Google's Latest Search Results Change Further Blurs What's an Ad (digiday.com) 64
Users of Google search on desktops may have noticed a slight change over the last week and that change is affecting what they perceive as an ad. This represents a further blurring of the lines between ads and organic sources in search. From a report: Beginning Jan. 13, Google redesigned its desktop search experience to feature favicons, or preferred icons, next to every single entry, including an ad. Always shown at the top of a page of search results, ads receive the same favicon treatment: the word "Ad" appears in bold, yet small black lettering. Site owners can also choose their featured favicon. This redesign first appeared in May on Google search for mobile devices. At the time, Google said the move was prompted by a desire to help users "better understand where the information is coming from and what pages have what [they're] looking for." Bringing that same design to desktops this month adds to the consistency of the search experience, regardless of the device, according to Google. This isn't the first time Google has changed the look of ads in search. "What an ad looks like has gotten more subtle over the years," said Brooke Osmundson, associate director of paid search for NordicClick, a pay-per-click agency. "It's started to blur the lines between what users thought was an ad or wasn't."
Google is an ad (Score:2)
My favorite ads (Score:2)
I like the ads where it is just literally what you searched. I'm assuming Google still does this? I remember something like this happening:
Search: amazon
Result #1: (ad) Amazon
Result #2: Amazon
Then I would click the non ad labeled one. Obviously I wasn't searching Amazon.... it was just an easy example to use.
Kind of annoying if search results are going to start having several small favicon pics loaded up with them. I know they are small, but still. I'd rather just a quick list of text and
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On my computer it changed so that in your example it now gives
Result 1: Amazon
Result 2: Amazon
and I switched to duckduckgo. The search results are lower quality that google's old search from last month and before, but it is still higher quality than the new one.
There might still be a tiny ad icon somewhere, but the overall visual appearance of the ad and real results are exactly the same now.
Re:My favorite ads (Score:4, Insightful)
Even the non ads have the favicons. When I searched for "amazon", the 5th hit was the Wikipedia article "Amazon (company)", and it had Wikipedia's favicon.
It seems like a way to confuse ads for links, and an a way for fake hijack sites to be more effective by using the favicon.
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Oh, wait, Ublock Origin was blocking the google ads. So when I turn that off, the "favicon" is "AD" on the ones that are ads.
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Yeah. To me, it looks more like the non-ads are now ads rather than the other way around. Is that what the OP means by 'blurring the distinction'? If everything is an ad, then why worry about hitting the ones where the 'favicon' is the word "Ad"?
Seriously, I don't think it's all that confusing. Sometimes I actually click the ad - rather than bothering to parse the URL on the non-ad to make sure it's really the site I want. To me that's the bigger problem - sites trolling the search algorigthm to appear
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I used the exact search term and I got a page of ads, four ads with a large paragraph of text blocking all search results from view, and then another ad for accordingtomakeuse of which sucked up the second page and then, one JUST FUCKING ONE actual search result before running into people also ask and so third page before a list of results, GOOGLE IS SHIT worse than alta vista ever was.
The problem with that (Score:2)
Yeah that's still the norm. The problem with it is people get used to clicking on #1 even if it's an ad. Then one day someone with a name similar to Amazon decides to pay Google to place their ads above searches for Amazon, and these people misclick and get sent to the that site instead of to Amazon. (In fact this is the intent of those ads above the search results for company names - it's basically a way for Google to extort money from the companie
I hate it (Score:5, Funny)
That's all
Looks pretty clear to me. (Score:1)
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No, maybe it's just a website that uses Ad as its favicon!
In other words, stupid users are stupid. News at 11.
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Agreed. It's in the same spot as the favicons so everything has the same shape, but the bold Ad is pretty distinctive. Alarmist headline.
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"Google changes their page; ads still obviously ads" doesn't get many clicks, though.
Stop using Google routinely (Score:5, Interesting)
It's long past time to stop using Google for your routine needs. Google is suppressing relevant links in your search results that don't agree with their world view and/or whatever country you are searching from. If a conservative organization that controlled 90% of all search was doing this, it would be wall to wall media coverage, but the truth is Google is warping reality, rather than using straight relevancy to your search terms, now they are also deciding what is relevant.
Instead, use Duckduckgo.com [duckduckgo.com] or Qwant [qwant.com]. Qwant operates under EU protection and does not trap users in a bubble, as Google has been caught doing. Or even - horrors! - Bing.com. Which I have been using and it's not terrible, and has a really good porn search if you go to video and turn safe search off.
Of course there are people out there who regard Google as the alpha and omega, it's repugnant to use anything different. To you, I say it's OK if you use Google if you can't find something. But it's better for us all if we all stop using them on a day-to-day basis.
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I bet you wear the tinfoil hat in the shower, don't you?
Re:Stop using Google routinely (Score:5, Funny)
God no. You want your whole shower lined with tinfoil. And make sure to install the metal screen on the water lines so the mind rays can't get in that way.
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I bet you wear the tinfoil hat in the shower, don't you?
He's not wrong. Google is actively manipulating search results to conform to Leftist (Nay, Communist!) narrative and help defeat the President in this year's election.
There's plenty of evidence out there on this. I suggest you go look for it using anything *other* than Google, Snopes and the CNNs, MSNBCS of the world.
Now, you can either accept this fact or you can stick your head in the sand and ignore it.
This is not tin-foil-hattery anymore. It's reality. Wake the fuck up! This is like TV, only worse!
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Google, Snopes and the CNNs, MSNBCS of the world....
Wake the fuck up!
I'm confused. I thought Google, CNN, and MSNBC were already the voice of the woke. Now you want people to wake the fuck up and move on to something else.
Help me, momma! Help me! How more awake can a motherfucker be! When does all the bullshit end?
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Help me, momma! Help me! How more awake can a motherfucker be! When does all the bullshit end?
When we're pushing up the daisies. That's when all the bullshit ends.
Don't kid yourself, tho -- "woke" is a Black word and concept, co-opted by the left. "woke" is older than you might think.
But being "woke" and "awake" are two different things.
Have a think on that for a bit.
Wake up!
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Google is hurting Trump the same way Twitter is. The people who modded you up forget that reality has a well known liberal bias.
Last year was the second-warmest on record. Trump's tax breaks have not paid for themselves (contra Mnuchin, who just advised a teenager to learn more about economics). There is ample proof that the President used his position to demand personal favors from at least one foreign government (though Trump claims that he has managed to keep most of the proof to himself: https://duckduc [duckduckgo.com]
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Dude, let me make something clear: I'm old, and cranky. I've seen this country go from being a powerhouse in the 70's to a fucking sad joke now.
I have zero interest in what the Left has to say. They made it that way through decades of telling me how to feel and how to think. This is my rebellion against that.
I suspect I have less years in front of me than behind. Until the time that I'm pushing up the daisies, I will do everything I can to further the causes of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, in
Exercise of Congress's power under the Constitutio (Score:2)
I will do everything I can to further the causes of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, individual liberty and resisting the Leftist mentality.
The leftist mentality might be applied at three levels: the United States Government, the governments of the several states, and private sector businesses that engage in commerce among the states. The Bill of Rights requires the United States Government to offer due process of law, and the Fourteenth Amendment expands this to the several states along with equal protection. The Congress also has power under the Constitution to require individuals operating private sector businesses to either recognize equal
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You are siding with people who claim "Truth isn't truth" and cite "alternative facts."
And fucking furthermore, YOUR truth isn't MY truth. Your truth, presumably, is the "great majority" thought. The CNN thought, the party line, the "Ohhhh theeeenk of the chiiiiiildren" crowd. The pearl-clutchers, am I right?
Your facts are shit. You're parroting what people like Bloomberg *want* you to say. You think it's coincidence that all the networks were snapped up by Big Corps in the 80's? That was the beginning of the end of the free press.
They say what their owners want you to say, and you lemm
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Thank you for your candor. We've called each other's facts shit, but you haven't provided any actual facts. You've concluded that the U.S. used to be a powerhouse, and it is now a sad joke--but what are the conditions that lead you to believe this? What would you do to correct this?
The top marginal tax rate was 70% in 1972. [https://www.tax-brackets.org/federaltaxtable/1972]. If a candidate proposed a top marginal rate of 70%, what else would they have to promise to get your vote? What happened in 1973 tha
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Do you really want a Constitutional Republic, with a Bill of Rights, and individual liberty? Or is it something else you really want?
Yes. I swore to uphold all that 30 years ago, and that oath is still valid.
I want lawmakers to stop chipping away at the whole thing. Everyone's lawmakers, ok? Left, right, center, up and down.
It seems that most everybody wants a mob-rule democracy, though.
Maybe we oughta step back and let 'em have it that way -- and watch the USA turn into Russia, with a president for life.
Is *that* what *you* want? Mob rule?
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I believe the Sovereign (People/Demos) should be restrained by a Constitution.
I think that McCulloch v. Maryland was correct in 1819 and it is correct today: "Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the constitution, are constitutional."
I think that a lot of what conservatives don't like is, nonetheless, Constitutional. They mistak
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The people who modded you up forget that News has a well known liberal bias.
There fixed that for you.
I think you may find that 'reality' only has a liberal bias when you believe that professional news organization report reality.
If you look at history and what has succeeded compared to what has failed, you will find a very strong conservative bias in what works.
Example: The original organization of Plymouth colony was communal(everything produced was put in a common store-house and shared by all) because they tried to design heir colony based on the principles in the bible, but aft
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"reality has a well known liberal bias."
Actually this is what the view from inside a bubble looks like. Sadly, censorship has created a complete other world where people can never come in contact with anything but that which Google or Twitter or Facebook decides is correct.
A liberal is just a conservative who's been mugged by reality.
Re: Stop using Google routinely (Score:1)
"reality has a well known liberal bias."
But you're not a liberal, you're reactionary Progressive...
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Yes, but a conservative organization would not be doing the "same" thing and they will never be given credit until they abandon this ridiculous notion they promulgate of the "other" side (as measured by a "center" of no fixed address).
It's t
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Agreed. Unfortunately, somebody planning to do some serious research still needs to use Google in addition to the legwork of actually going to the archives and other physical and offline sources of information. Having been a highly irregular user of its search services, I was recently amazed by how much faster, for random and non-specialist searches at least, evil old Google got me the right link. No other search engine comes close. And don't
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I like DDG, but its search results are awful. :(
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It's long past time to stop using Google for your routine needs.
No thanks. I'll chose whatever company suits my needs based on their ability to do what I need them to without your ignorant (of what it is people need) recommendations.
It's terrible (Score:1)
Where's the blur? (Score:5, Informative)
If it's not what I'm looking for and just trying to sell me shit, it's an ad. It may get harder to spot until we're trained again to see it, but that's basically it. Should Google be stupid enough to make irrelevant ads indistinguishable from actually useful search results, they will go the way of the Yahoo and be replaced.
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Should Google be stupid .. they will go the way of the Yahoo and be replaced.
Here is hoping this happens sooner rather than later. Google is a monster with it's tentacles in literally *everything* and that's not a good thing. Problem is, I don't believe for an instant that Google is stupid.
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Should Google be stupid enough to make irrelevant ads indistinguishable from actually useful search results, they will go the way of the Yahoo and be replaced.
I think you are being optimistic here. With Google's control of Gmail, Android, and Chrome for a large set of people there would be no alternatives but take it up the search queue.
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Why do I need to use google search to use gmail, android or chrome?
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they will go the way of the Yahoo and be replaced.
That's kind of inevitable.
FTC Needs to Break up both Google and Youtube (Score:2)
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They are monopolies.
They really aren't. They are very successful, but completely avoidable for their given uses.
Ads? (Score:3)
Do people really surf the web without adblockers in place? That's like sex without foreplay. You can do it but nowhere near as enjoyable.
Startpage.com - I didn't notice a thing.(TM) (Score:2)
Also, DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, ...
It's bullshit (Score:2)
As I said before, this change brings nothing of value to the table; it's just visual clutter that sucks up more bandwidth.
And yes, they did it so as to further blur the line between paid results and 'real' results, whatever that means these days.
Dumb but minor (Score:3)
I already switched to Bing+DDG a long time ago anyway. Bing at least has the courtesy to pay me for selling my data and DDG supposedly just doesn't sell my data.
Fuck google (Score:5, Insightful)
Lately all they return is garbage. Links to YouTube videos or shit for sale on eBay/Amazon.
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Twenty years ago Google stood out, now I find it's only marginally better. Has Alphabet sold out to advertisers and/or their subsidiaries leaving an opportunity or has ranking become so convoluted with everyone trying to game the system that search results can only get worse?
Choices (Score:1)
Google: "Whaddya gonna do about it, use Bing? Bwwwaaaa haaa haa hooo hoo heee hee...."
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Bing is my new default search engine... it's not that bad.
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It's like choosing between Hitler and Mussolini.
I think it makes ads more identifiable (Score:2)
I've begun using the favicons in search results as a quicker way to see what sites the results are on. In particular, I ignore any results from news sites that block adblockers, so seeing the little Forbes "F" next to a result lets me know I should keep looking.
For anyone that actually uses the favicons, they increase the prominence of the "ad" marker. Previously, my eyes scanned the result titles, snippets and URLs but rarely looked at the spot where the "Ad" icon is. Now that I've started looking at
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I have the exact opposite experience.
The favicons get in the way of me quickly scanning the text of the results to find what I want. Also, being similar size as the "AD" marker, and with the same placement, it makes it harder for me to distinguish ads from search results when quickly scanning. And they're too small for my tired, old eyes, anyway.
Nobody Wins (Score:1)
Google further enabling the scamming of seniors (Score:3)
At least before there was a separation of ads and normal results, now it's all in one straight, bubbly, ugly list.
Summary Quote is Old (Score:1)
Google redesigned its desktop search experience to feature favicons, or preferred icons, next to every single entry, including an ad.
Does anybody even do the slightest bit of fact-checking anymore? Geez. A quick Google search would have shown this to be false from the very beginning, but I suppose that's just too difficult nowadays. The reality is that the difference is not all that blurred. Ads clearly display "Ad" and organic results display a favicon that is rarely a black-and-white 2-letter word, like "Ad." But, change. So, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Even TFA fixed the error (bolding by me):
Beginning Jan. 13, Google redesigned its desktop search experience to feature favicons, or preferred icons. For organic results, users will see favicons, or a brand’s icon next to the url. For ads, they will see a bolded black ad label next to the url that looks similar to a favicon.
At the bottom of TFA, they mention an update, but avo
Duckduckgo (Score:2)
Two Result Types (Score:2)
Google only has two result types: Adverts (including links to their own services) and Wikipedia pages. It jumped the shark at least ten years ago.