Google Testing Banner Ads On Select Search Results 185
cagraham writes "Google promised in 2005 to never "ever" put banner ads on their search results, but that appears to be changing. The company confirmed to SearchEngineLand that it is running a "small experiment" involving large-scale banners on searches for Southwest Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, and Crate&Barrel, among others. The ads are being shown in less than 5% of searches, and only in the US, for now. Interestingly enough, the Google exec who wrote the no banner ads promise was Marissa Mayer, now CEO of Yahoo."
What if nobody bought stuff from those companies? (Score:2, Interesting)
Could we fix this? What if nobody bought stuff from the companies that advertised on the banners? I can dream, can't I...
Re:That doesn't make any sense (Score:5, Interesting)
The linked article has a follow-on FAQ that you can click over to. That answers the question.
It's protection money. If Southwest Airlines buys the ad, Google won't put other advertising up. If they don't, any other advertiser is welcome to pay Google money to put up a text ad above the search result.
Disappointing (Score:4, Interesting)
Some other things make me wonder... (Score:4, Interesting)
I was just in a google hangout using it as a video conference. During that conference call a particular service was mentioned. I had never heard of the service before, haven't searched for it, and yet mysteriously I'm seeing ads for it pop up all over the place undoubtedly served up by Google.
Makes me wonder....
Re:RIP Google, 2014? (Score:2, Interesting)
Installation only occurs once. Usage is ongoing.
Once I got into the habit of installing AdBlock on my systems, I just set it up as part of the normal installation routine for my family's and friends' computers. Most of them don't even know that the web is a festering morass of irritation. I've cured it for them.
Next up, I've now installed system-wide AdBlock on my Android phone. It's not quite ready for non-geeks yet, but it's close. Google's actively fighting it, but fuck 'em.
Re:RIP Google, 2014? (Score:5, Interesting)
I install it on every single computer I touch. Adblock also reduces virus infection vectors drastically as there are a lot of ad's that are virus or malware vectors.
I know I can account for over 100 installs of adblock plus on people's computers.
Re:RIP Google, 2014? (Score:3, Interesting)
If I remember correctly. I started using Google because it didn't have banner ads...because it was clean and gave good results. In that order.
Re:Ad limiting (Score:4, Interesting)
Please add a feature to let me change the background of all AD's on google so they are obvious to older people. I have some older clients that if I could get a plugin to make the google search ad background BRIGHT RED it will help them see they are not actual search results.
Re:youtube ads (Score:4, Interesting)
The reason is that a number of YouTubers are starting to actually make a career out of making videos. I consume the majority of my shows on YouTube now, rather than TV or traditional media. Many channels have multiple updates per week.
Am I willing to sit through 30 seconds of advertising (or more likely 5 seconds before being allowed to skip) in order to get such content, and promote independent videographers? Yes. I am.
Shows worth watching:
- Veritasium, 2
- SciShow
- VSauce, 2, 3
- Nerd3
- MinutePhysics
- Numberphile, Computerphile, Sixty Symbols, etc
Re:RIP Google, 2014? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Well that is it really. Ads ain't evil (Score:4, Interesting)
Talking about nerds, I'm still wondering what kind of nerd actually wants to work for Google.
There is little glory in writing advertisement software, and data-mining people's behavior.
I guess they have a company culture that makes them believe otherwise.
Re:Go ahead. (Score:4, Interesting)
Take a closer look at craigslist. They killed the greed machine in classified ads, and consistently keep it dead.
It is possible to be a company and not be greedy, just not for Google any longer.
Re:RIP Google, 2014? (Score:3, Interesting)
No one should use AdblockPlus over Adblock Edge or TrueBlockor Adblock Lite or any other fork that removed malicious features introduced in version 2.0. If you haven't heard, Palant sold out to advertizers (the ironing is delicious), and has now "allow acceptable ads" option enabled by default, where "acceptable" likely means that Palant got paid. Since that's his game now, I would only use AdblockPlus if I wanted to be get another update with a malicious payload.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adblock_plus#Advert_filtering_and_.22acceptable.22_ads [wikipedia.org]
Re:Well that is it really. Ads ain't evil (Score:2, Interesting)
children work at google (physicall old ones, but children, nonetheless). part of the interview process is 'does this person drink our koolaid?'. if no, you won't ever work there.
furnish the kids with comfy benes and make them think they are the top engineers in all the world. keep telling them that and they soon believe it.
its not hard. and when you are young, working at a famous and 'cool' place is a huge draw.
you won't find many greyhairs working there, though. a few token ones, but most are 20somethings who have not figured out life, yet. they are easily manipulated with free lunches and such.
but make no mistake: they are working for an evil company and helping ruin the web with more and more and more ads, spying and privacy invasions.
I would no more want to work for google than, say, the nsa. but some people can ignore ethics and work for 'goodies' that companies give away.