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."
RIP Google, 2014? (Score:5, Informative)
On the upside, banner ads will be pretty easy to target to make never appear with plugins.
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Re:RIP Google, 2014? (Score:5, Informative)
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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.
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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: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.
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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_plu [wikipedia.org]
Re:RIP Google, 2014? (Score:4, Insightful)
Just uncheck the "allow some non-intrusive advertising" checkbox. If you know how to get adblock, you know how to uncheck the damn box that shows at the first page of the options menu.
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Sorry, not seeing the "user hostility" in unticking a box once after installation of the initial version with the change and never having to touch it again.
Hell, by that measure, firefox itself is "user murdering".
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I stay with AdblockPlus, thank you. I consider these forks stupid :
- Relying on a comparatively obscure fork is less user friendly than unticking a box
- With the proper settings ABP and ABE do *exactly* the same thing. I checked the code just to be sure. No hidden backdoor or anything.
- Three forks just to disable a fucking checkbox, that's ridiculous. You want an "enhanced" ABP, no problem, but get together instead of making things even more confusing for users.
- Chances are that bugs will be fixed on ABP
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Please you dumb pleb. Real men use assembler for all their computing needs, including blocking IPs. Hosts are implemented in OS that's written in wasteful crap of higher level languages.
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Nope, it's coded in higher level language used by plebs unlike assembler that does it all better and more efficiently. But you plebs want to make things comfortable and easy instead of powerful and hard. Like ones that use adblock instead of maintaining hosts files, or using higher level programming languages instead of assembler code.
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And assembler does far more than C when done right too.
My point, which you keep walking past is that messing around with hosts file is significantly more complex than just using adblock if all you need is ad blocking functionality in your browser. It's like writing software that can be comfortably written in C in assembler instead.
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Not complexity in computational terms, but complexity in terms of end user action needed.
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In other words, it's managed by a user.
Adblock's lists are managed by adblock automatically with zero input from the user.
The difference is monumental, and your refusal to understand it is hilarious.
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And it is people like you who claimed that nokia's old symbian phones were "superior to iphone on all levels".
That didn't end well either. Better luck this time.
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It must be a nice world to live in. I wish I was in the same world as you are, where truth, facts and logic rule.
In real world on the other hand...
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You live in the imaginary world where humans are machines driven only by pure machine logic. I live in the world where humans are humans and when they hear "update with notepad" they turn around and walk away. And they are right - they have far more valuable things to do with their time than learning niche skills like that.
Because if they didn't, you'd have nothing to eat, no clean water to drink, no power to run your computer, no roof over your head and your problem would be protecting yourself from wolves
Re:RIP Google, 2014? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Microsoft also has its own ad server business. They sell a lot of ads too, although not so many as Google. They cannot block only competitors' ads because they'd need to pay a huge fine for not playing fair. That's so simple.
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Safari blocks thirdparty cookies by default; Google didn't like this because their ad tracking requires them, and engineered an exploit around it. That battle has already begun.
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IE has a built-in "tracking protection" feature that is disabled by default, but effectively makes a workable ad blocker when enabled.
It has three modes of operation, which can be combined as you wish. The default (block any third-party content requested by more than a given number of pages) heuristic is a little bit of a problem on some sites (things like jquery will find themselves blocked almost as fast as doubleclick does) but is very hands-off
The second mode, manual blocking, lets you fix that; whiteli
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On the upside, banner ads will be pretty easy to target to make never appear with plugins.
You're telling me, I had to disable Opera's content blocking to read the story and Slashdot comments because the URLs have "banner-ad" in them.
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This happened to me too at work on Opera 12, but not on Opera 15+ at home.
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bzzzt! There is *no* upside : )
It's not like some the old ads will go away. These new ads are coming in *addition* to them, so we'll need new and untested heuristics and an increasing number of processing cycles.
This does not even address the fact that some of us use browsers that are already too slow because they do not support adblock, or any other plugins. Expecially on mobile. *Sigh*
Turning javascript off as an ad-fighting measure makes the web useless on android. Try it on slashdot sometime.
Do No Evil (Score:2, Funny)
It's not evil to have a banner ad. Right, shareholders?
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Well, a corp with smart non-majority shareholders who are also CxOs or directors, and with zombie puppet majority shareholders, would certainly act a lot like a corp with ravenous smart aggressive majority shareholders, in terms of greed and evil. Just that the evil plans are hatched and managed in fewers brains.
That doesn't make any sense (Score:2)
If I go to Google and search for Southwest Airlines, I plan to visit the Southwest Airlines website. Why would Southwest Airlines pay money to Google for an advertisement that tries to get me to visit the Southwest Airlines website?
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Because they are not the FIRST search result. Google puts news (maybe bad news) sometimes first. When I search right now, this buries the news that "profit is up on higher fares" .. I can see how they would pay to bury that news.
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.
Re:That doesn't make any sense (Score:4, Insightful)
To be sure you dont visit Expidia or Orbitz or some such. At least that's what I assume the reasoning is.
Still that banner is hugely obnoxious looking (IMHO). This is a bad move by Google.
Non-Saavy Users (Score:4, Insightful)
For many people, they simply don't understand the difference between putting a website address in the address bar and in Google's search. This leads to competitors buying ad space on the search results, hoping you'll also check out their brand.
This is a major problem with non-technical users trying to find the phone number for technical support and finding shady service companies pushing yearlong contracts. Try any AV brand + support or phone, and you'll see many other companies offering "Support for X" and making a killing.
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Or better yet. Is it an Ad if you do a Search for Southwest Airlines.
It's definitely an Ad if the Southwest Airlines ad comes up for say a search for "Delta Airlines" or just "airlines" but as you said, if you're specifically searching for southwest airlines, it's not like you want to go to Delta's site. It's pretty obvious you want to go to southwest Airlines.
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...
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"Could we fix this? "
Yes, start install adblock plus on every single computer within your reach. Only you can stop web advertising.
Adblock Edge (Score:2)
Use Adblock Edge.
Never forget, Plus allows "some ads" by default...
when you become a monopoly you can relax (Score:5, Insightful)
and start being evil, or at least really really annoying.
Re:when you become a monopoly you can relax (Score:4, Informative)
So putting up an advertisement on a free service is 'evil' now? Google makes their money by advertising. They provide a free service for you and pay for it by selling advertising space to others.
Re:when you become a monopoly you can relax (Score:4, Informative)
its NOT a free service; they make money off of selling YOU.
what part of that don't you understand??
Well that is it really. Ads ain't evil (Score:5, Insightful)
Ads ain't evil, they just really annoy me. And Google should know this. What is top plugin for their own browser? What is the main reason people root android? Right, ad blockers. They should know people HATE ads. Hate them with a passion that causes them to foam at the mouth at the slightest exposure.
And frankly the ad-blockers I have installed work well enough. So far the battle between advertisers and humanity is going fully in favor of humanity.
Until recently google seemed to accept that a portion of their users had the skills and desire to block all ads and let them get away with in exchange for market share. They were not going to be able to push ads on these people but at least they used their services, enabling them to grow as a company and then sell ads to those that don't mind them. (Just as slashdot allows contributors to hide ads).
That changed, ad blockers are banned from the android store. So I use firefox mobile and install a plugin for that browser and don't run programs that use ads. And waiting for a moment to root my new phone.
They are not going to push ads on me but I am perfectly happy to instruct everyone around me how to block them. Fight me google and you will find millions of nerds telling all their friends how to block them. You want to fight us? We made you what you are, we can kill you just as easily as we killed altavista. Reduce you as Yahoo has been reduced. Do you want to join the ranks of AOL?
Then keep your ads to those that don't mind them.
You would think that a company that offers their own phone to offer customers a clean phone without vendor or phone company malware would understand this. It seems sales has overtaken google as well.
Look at what happened to other companies were the sales guy was not killed when he utters the words "I got an idea". Your making billions google, be happy with it. Because there is no way in hell I am going to watch your ads. Ever. I and countless other rage filled nerds will see you dead and buried first. We did it before and unlike MS, we can do it again.
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.
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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 20someth
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Ok, when your product becomes a verb in several major languages, you can relax.
Go ahead. (Score:3)
Go ahead, add the banner ads.
I already block google analytics at my firewall. I'll just block these with something.
Google just seems to constantly get worse over time.
Re:Go ahead. (Score:4, Insightful)
This is what happens at any company when the people that started it are no longer in charge. All companies will degenerate into a moneygrubbing greed machine only interested in the next quarter profits without the person that gave it birth at the wheel.
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I've seen it happen at companies where the people who started it are still in charge.
So, we can amend what you just said to: All companies will degenerate into a moneygrubbing greed machine only interested in the next quarter profits
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.
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Larry Page is still in charge of Google.
Disappointing (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Disappointing (Score:4, Insightful)
It's been a lousy search engine for the last few years ('why give them the five results they asked for when we can give them five million results they didn't?'), so this is only just step down into the steaming pit of suck.
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Remember, you are on Internet time. Ten years was yesterday.
(What version is Chrome up to these days? 256 or something like that?)
In other words: (Score:5, Funny)
Google will be placing large, targeted ads across your search results.
Thank you for your personal information.
Do Know Evil,
Google
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You forgot to end your double quote and Google's automated evil Python script always ends its quotes...
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Nah, the Google evil Python script is still in beta, expect some errors.
Not really evil (Score:2)
Re:Not really evil (Score:5, Insightful)
Google's business has always been ads. I really don't see how sponsored links embedded in results are any more evil than text ads, especially when they're just running them on search results
Google's business has always been ads. I really don't see how animated banner ads are any more evil than static banner ads, especially when they're just running them on search results
Google's business has always been ads. I really don't see how flash ads are any more evil than animated banner ads, especially when they're just running them on search results
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So vote with your eyeballs. Go somewhere else and let them know that you're not pleased right at step one.
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Did that two years ago, when I found qrobe (who then started doing the embedding thing, sending me to DDG) :)
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The slippery slope rarely ends in genocide.
It's important to note that Google's goal isn't to be a search engine, directing you to pages that might have the content that you're searching for, but to be an ANSWER engine, giving you the result of your query.
If you type "southwest airlines" without "fourth quarter earnings" or "lost my luggage" into Google, they should pretty much show you Southwest Airlines' site and options on that site immediately. Look at the picture from the article:
http://searchenginela [searchengineland.com]
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I don't know how you got +5 for what is quite literally a slippery slope fallacy, but let me explain.
It's not a "slippery slope fallacy" when it's demonstrably historically accurate.
It takes up much more mental bandwidth (Score:2)
Remember - One word = 1 milli-picture.
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Now if they started allowing Flash ads or ads with movement, that would bother me,
I guess someone would respond to that by saying,
"I really don't see how animated banner ads are any more evil than text ads, especailly when they're just runing them on search results. The only way it's really any worse is that it's mildly more distracting and takes up a trivially larger amount of bandwidth...."
Your own argument justifying them seems to apply here. If it was good enough to justify banner ads, why does it fail
Promises of no banner ads: (Score:2)
From the movie, Little Big Man: "Land that would be theirs as long as grass grow, wind blow, and the sky is blue."
Yeah. Uh huh. Suuure...
OK with me (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd rather have banner ads than have 3 or 4 ads at the top that are almost indistinguishable from the search results.
Re:OK with me (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd rather have banner ads than have 3 or 4 ads at the top that are almost indistinguishable from the search results.
That's a good point.
We know they have to advertise - that's how we get this awesome free search service. At least an ad that is plainly an ad is pretty easy to ignore.
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This.
I learned to tune out banner ads in the 90's. And now there are tools for that.
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I'd rather have banner ads than have 3 or 4 ads at the top that are almost indistinguishable from the search results.
I'd rather have banner ads than 3-4 indistinguishable ads, that aren't targeted to me just because I happen to be signed in or from a "familiar IP address". I'm okay with a search for Southwest Airlines and getting a Southwest ad. When I do the same search and start getting music/movie recommendations, bring out the AdBlock.
youtube ads (Score:5, Insightful)
On the subject of aggressive advertising...
It feels like YouTube ads have become much more common and obnoxious in the past few years. Has anyone else noticed this? I used to be content to click on a YouTube link but now each time I do a cost-benefit calculation -- is it really worth sitting through 30secs of irritating car ads or whatever just to see this little funny clip of two kittens and a tortoise? (or other material :) ).
Usually for me, the answer is now "no".
Re:youtube ads (Score:5, Insightful)
I haven't seen a youtube ad, EVER. Why are you not using adblock?!
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I always wondered why Youtube never put measures in place to force you to watch the ads, or at least make it a PITA to block them. I mean, timestamp the time someone requests the ad (if they don't request the ad, no video) and then wait approx. 30 seconds (or however long the ad would be) before serving up the video. They could at least wait for you to wait 30 seconds.
Either they just haven't gotten round to doing it yet, or there are some programmers at Google with some sympathy for those who want to bloc
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I have noticed this too, but you can usually still ad-block them (at least the dynamic ones). Although they have been getting better about forcing it, there is also usually an option to skip after 5 seconds.
Still, you had to kind of expected that with YouTube. But these giant image ads on search results are surprising to me, and disappointing.
Though most of all I find video ads on YouTube mobile to be more irritating. Using my bandwidth. And most of all ? The complete fail of the aggressive attempts to
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I think you're doing it wrong.
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No, I've never noticed any ads at all on Youtube.
Perhaps you're just holding it wrong.
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Adblock takes care of them. Without adblock, I've never had to sit through more than the first 5 seconds of an add, then click "skip". Eh, I guess it just doesn't bother me much.
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
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I agree with you 100%.
RMS has also written more eloquently about it than I can:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Consume [gnu.org]
Well, you know what Google says ... (Score:1)
Remember,
"First Do No Evil, Unless It's Profitable"
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....
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Will Google host their own banners? (Score:2)
I have set up my DNS to block lots of places that have abusive ads (like Flash, animated GIF, etc). It seems that once I did that, almost all the other ad places disappeared, too. But if a web site hosts their own ads for themselves, they can get through (hint to Slashdot admins).
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Ad limiting (Score:3)
I'm the author of Ad Limiter [adlimiter.com], which blocks most ads in search results from Google and Bing. By default, it lets just one ad display, the best one based on our site legitimacy ratings.
So this is something else to identify, rate and block.
(I'm surprised that Google is getting into banners. Targeted search ads are much more valuable than banners. Banner ad click-through rates are so low as to barely be measurable.)
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.
Ad marking (Score:3)
Please add a feature to let me change the background of all AD's on google so they are obvious to older people.
Now that's an interesting idea. We dim out lower-rated search results slightly, but it's so subtle visually that few people notice. We certainly could do something to make it easier to identify ads.
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Time to resurrect the blinky tag?
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Time to resurrect the blinky tag?
Maybe time to resurrect the pink/tan background Google used to put on ads. Over time, the ad background became lighter and lighter. At one time, Google was under a Federal Trade Commission ruling requiring them to clearly distinguish ads from content. Google seems to have escaped from that.
It's getting harder to tell content from ads. Google Shopping is an interesting case. Everything on Google Shopping is a paid ad now. Google Shopping used to be a price search engine, but in 2012, it became strictly p [searchengineland.com]
Their is a market for this? (Score:2)
I am lazy but when with the same amount of effort I can install a program that blocks all ads, why the hell would I use your program?
That is like being to lazy to scratch your ass but when you do finally scratch it, not scratch it enough to kill the itch.
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I'm guessing they ran the Google Analytics on it and discovered that too many people are blocking ads by their subsidiaries (DoubleClick, etc). So now they're going to pipe some of those DoubleClick ads through Google.com as it's a lot harder to block banners that way.
And website owners can have a lot of fun because they can do thin
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Best ads...who is "we"? Is there a community voting mechanism or is "we" strictly within your company walls? If it's the former, you've got a good chance at succeeding.
We know that "community voting" doesn't work. It's so heavily spammed it's useless. [slashdot.org]
What we do is find info about the company from public records, business databases, etc. If we can't find the real-world business behind the web site, we downrate it. It's a filter for "bottom-feeders", businesses hiding behind a web site and an email address.
Another reason to try DuckDuckGo (Score:3)
https://duckduckgo.com/ [duckduckgo.com]
See how their ads work here: https://dukgo.com/help/en_US/company/advertising-and-affiliates [dukgo.com]
(To summarize, they are usually fine - usually 0-1 clearly marked sponsored results per page)
consider the source (Score:2)
the Google exec who wrote the no banner ads promise was Marissa Mayer, now CEO of Yahoo.
That says it all, really. She has a knack for these things.
Advertisers are Idiots (Score:2)
The other day I also noticed their text ads sometimes now have contact forms in them with my email address pre-populated. In response I turned off the option in my ad blocker that allowed their text ads. Advertisers are idiots.
Never understood the hatred for banner ads (Score:2)
They're not that intrusive and they help website make money for their employees. Now, if it turns into some clickwhoring site where the webpage is 75% ads and 25% content, that's different.
Door is open... (Score:2)
Now someone else can come along and replace Google, they have a great pitch. "No banner ads!"
Creatures of habit (Score:2)
People will still continue to search even though Google places banner ads all around. Look at Youtube, the ads placed there are a nuisance (for me) but it didn't stop people from watching videos. If you don't like it, suck it up. Since you'll still search from them anyway.
So pretty much unless another competitor challenges Google, they can pretty much do whatever the want.
Bing! - The sound made when... (Score:2)
one of its users' heads is tapped lightly.
Sorry that was totally gratuitous M$oft bashing. I'm sure the company they bought that made Bing had a lot of smart people.