Entire Google search result pages are now ads

https://www.reddit.com/r/google/comments/gvdsu1/entire_google_search_result_pages_are_now_ads/

by freediver • 6 years ago

125 62 6 years ago

reddit.com

a3n• 6 years ago

Duck Duck Go, https://duckduckgo.com/

It's good enough. And when you don't get what you want, you can use the google bang code, !g in front of your search.

DDG should be your default.

cbo1002• 6 years ago

apart from a small blurb from wikipedia on the right, DDG is the same as the google result.

MattGaiser2• 6 years ago

With my adblocker off it doesn't seem all that different in having mostly ads and a map on the front of the page.

ivanfon• 6 years ago

DGG lets you disable ads in the settings: https://duckduckgo.com/settings#general

But the main difference is that DGG chooses ads based only on search term, as opposed to tracking you and collecting your data across the entire net.

armitron2• 6 years ago

DDG is more of the same, just pushing the "we don't track you" story to the masses, which most of the time is completely irrelevant.

An actual new search engine that does its own indexing is sorely needed.

dimator• 6 years ago

I'm curious what kinds of sites people think should be returned for a search term of "mattress", if not mattress shopping sites?

grawprog3• 6 years ago

Comparisons of mattress materials or brands, histories of different mattresses used by cultures, forums for mattress aficionados, tutorials for making your own or modifying mattresses, general mattress information or facts, other random weird shit the internet used to have about strangely niche subjects that have way more people dedicated to them then you'd expect you'd only discover by searching random terms then you find there's a whole world of weird things dedicated to this niche topic, say mattresses in this case, that you'd otherwise never know about.

teruakohatu• 6 years ago

"mattress forums" find me forums. "mattress history" gets me a page entitled "The History of Mattresses" followed by Wikipedia.

cbo1002• 6 years ago

Then perhaps try searching "mattress materials", "history of mattresses" or "mattress making tutorial".

Plenty of relevant results, zero ads.

When somebody searches "mattress", 99% of the time, they want to buy one.

joshvm• 6 years ago

Good luck finding a comparison page of just about anything that isn't SEO spam these days. And I would bet money if you search for DIY mattress, a good fraction of the results will be Pinterest.

bagacrap2• 6 years ago

what is a "general mattress fact"? If you typed "mattress Wikipedia" you'd get a bunch of mattress history and facts, so it's not exactly hard to find what you're looking for, but it's probably the case that most people who type just "mattress" are looking to buy one. If that weren't true, why would Google show so many ads? It's not like showing a million ads is going to trick a seeker of general mattress facts into buying a mattress they don't need.

sytelus2• 6 years ago

Most definitely NOT the advertisers who wants to pay the biggest bugs or yielding huge ad click throughs. I would expect Google ranking reviews from more honest sites like consumer reports, BBB, chiropractor reviews etc and supported by articles in good newspapers or magazines. Mattress business is extremely high margine business with their major spend category being ads, not R&D or manufacturing. They almost entirely depends on glossy ads with ongoing war of making outrageously false claims among competitors. Ads are the last thing you want to depend on in this category to make your purchase decision that would impact you for may be half decade.

achow• 6 years ago

Whatever it is not multiple ads for sure.

If I'm a buyer, I would expect to see the most trafficked, most popular, most bought deep linked online mattress shopping page - as the first link. I'm ok if that is after one or two ads.

If the search engine was trustworthy then I will click on that deep linked product page, cursorily glance the user reviews to see if there are any red flags, if not, then quickly empty my wallet and be done with my shopping for a mattress.

rkagerer2• 6 years ago

Here's one closer to home: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2563358

Admittedly it's not the best example. But personally I'd weight sites offering unbiased information (some of which may indeed be happen to be merchants) higher than those trying to shove "the world's #1 mattress" down my throat.

JeremyNT• 6 years ago

I'm curious what kinds of sites people think should be returned for a search term of "mattress", if not mattress shopping sites?

You'd never know it by the google results, but there are robust hobbyist communities dedicated to exposing the underlying information (and misinformation) about mattresses and the companies that make them. The Mattress Underground is a good example [0]

This is an interesting case in point - you might never even know what you're missing if google doesn't even hint that it exists, because it buries things under ads! A generalizable way to "hack" google into showing you useful results when a keyword is so polluted with SEO and ads is to add the word "forums" to your search string, although even that is no guarantee.

[0] https://www.themattressunderground.com/mattress-forum.html

qbaqbaqba2• 6 years ago

Porn of course.

rolph• 6 years ago

there is always this:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23397615

kinda stuff being posted here and it gets approximately zero traction

So how else do you expose the ad to eyes other than getting meta by making postings like GP?

MattGaiser2• 6 years ago

Sure, but if you are interested in buying a mattress, are those not where you generally want to go anyway?

I suspect the mattress hobby community is not very large.

0x00000000• 6 years ago

I go out of my way to avoid clicking on ad results and buying things that are heavily advertised (certain VPNs, audiobook services etc) because if they are trying that hard to push ads, it is almost certainly shit targeted towards uninformed consumers.

Those results are not the best value or most popular or highest rated or most comfortable or highest quality. They are the ones with the most money blow on internet ads.

freediver2• 6 years ago

To begin with the searcher never indicated they are interested in actually buying a mattress (for example by saying 'mattress price' or by clicking the shopping tab).

Now maybe Google infered that for them, right or wrong.

The problem then becomes that what is presented is not mattress-buying information which could for example consist of information about different mattress types, reviews and discussions (how many of you would be forced to actually type 'mattress reddit' in this scenario?). Instead it is a page full of ads. It does not help the searcher make a buying decision. It actually makes their job harder with so many options to choose from and very little condensed information to help with the choice. All those brains and AIs at Google "organizing the world's information" are nowhere to be seen as literally all the cognitive load is transferred back to the searcher.

What is wrong with that is that Google's mission states "organize the world's information" (and this was a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate that) while what Google actually did was "organize the world's ads". Sad thing about it is that there was a point in the past when that was not the case.

sytelus2• 6 years ago

No. Mattress business is one giant hornet's nest where deception, false claims and high margin are norm. Most companies who sale mattress actually don't do squat of real research or improvement or even own design but they keep claiming to do so. Their entire business depends on attracting customers through false ad and making them spend $1000+ mattress which takes a fraction of cost to make it. Their major expenditure is literally these ads. There are few other businesses where organic results would be more appreciated by customers. I'd personally spent months in to digging through this garbage and ultimately settled on my chiropractor's recommandation while making sure he used exacly same mattress on his own bed. There is no sane way left to buy a mattress on Internet.

jader201• 6 years ago

Yeah, and DDG’s results for “mattress” aren’t much better:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=mattress

Basically a map listing three mattress stores, followed by two ads. Then finally a few non-ad results, but still stores selling mattresses.

If you’re on desktop, there’s a bonus ad on the right sidebar, below the definition.

tpxl• 6 years ago

I see a couple of mattress stores, a wiki ad, a facebook group for the first couple of mattress stores, something russian and then more mattress stores. Nary an ad in sight, (got uBlock origin and javascript off)

ayhoung• 6 years ago

Obviously not ones that are advertised? Isn’t that what organic search is for?

anoncake3• 6 years ago

Only if you specifically want to buy from a company that wastes money on advertising, making the mattresses more expensive.

maest• 6 years ago

This is a great way for Google to make all the margin of mattress sellers.

buboard• 6 years ago

on the bright side, it's now easy to compete with google

musicale• 6 years ago

I'd like to see someone develop a search engine that was optimized for finding web sites based on categories, such as non-commercial, enthusiast, blog, academic, companies, merchants, etc..

My favorite google flavors are google scholar and google news, which seem to more or less do what they say.

Too many search engines seem to have crowded out the web search function with widgets for ads, local properties, wikipedia, media companies, etc..

thebean112• 6 years ago

If you scroll down on that page, pretty sure there are non ad results. Seems disingenuous to say it's the entire page.

willcipriano• 6 years ago

With infinite scrolling what's a page?

em-bee• 6 years ago

a screenfull.

so therefore, if all i see is ads at first, it's entirely reasonable to claim that i get a page full of ads.

thebean112• 6 years ago

Is google infinite scrolling for you now? I still have the old "Gooooooogle" thing at the bottom

rkagerer2• 6 years ago

I would really love a search engine or keyword that lets me exclude pages with ads (or too high an ad-content ratio).

cercatrova• 6 years ago

Everyone should be using uBlock Origin. There is no reason to see ads anywhere on the internet.

pjmlp2• 6 years ago

There is, not willing to pay for content.

jka2• 6 years ago

Can you think of any content (software, for example) that is produced without advertising?

anoncake3• 6 years ago

You pay for the content anyway. The cost of a product contains the cost of advertising.

qbaqbaqba2• 6 years ago

In case of search results? Then Google should pay websites for displaying their content.

m-p-3• 6 years ago

That, or send your search data somewhere else.

armitron2• 6 years ago

Agreed, uBlock origin has become a necessity since the web has turned to toxic sludge.

But Google has gotten so unbelievably bad that even uBlock origin can't protect against the onslaught of SEO spam and downright crappy results. I'm wasting hours every week, sorting through Google's atrocious output.

yummypaint• 6 years ago

Give duckduck go a try. If you arent having luck with a particular query you can always type "g! " at the beginning to route it to google. Very low barrier to entry, i prefer it now that im mostly adjusted.

mthoms3• 6 years ago

Reminder: it's been 4 months since Google said they would roll back their ads with favicons. Surprise! Nothing's changed.

"Every Google result now looks like an ad" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22107823

"Google backtracks on search results design" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22144210

gundmc2• 6 years ago

I don't see any favicons on my desktop search, which is what the links reference.

Mobile favicons had been around for some time prior to those articles and continues to have them.

mthoms3• 6 years ago

Interesting. I'm still seeing them.

Are we talking about the same thing? They aren't actual favicons btw, they are composed of text with the word "Ad" but formatted and positioned to look like exactly like favicons.

olives• 6 years ago

I don't think the map portion of that screenshot is monetized.

Bayart• 6 years ago

Even when there's not a lot of apparent advertising, a large portion of the high ranking pages are ads or referral links disguised as informative content.

N1H1L• 6 years ago

Well didn't how Yahoo die to a certain extent? I remember back when Google first came on the scene - we were all using Yahoo. Yahoo was an ad-filled ungodly mess, while Google was clean and fast. People switched over really fast.

Entire Google search result pages are now ads

Related Stories