so it only
| shows ads? so ridiculous. Google will almost never show
| more than 5 sponsored ads or some combination of 2-3 ads
| and sponsored modal.
|
| this scenario of all of the results being ads is
| nonexistent. again if anyone can show me a reproducible
| query in which all results are ads, $5 - easy.
|
| omg DDG 100% ads !111
|
| https://imgur.com/a/gjfovKE
| AlexanderTheGr8 wrote:
| Do you think he created that web-page by modifying HTML?
| endisneigh wrote:
| It's literally a cropped image that no one has said they can
| reproduce
| strathmeyer wrote:
| Search "retool slack integration" on google.com with no
| quotes
| imwillofficial wrote:
| So what if it is cropped, is the amount of ads shown in the
| screenshot with no actual search results acceptable to you?
| Does the fact OP has a smaller or larger resolution than
| you change your mind?
| endisneigh wrote:
| Literally the fifth result is what they were looking for.
| they crop that out and complain on twitter.
|
| so yes, it's acceptable. use ad-block if it's not to you.
| albertopv wrote:
| There are many factors that could change your results. Since I
| disabled web & app activity I have seen a lot more ads.
| moonshinefe wrote:
| I can't replicate at all, in fact I get zero results labeled as
| ads for the same search (on desktop, logged in, using FF). I
| have my search history paused, perhaps that could be affecting
| it?
|
| Edit: I now see 3 ad results after disabling uBlock origin, but
| still far from the entire thing being ads. I didn't think it
| removed ads from the search results themselves (since I see
| 'sponsored ads' occasionally in my search and things). My bad.
| gamerDude wrote:
| I wonder if there would be a good way to monetize a search engine
| such that returning great results gets them paid.
|
| Like a check in if you found what you were looking for, give a
| penny. Or potentially not what you were looking for, but
| something that you are happy you found. Thus giving back good
| info to the search engine and only pay a nominal amount when you
| get what you want.
| ssss11 wrote:
| Yeah I've noticed this too. But also the rest of the front page
| is often either seo spam (like those Pinterest links which catch
| whatever search term you've used) or shopping sites. I've found
| google search to be increasingly hostile to its customers.
|
| I guess we're not the customers. Use duckduckgo or something
| else.
| onphonenow wrote:
| How is pinterest not just banned unless you do site:pintrest or
| whatever.
|
| If you are not logged into some of these sites you can't
| actually get to stuff either. Annoying.
| yostrovs wrote:
| It's fraud, effectively. I've seen a bunch of people that are
| not tech savvy do Google searches, and they have no idea
| they're clicking on ads. I pointed this out a few times and
| they seem to not care anyways. Google knows this very well and
| they pretend like they're giving search results, but the
| majority of users are getting ad search results instead.
| verve_rat wrote:
| It is basically the yellow pages on the internet model that a
| few people tried and Google killed. I'm not sure what we can
| learn from the fact that Google is regressing into the model
| they killed in the first place.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| I'd pay $10/month for a nerd-only, developer-friendly, pro-
| small-biz, precision search that works like 2008 version of
| Google. Something that I use dozens of times a day, is totally
| worth paying for.
|
| It is inevitable. It's coming. Algolia? Please?
| twofornone wrote:
| Kind of an aside but it seems like there are SEO pages which
| dynamically adjust their displayed text in the search results
| to your search query...how does that work? Isn't search result
| text indexed in advance? Or is this some sort of paid feature
| from google, where your search terms are injected into a
| template?
|
| Whatever it is it's really annoying because usually these
| results link to another search on a shopping site and more
| often than not those results come up empty anyway.
| altdataseller wrote:
| They are usually search result pages with the keyword in the
| url parameter, and they link to those search results
| elsewhere on their site for Google to find
| omnicognate wrote:
| You're not duckduckgo's customer either (their primary revenue
| source is keyword based advertising), or the customer of
| anything else you don't pay for.
|
| The only one I know of that at least plans to have a simple
| two-way relationship with search users as their customers is
| Kagi. Currently it's in free beta with a waitlist (took a week
| for me). When they go live they intend it to be a paid,
| subscription service with no advertising. So far I've found it
| good, and I'll gladly pay when the time comes.
| echelon wrote:
| I hope they penalize websites with heavy tracking or
| advertising. We might get back to a sane web if this takes
| off.
|
| They can grow their market by offering 10 free searches a
| day, and I think that would be enough to entice a lot of
| folks to switch.
|
| Offer a paid API, and I'd bet they'd have a real growth
| story.
| enumjorge wrote:
| The Facebook stock debacle from yesterday makes me think that
| maybe there is a limit to how user-hostile a tech giant can be
| before it really starts to hurt their bottom line. For a while it
| seemed like companies like FB had captured enough of the market
| that they seemed impervious to backlash from their many
| controversies, too big to fail in a way. But it looks like
| letting resentment towards your product build among your user
| base can come bite you after all.
|
| FB used outrage as a way to increase engagement and it worked for
| a while, but now FB is increasingly a non-desirable place to hang
| out. Instead you can go to TikTok where you will find mostly
| amusing and at times informative content. When Apple added
| restrictions that cut off oxygen to FB, FB started a PR campaign
| to paint it as one grave injustice. It seems like that was met
| with a collective shrug. Who cheers for the bad guy?
|
| All that is to say, it seems like Google has been in this value
| extraction mode for a while and I don't see what the long term
| plan is. They don't seem to be innovating much, but are instead
| intent on squeezing as much money as they can from their existing
| assets. And while that may work in the short term, FB has shown
| tech giants are not invincible. I've seen a lot of talk online
| lately about how bad the quality of search results have gotten.
| If a credible competitor emerges, I think a lot of users would
| gladly switch. If/when that happens, Google better hope they
| don't find themselves in FB's position where they can't acquire
| their way out of their rut.
| AviationAtom wrote:
| iqanq wrote:
| no ublock origin = pebcak
| colinmhayes wrote:
| how do you get adblock on mobile?
| iqanq wrote:
| I use adguard with safari. On android you can use brave.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Maybe Google should start a portrait mode monitor business;
| consumers could get even more ad results on their screen.
| riversflow wrote:
| I think they've already done that-only since they are a
| software company they decided that it would be better to write
| an OS for portrait mode monitors, and make it free, off-loading
| those pesky manufacturing steps. Ideally the OS would be
| attached to a device that the consumer would bring with them
| everywhere and have fancy geo-locating tools that tell Google
| where they go, you know for better ad attr-err search
| relevance!
|
| (perhaps that's what you were going for?)
| bell-cot wrote:
| I often prepend my searches with strings such as "wikipedia " -
| typically there's a big improvement on the SRP end...but the borG
| will fix that if it catches on.
|
| Coming soon - "Ad Infinitum(tm)" Google search results pages,
| which start to slowly scroll 5 seconds after being displayed...
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(page generated 2022-02-04 23:00 UTC)